An alleged white supremacist has gone on trial accused of stirring up racial hatred in a "character assassination" during which he blamed Jews for both World Wars and the Kray twins.

Jeremy Bedford-Turner's trial for the speech outside Downing Street will hinge on freedom of speech and where the line must be drawn, Southwark Crown Court heard.

Opening his case on Thursday, prosecutor Louis Mably QC said Bedford-Turner should be convicted because the speech - in which he called for his "soldiers" to rise up against Jews - singled out the group for hatred.

Bedford-Turner, 48, accepts he made the speech but denies one count of stirring up racial hatred.

Mr Mably said: "It's clear from the content of his speech that the defendant is absolutely obsessed with Jewish people and he despises the Jewish race.

"He blamed them, for example, for both World Wars and he blamed them for everything he doesn't seem to like about today's society."

The public gallery in the court was packed as the jury heard details of the speech, made to a crowd in Whitehall during a rally against Jewish neighbourhood watch group Shomrim on American Independence Day, July 4, 2015.

Bedford-Turner peddled conspiracy theories that Jews control the banks and the media and are determined to achieve world domination, the prosecutor said.

"The speech was a racial character assassination," he added.

Mr Mably said: "It seems overwhelmingly likely that there are a number of racial groups he doesn't like because it appears from what he says outside Downing Street that he is some sort of white supremacist."

He said the defendant's speech took on a "dark and sinister overtone" as he implored "real English people" to "stand up and take action" .

"In imploring other people to do this, he refers to his white comrades as soldiers who must liberate England from Jews," the prosecutor said.

He also compared Jews to vermin and said politicians are "a bunch of puppets dancing to a Jewish tune", the prosecutor said.

Bedford-Turner, who is on bail and of no fixed abode, will return to the court on Friday when the trial is expected to conclude.

Additional reporting by the Press Association