By Alasdair Pal, Cordelia Hsu and Vitalii Yalahuzian
SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) – About a thousand supporters of Charlie Kirk gathered in London on Friday night to mourn the murder of the conservative activist, hours after hundreds held a candle-lit vigil in Sydney to keep his message alive.
Kirk, a 31-year-old author, podcast host and close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, was shot dead on Wednesday as he gave a talk at a university in Utah. The president has condemned the murder as a “heinous assassination.”
His Turning Point USA activist group, which advocates for right-wing causes, has spawned a number of international offshoots, including in Australia and Britain.
“I know you feel the pain of this loss of Charlie, but it’s going to take more than one bullet to silence his message,” Joel Jammal, founder of Turning Point Australia, told the crowd, estimated around 350 strong by police.
Jammal called on supporters to attend separate anti-government protests planned in the city on Saturday.
While Kirk’s social media activity had made him an online presence in Britain as well, his Turning Point UK had a much lower profile. After news of his murder, however, around a thousand people gathered on Friday night outside Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s residence in often heavy rain.
Wearing MAGA hats and draped in British and American flags, the crowd was strikingly diverse – a mix of older, white British attendees alongside many young men and a number of Australians and New Zealanders.
Some people brought white and red flowers. The event did not have any speakers but people in the crowd could be overheard discussing Kirk’s views and remembering his most striking debates.
A march on Saturday organised by the prominent British anti-Islam activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, is also expected to mourn Kirk.
“It shouldn’t be that we live in a world where, just for having an opinion, you should be killed. I think that’s abhorrent and a really negative turn for western civilisation,” Isaac Grand, 22, told Reuters.
He said while he did not support all of Kirk’s opinions, he supported his values on family, culture and country.
Kirk founded Turning Point USA in 2012 to advocate for right-wing causes in the United States, but had turned his attentions to other countries in recent years.
Days before his death, he cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia.
Turning Point Australia says it is licensed to use the Turning Point USA branding and shares “the same love for freedom” with the parent organisation, but operates independently in terms of management and policy positions.
The group, which has not publicised its membership numbers, has previously hosted events with lawmakers from One Nation, a right-wing populist political party that holds four of the 76 seats in Australia’s upper house of parliament, known as the Senate.
It also brought Nigel Farage, leader of the populist Reform UK party, to Australia for a speaking tour in 2022. Farage has said he mourns the loss of his friend Kirk.
(Reporting by Alasdair Pal, Cordelia Hsu and Stefica Bikes in Sydney; reporting by Vitalii Yalahuzian in London; Additional writing by Kate Holton; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Edmund Klamann)
