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On a big screen yards from Downing Street, Marco Rubio was midway through a paean to western civilisation when the sound went down, and not for the first time.

“I don’t know who you are mate but I agree with you,” shouted a woman, draped like so many of those on the self-styled “Unite the Kingdom” march in the flag of St George and soaking up the atmosphere at what has emerged as the nearest thing to a far-right Glastonbury.

As with the praise lavished by speakers on Donald Trump, the inclusion of a recording of the US secretary of state’s recent address to the Munich security conference appeared designed to catch the eye of would-be backers in the US and perhaps even in the White House itself.

Yet, if last year’s rally – also organised by Tommy Robinson – took many by surprise for its sheer size and was by some margin the biggest far right event in British history, this year’s was a distinctly lower energy one.

One factor may have been the UK government’s blocking of 11 international activists who were due to speak, but there was a flatness to this year’s speeches and an absence of last year’s equivalent of a rabbit out of the hat when Elon Musk appeared via video link.

As ever for Robinson, a tanned lover of frequent sun holidays and veteran of the far right whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, it was often about money. As he introduced a range of speakers from a stage in Parliament Square, he claimed to have raised more than $300,000 (£225,000) from two US conservative donors he had met on a recent US trip.

The push for support continued on Saturday as he repeatedly urged supporters to take out their phones and scan a QR code in order to share their details with his operation, now a burgeoning multimedia enterprise flogging merchandise on the back of a platform that has increasingly added Christian nationalism to its anti-Islam message.

In the crowd, who had marched through Trafalgar Square and Whitehall after gathering earlier at London’s Euston Station, the usual tribes from past Robinson bandwagons such as the English Defence League were there. Largely male and white, it included the Fred Perry-clad football casuals, men in clothing emblazoned with various iterations of “Patriots” and various extremely online young men, often seemingly alone, in Maga hats.

Continuing a theme from last year too, Christian iconography was particularly visible. Marchers had earlier helped themselves to piles of large wooden crosses left out on the route while evangelical preachers joined Robinson on stage and Christian activists in the crowd handed out free copies of leaflets and books.

But also present – and as much as some may wish this was not the case – were the politically unaffiliated as well as many families with groups of children.

Mingling in the crowd the Guardian spoke to those who simply said they were there out of curiosity, or out of a vague sense of community with others who felt “silenced”.

“I’ve just come along because something feels wrong in the country,” said a man who identified himself as a small business owner in south London.

Yet new tribes were also growing in number. Some carried flags or wore the emblem of Restore Britain – the party set up by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe. Robinson himself, having previously been linked to Advance UK party, encouraged his supporters to get involved in politics and smiled and said “I’m hearing Restore” as those close to the main stage chanted “Rupert, Rupert”.

But while the usual flags of St George and union jacks flew over the crowd, two others in particular seemed more prominent than ever.

They were the flag of Israel – hoisted by long-term Robinson supporters but also by groups with T-shirts saying things such as “Jews for Tommy” – and the flag of Persia, or pre-revolutionary Iran, with a golden lion and sun at its centre.

“For years I have been trying to warn the British people about the dangers of Islam,” said Kamran Soltani, pushing a bike with photographs of the last Shah of Iran and his exiled son, and who said his own father had been a general in the shah’s army and was executed after the Islamic revolution. Like some British Iranians – including those on what were said to have been eight coaches of Iranians who travelled from Manchester – he had found common cause with Robinson.

Others too were out and prouder than ever in a different way. Explicitly white nationalist groups such as White Vanguard were present with banners that appeared to meet with no opposition from stewards. “End Zionist Occupation of Britain, Stop White Replacement,” said one.

Other extreme rightwingers in the crowd included Mark Collett, the co-founder of Patriotic Alternative, and Sam Melia, an activist from the group who was released from prison last year after serving time for inciting racial hatred. They were later happy to claim they had handed out thousands of leaflets.

“There seems to have been a lot of very hardline little far right and fascist groups there who were operating quite openly,” observed Nick Lowles, chief executive of the anti-fascist organisation Hope Not Hate.

“It gives them a whole new audience. Many of these groups would not get to a thousand people at events, so for them it’s great promotion.”

Yet, overall, Lowles suggested that this year’s event will have been a disappointment to Robinson. It appeared to have been both smaller than last year and also lacking in high profile speakers.

At one point, there was consternation when Led by Donkeys, a group born out of anti-Brexit activism, snuck a screen into the rally, which blasted out the message that “Immigration is great” to the sound of Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. The faces of George Michael and other celebrated sons and daughters of immigrant families flashed on to the screen as the police were forced to gather around the vehicle and protect it from angry marchers.