A Walk with Unite the Kingdom

Summary

Joseph Gelfer walked with Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom march, not in support but to meet people “so frequently othered and demonised”. Passing thanks to a “council estate physicality inscribed upon the body”, he finds humour among the flags, and asks if there’s “enough common ground between us to start doing a better job of talking”.

Rationale

Habitus in the flesh: his body, not his politics, lets him pass among the marchers, a sharp case of what shapes us beneath “conscious beliefs and opinions”.