Thugs chant vile racist and anti-gay slurs in the streets of Covent Garden days after Pride and Brexit vote

The thugs were overheard in Drury Lane
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A group of thugs marched through the streets of central London chanting vile racist and homophobic slurs days after Britain’s vote to leave the EU and London’s Pride Festival.

Actor Colin Appleby, who lives in Covent Garden, claims he heard the group singing a racist, anti-gay version of Rule Britannia in Drury Lane, amid a spike in hate crimes following the EU referendum result.

Just a short distance away from where the Pride festival took place, the men are said to have chanted: “Rule Britannia. Britannia rules the waves. First we’ll get the Poles out, then the gays.”

Mr Appleby said the chant carried through the windows of his home from the streets below at about 11pm on Sunday, which led him to report it to police.

Writing in a Facebook post describing the incident, he said: “Last night I heard a group of people singing Rule Britannia as they walked up Drury Lane.

Actor Colin Appleby said he heard the racist and homophobic chants in Drury Lane

“This is Drury Lane in Covent Garden, London, it's the home of two theatres, a plethora of restaurants and bars and it is in liberal, tolerant London.

“They had changed the words. They were singing, ‘Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves, first we'll get the Poles out, then the gays."

Britain’s shock decision to walkout on the EU has sparked a surge in hate crimes across the capital and a rise of 57 per cent throughout the UK as a whole.

Mr Appleby said he thinks the result of the EU referendum has led the perpetrators to believe they have a free pass to “unleash hatred”.

He told the Standard: “I've never really experienced anything like this before and yes, it upset me.

“Of course, I realise that it was probably a mix of alcohol and goading each other on that led to the singing but I can't divorce the referendum result and the unleashing of latent hatred that has enabled this kind of thing.

“People who may well have had these views beforehand would not have expressed them publicly. Now they feel they can.

“London in general and Covent Garden in particular are tolerant places. Covent Garden is a village.

“It's got old and young, rich, poor, English native and European and other immigrants living happily cheek by jowl.”

Mr Appleby said he reported the incident using the Met’s online crime reporting tool.

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