Alastair Hilton, a London photographer who posts as @London_W4, was walking down Oxford Street — the city’s main shopping street — on Wednesday when he photographed a new line of green barriers under the Christmas lights.
“And now I’m here on Oxford Street, London on my way to this morning’s photoshoot and admiring the newly installed allahu akbarriers, just in time to keep Christmas shoppers safe from Muslims with mental health issues who want to drive into pedestrians and kill them,” he wrote. The post drew more than 23,000 likes.
The barriers are specialist hostile-vehicle blockers: green modular units with serrated black fins and “OXFORD ST” branding, installed overnight before October 26, when Mayor Sadiq Khan, of Britain’s ruling Labour Party, made nearly a kilometer of the street traffic-free. Private cars, buses, and taxis are banned from that stretch between Orchard Street and Great Portland Street, with deliveries only from midnight to 7 AM.
And now I’m here on Oxford Street, London on my way to this morning’s photoshoot and admiring the newly installed allahu akbarriers, just in time to keep Christmas shoppers safe from Muslims with mental health issues who want to drive into pedestrians and kill them. pic.twitter.com/DuuNVgnwW0
— Alastair Hilton (@London_W4) November 5, 2026
Khan called the opening a “truly momentous occasion for the capital” and the start of his “bold vision” for a pedestrian plaza, timed, his office said, “in time for its busiest Christmas shopping period.” Transport for London commissioner Andy Lord said it created “a safer space for people to enjoy the retail and leisure.”
Safer from what, the launch materials did not say. In March, the Evening Standard reported that TfL was drawing up “terrorist-proof gates” to “deter terrorists from using vehicles to plough into pedestrians.” Westminster City Council had already recommended “a comprehensive hostile vehicle mitigation design.” Crowdguard, working with TfL, installed 185 certified hostile-vehicle barriers for opening day. The first-phase design is temporary; permanent works are due in spring 2027.
The pattern Hilton is mocking is real. After a Saudi-born psychiatrist drove into a Magdeburg Christmas market in December 2024, killing at least five people, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser stressed a “pathological psyche” and “confused conspiracy theories.” In Munich two months later, an Afghan named Farhad N killed a woman and her two-year-old daughter with a car. His lawyers raised schizophrenia; the court found he had sought “an act pleasing to God” and to “prove himself to be a good Muslim,” and sentenced him to life. On New Year’s Day 2025, an Islamic State attacker killed 14 people with a pickup in New Orleans after researching Christmas market attacks.
Britain’s own Prevent counter-terrorism guidance, updated this week, tells mental health staff that where terrorism concerns are present, they “must not be dismissed or accounted for based on a person’s mental health or neurodivergence.”
Britain’s terrorism threat level has stood at SEVERE — “an attack is highly likely” — since April 30. On Oxford Street, officials will talk about a greener plaza and a new era. The teeth on the barriers, sitting under the Christmas lights, are there for a different reason.
