I Don't Predict A Riot
“I dislike rallies and it might get ugly if we haven’t left.”, said a friend when I asked if he’d be joining me on the Leave Means Leave rally on the 29 th March. I assured him the average age of the crowd would be about 50 and if in the unlikely event of ugliness we could simply scarper. My friend is no shrinking violet and far from a hand-wringing liberal; he voted Leave and has ribbed me as a ‘pussy’ ever since for failing to do the same. But my sanguinity was not from any particular natural bullishness either. I’d simply been on enough rallies in my misspent late teens to know that a big enough crowd equals a diverse crowd. If there is one thing that brings large diverse groups of people together – other than the cause or attraction for which they’ve congregated in the first place – it is their aversion to violence in general and being hit in the face in particular. Furthermore I had seen the awe-inspiring pictures and videos from the March to Leave, of people with enough anger