@BorgQueen
Sorry I'm a bit late to this
Why were they allowed to stand there looking like a paramilitary group?
It should be illegal to have your face covered like that in public - how is it not, at the very least, a breach of the peace to be deliberately intimidating and prevent people looking at a public statue?
It is a public order offence (in certain circumstances), the police must have made a decision to ignore it.
The relevant law is Section 1, Public Order Act 1936. This says that it is an offence to wear a uniform in a public place while involved with the "promotion of any political object".
To my mind they were clearly wearing a uniform and involved with promoting a political object.
In the past, this law has been used to convict members of Sinn Fein when they were wearing black berets at Speakers Corner and, more recently, members of the far-right group Britain First were convicted for wearing the same colour jackets and beanie hats while walking the streets of Croydon in 2016.
I must admit that this is the first time that I've ever seen a group of TRAs all dressed in black so it may be that nobody knew that they were signifying their association with TRAs by doing this.
But, going forward, I think it would be clear that people dressing all in black at these demonstrations were deliberately signifying their association with TRAs and they would be committing an offence.
Whether the police will act on it is another matter though.