Laurence Fox spent the day shouting at police officers as he joined protesters in London for a St George’s Day event held in Whitehall.
The Reclaim Party leader, who will not appear on ballot papers in the London Mayor election because his team couldn’t fill out the form properly, posted videos on social media showing disorder breaking out and people being detained by officers.
The Metropolitan Police posted on X, formerly Twitter, earlier on Tuesday to say they expected “far-right groups and groups linked to football clubs” to attend.
But they were treated to the rambling tirades of an out-of-work actor instead, who wasted no time giving them a piece of his mind.
Four arrests were made outside a pub in Whitehall – one on suspicion of assault and three on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker, the Metropolitan Police said.
An image was shared on X by the force which shows dozens of officers and multiple police vans near a crowd on a pavement.
Earlier, a man was arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty after “a police horse was targeted on Whitehall”, the force added.
Before the event began on Tuesday afternoon, mounted officers on horses had to intervene after disorder broke out.
A group broke through a police cordon that was formed to stop people who had moved past an area in Richmond Terrace, which was allocated for the event, the Metropolitan Police said.
The Metropolitan Police later shared a video on X that appears to show officers forming a cordon but a group, some waving flags and others wearing St George’s flags, pushing past it before two mounted officers on horses intervene.
The force posted the video just after 2pm on Tuesday along with the message: “The event is not due to start for an hour and regrettably officers are already dealing with disorder.
“There is an area allocated for this event in Richmond Terrace. This group went past it and continued up Whitehall.
“When officers formed a cordon and asked the group to turn round, they reacted by violently forcing their way through. Mounted officers intervened with horses to restore the cordon.”
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