The hysterical entitlement of the Stop Trump protests
A handful of plummy professional activists think their voices count for more than millions of American voters.
Are Britain’s bourgeois activists doing okay? Donald Trump’s second state visit to the UK is set to take place this week, and I am starting to seriously worry about the mental wellbeing of the middle-class rent-a-mob.
Those planning to protest against the Great Orange Menace seem to have genuinely mistaken the US president’s two-day jaunt in Windsor for Mussolini’s march on Rome or the Nazis rolling into Paris. A viral video by the Stop Trump Coalition, fronted by professional activist Zoe Gardner, warns that fascism is about to take over Britain, pretty much as soon as The Donald touches down on UK soil.
Yesterday, the largest far-right protest in UK history marched through London, led by racist Tommy Robinson.
Today, we say: They don’t speak for us — and they won’t have the last word.
This Wednesday we come together against Trump for a better future. Do everything to be there. pic.twitter.com/gONvO3DxDM
— Stop Trump (@UKStopTrump) September 14, 2025
‘How our nation reacts [to his visit] decides everything about our future’, intones Gardner gloomily. Apparently, unless we all show up to Wednesday’s ‘Trump Not Welcome’ protest in Parliament Square, then a dystopian, Trumpian century awaits. Miss the demo, then you’d better start practising your best Sieg Heil and hiding migrants in your attic.
The alleged indignities of a ‘Trump Britain’ are spelled out in the video through a series of mock news reports. These include a ‘literal genocide’ and a state-run paramilitary ‘British Defence League’, whose officers would disappear migrants ‘without a trace’. And, horror of horrors, large England flags being draped from Tower Bridge. Worse still, no one has taken the flags down, even though ‘complaints have been lodged’ with the authorities. Hell on Earth, indeed.
Let’s be honest, it is not ‘fascism’ the plummy anti-Trump protesters are really objecting to. Because Trump is not a fascist, nor anything remotely close. It is democracy – the will of the American people, who have now installed him in the White House twice – that most disturbs the activist set.
In the most revealing line in Gardner’s little video, she laments that the 2019 anti-Trump demos had no impact. ‘We protested against Donald Trump and we thought, if we shout loud enough, he’ll go away’, she moans. As if shouting shrilly in Parliament Square would be enough to oust the American president. As if a gaggle of bourgeois Britons waving sarcastic placards should carry more weight than tens of millions of US voters.
This is why they rage: their tantrums have again been ignored by the voters and their nonsense cries of fascism haven’t persuaded a soul beyond their narrow clique. This is not protest, it is therapy, a form of self-care. It is a way for our dislocated middle classes, disoriented in the age of populism, to try to feel important again. To paint themselves as heroes of history, standing between the ‘fascistic’ demos and the impending Fourth Reich.
The arrogance and entitlement are astonishing.
Fraser Myers is deputy editor at spiked and host of the spiked podcast. Follow him on X: @FraserMyers.