Fight for Sites go to Evict Pickles: On Friday 19th October 2012, the first anniversary of the brutal eviction of the Dale Farm Traveller community, activists and some of those evicted marched to the Department for Communities and Local Government to serve an eviction notice on DCLG Minister Eric Pickles.
Police drew batons to keep protesters away from the Ministry building, but some were already on a low roof
Gypsies, Roma and Travellers have long found life in the UK difficult for their nomadic lifestyle, and have long been subjected to discrimination. There is a huge shortage of sites where they can legally stop both short-term while they are moving and for longer winter breaks.
Protesters met on the concourse at Victoria Station
Relatively few local authorities had made a real effort to meet their planning obligation to provide traveller sites, and these are often not popular with some local residents. Dale Farm – as the Wikipedia article tells – began with a planning appeal in the 1980s over the right to establish a site there.
They marched to the Department for Communities and Local Government
Much of the problems that ensued over the subsequent expansion of the site onto a neighbouring plot of derelict wasteland owned by a traveller family came from it being ‘Green Belt’ – despite which it had been allegedly used by Basildon Council to tip waste tarmac and rubble from roadworks for many years.
Drummers at the front of the march with improvised instruments
In 2003 then Secretary of State, John Prescott had made an order giving temporary permission to the site for two years to give the site residents and the local authority time to find a suitable alternative site. But no progress was made, and by 2007 a government report stated that opposition amongst parts of the settled community towards site residents had become ever fiercer.
At the DCLG a couple of people quickly climbed on to the roof before police could stop them
I went to the site in September 2011 and photographed a flash mob later that month at the DCLG, but was not able to be there for the eventual eviction on 19 October 2011 which was widely covered as it happened by UK and international media.
Police held back protesters on the street while more found another way to the roofand held banners there
On the day when I marched with residents and protesters from Wickford Station the three miles to a rally at the site I was surprised at how remote and isolated it seemed to be, and thought it was in many ways a very appropriate place for a traveller site. I felt that Basildon Council had created a fight with the travellers based largely on racial discrimination and had not attempt to come to a sensible resolution.
Police held and arrested a few protesters
The Fight for Sites protest on the first anniversary of the eviction was organised by the Traveller Solidarity Network in protest over the evictions last year and the continuing harassment of travellers at Dale Farm and across the country.
Photographers were hampered by a woman officer who kept forcing us back where we could see little
As I commented then, a year after the eviction had taken place from what had been “in most respects a highly appropriate, tidy and well-kept site” it was now “an eyesore, filled with stagnant water, sewage and toxic material, while 83 homeless families, mainly evicted from the site, are now living on the approach road to the site without electricity or running water” and facing further threat of eviction but with nowhere else to go.
Two people are held by police on the other side of the protest and then carried away
Minister Eric Pickles response to the lack of sites had been to remove the duty of local government to permit traveller sites and to give them greater power to evict. The protesters met at Victoria Station and marched to the nearby DCLG offices to give him a notice of eviction.
Two women decided to lie down in front of the police
It was a colourful protest and ended outside the offices with a number of scuffles between police and protesters, with some climbing onto a rood with banners and posters, as well as pasting up an eviction notice on the building. Photographers were harassed and moved back by police who were at the same time telling us we had a right to photograph the event, and several protesters were arrested.
Police tried to push back one of the ‘caravan’ sides while protesters held firm
I left after the protesters had stopped trying to get in the building and a statement was read out about why the had come to protest. I think the protest was coming to a close; by then it was raining heavily and I needed to be elsewhere.
The protests then pulled back and a statement about the protest was read out
You can read the text of the eviction notice and find more details about the protest and see many more photographs on My London Dairy at Fight for Sites go to Evict Pickles.
The European Social Forum took place in London from Friday 15th October to Sunday 17th October 2004 and I covered events on the street on all three days, along with some other events. In this post I’ll include the entire text I wrote in 2004 (with the usual corrections) and just a few of the hundreds of pictures I took with links to the others still on My London Diary.
Friday
The samba band under Waterloo Bridge
The event of the month was undoubtedly the European Social Forum, held in London from 15-17 October. This brought together trade unionists, socialists, peace campaigners and greens from all over Europe to demonstrate that “Another Europe Is Possible“, but apparently left many complaining about how the event had been organised and manipulated. I choose not to attend the more serious sessions but to look at how this conference spilled over more creatively into the streets of London.
It was a generally good-natured event, with an international samba band. From the top of a tourist bus an American voice asked the bill what was on. As he floundered to reply, the woman I was talking to suggested “Hey it’s a fluffy takeover!”
Rising Tide: Global warming will result in much of London being flooded
On the Friday, Critical Mass were out on their bikes, together with Rising Tide and other environmental protesters. On a ‘London Underwater 2050 Tour of the G8 Climate Criminals‘. Starting under Waterloo Bridge, they went on tour, visiting the London offices of several climate change villains, including petrol giants Exxon Mobil and BP and the Canadian government, ending up outside the National Portrait Gallery, site of the annual BP-sponsored portrait award.
Most of the police were good-natured and cooperative throughout, but there were some ineffectual attempts to block the path of the demonstrators. By standing in the road the police blocked traffic, while the demonstrators simply walked around them.
Worrying was the deliberate police use of photography as intimidation, with the police photographer going out of his way to confront demonstrators, aided by two other officers.
Reading the indictment outside BP offices in St James’s Square, London
I worry because I think it is an attempt to attack civil liberties, but also because such behaviour makes all photographers suspect. I can only work effectively if I gain the trust and cooperation of those whose pictures I take. Perhaps it helps that photography is one of the activities that also arouses suspicion and intimidation by the police.
As I walked away at the end of the demonstration, this team ran 50 yards down the road and caught up with me, one calling “Excuse me, sir!” and tapping on my shoulder. I turned to face him, and found myself looking into the lens of the police photographer, who took my picture as his colleague started to question me about who I was taking pictures for. It seemed clear and deliberate harassment, intended to intimidate a photographer acting entirely lawfully, photographing on the public highway.
The samba band and others visited the temple of Mammon. Oxford Street on a Saturday must rank as about the most depressing place on earth, although IKEA – where my wife and son spent the day buying furniture for his new flat – must be a close contender.
Samba band in Oxford St, London
I couldn’t stand a whole afternoon in shopping hell, so left to watch the Rosary Crusade Of Reparation procession leaving from Westminster Cathedral on its way to Brompton Oratory. “The future”, I was assured, “is Latin“, and the event started with Bishop Fernando Arêas Rifan from Brazil intoning “Credo in Unum Deum” from the loadspeaker on a police van. The creed was continued by the congregation, led by several Knights Of Malta and the traditional Catholic Family Alliance.
CGT banner at Puma in Carnaby St, London
Later I re-joined the French CGT and British GMB unions who were demonstrating outside Puma in Carnaby Street, over their use of sweated labour. It is an issue that has been highlighted in this country by ‘No Sweat’ who were also there, along with what was by now my favourite samba band, an international group with strong contributions from Sheffield and France.
By the time the band reached the top of Carnaby street, the police were obviously getting restless. I heard one giving the opinion to a member of the public “they’ve been pissing about for six hours and it’s time they went home“. Muscled officers in baggy black fighting gear were flexing muscles and grinning stupidly, obviously relishing the likely opportunity for a little action, as officers and demonstrators argued the toss.
Band in Carnaby St, London
Eventually commonsense and law prevailed and the demonstrators were allowed to keep moving along. On Oxford St we headed towards the goal of the CGT, the Virgin Megastore. There were actually a couple of tempting CDs on special offer, but I managed to leave empty-handed just before security, on police advice, lowered the shutters as the demo arrived, making a very brief stop for a CGT photo-opportunity.
No Sweat news at Niketown, Oxford Circus, London
After yesterday’s harassment, I slipped across Oxford Street at this point, past the police vans that were holding up the traffic and behind a bus before disappearing rapidly down the underground. It saves hassle, and I wanted to get to a great Nepalese meal near Euston Station.
Network Rail chose October weekends to isolate Staines from the rest of the world with extensive engineering works and a replacement bus service. The first I travelled on [on Saturday] got lost several times, taking the wrong route out of Feltham (including a prohibited two point left turn from the station yard) and proved unable to find the station in Hounslow. Getting various directions from other bus drivers and passengers, a mile further on he made a three point turn in the main London road, only to come back and drive past the turning for the station again. Directed by a passenger he then tried some side roads hardly wide enough for the bus to edge its way through, only to arrive at a one-way section leading away from our goal. We finally squeezed through another narrow side road to Hounslow Station.
Next time [on Sunday] the driver only got lost twice, missed out Feltham Station completely, and had to make one U-turn on a major road, but otherwise it was uneventful. I don’t like to knock the railways, but a little organisation would help.
Agit Contre la Guerre (ACG) were one of the liveliest groups on the march.
Sunday was the climax event for the European Social Forum, with a huge anti-war march to a rally in Trafalgar Square, and it was big. Stop The War as usual were trying to control the uncontrollable and mainly succeeding in frustrating the media. Demonstrators simply and entirely predictably surged past the ‘front of the march’ they tried to establish.
I don’t know how many there were on the march, but the police estimate of 15-20,000 seems as usual on the low side, although the organisers 75,000 may be equally too high. The most reliable guess is an average of the two.
Jamal Jumaa, Director of Stop the Wall Campaign in Palestine spoke forcefully
People were still flooding up Whitehall towards Trafalgar Square as I left, some two hours after the rally there was due to start.
Among the speakers I photographed were Tony Benn, George Galloway and Aleida Guevara, the daughter of Che.
Aleida Guevara (Che’s daughter)
Although it was a generally well-behaved and good-natured event, there were a few minor incidents – the police reported nine arrests. I saw two incidents that were sparked by aggressive police behaviour in trying to photograph some of those present, as well as some violent attempts to break through the stewards and access the fenced off platform area in the square, by demonstrators who wanted to raise the problem of several arrests having been made but were not allowed by the Stop The War stewards.
George Galloway: “There is one word in our hearts and our prayers – Falluja. Falluja is going to be a new Stalingrad over the next few weeks”
Domination of the anti-war movement by Stop The War and the SWP must take the blame for its lack of effectiveness. When a few lorry drivers can force a government volte-face, it takes really effective dinosaur socialism to prevent the views of a majority of the British people having any effect at all.
Shut DESO Action Day – Mark Thomas and some of the demonstrators form a ring around the DESO building
Bloomsbury, London
On Shut DESO Action Day, Monday October 16 2006, protesters formed a human chain around the building housing the Defence Export Services Organisation close to the British Museum in Bloomsbury declaring it a Global Danger Zone.
In 1966 Denis Healey, Secretary of State for Defence in Harold Wilson’s Labour government founded the Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO) to help British arms manufactures export military equipment and services.
The building also contained the careers offices for the armed forces
Since this protest in 2006 it has been rebranded several times, first as the Defence & Security Organisation, then UK Defence and Security Exports which is now a part of the Department for Business and Trade, in July 2026 itself rebranded as (now known as the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST), but throughout has remained much the same.
DESO and now UKDSE helps companies export arms and security equipment, organising exhibitions, providing serving soldiers to help demonstrate the use of weapons at these, organising trade missions, advising on government export finance, identifying export opportunities and even producing brochures advertising British arms. It trains companies on how to export military and ‘dual-use’ arms and security equipment legally despite our export controls. UKDSE is now run from inside the Ministry of Defence.
Here’s what I wrote back in 2006 – I’ve left out a sentence about a web site which is no longer in existence. You can find out more from the the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) which campaigns against the UK government’s active promotion of the arms industry including UK Defence and Security Exports (UKDSE).
The Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO) spends £15 million a year of our taxes selling arms for British arms manufacturers, often to countries with poor human rights records or engaged in violent conflict. We contribute ten times as much to promoting arms sales than promoting civil exports. Always headed by an arms industry executive, DESO gives the arms manufacturers a unique influence over government policies.
Mark Thomas talks with Bruce Kent at the protest
On Monday 16 October, 2006, around 250 protesters, many dressed in white, made a human chain around the DESO HQ in Bloomsbury, just a few yards from the British Museum, and designated the department as a ‘Global Danger Zone’. From there, many went to lobby their MPs to close down DESO. Mark Thomas came and spoke to those demonstrating, adding his voice to those asking for DESO to be closed down – and making an offer of alternative employment for some of the staff.
The demonstration was organised by Campaign Against The Arms Trade and supported by other groups including the Fellowship Of Reconciliation, Speak, War On Want, CND, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party.
Letting Agencies Illegal Colour Bar – on the march with Brent Housing Action, Unite Community and others
Letting Agencies Illegal Colour Bar: On Tuesday 15 October 2013 people were quick to react to to a BBC London investigation broadcast the previous night showing that letting agents in London were prepared to break equality laws and discriminate against African-Caribbean people on behalf of landlords.
The protest started at National Estate Agents, one of those shown by the BBC to be willing to operate a ‘colour bar
Among the letting agents who were shown to be operating a colour bar were two on the Willesden High Road in Brent, and Brent Housing Action organised a protest against National Estate Agents and A to Z Property Services who had been named by the BBC. Supporting Brent Housing Action were Unite Community, Brent Renters Campaign, Housing 4 All (the Counihan Family Campaign), Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group, and Cllr Margaret McLennan, Brent Council’s lead member for housing. Several other Brent councillors also joined the protest along with two workers from another letting agency in Willesden Green.
The BBC investigation had put a flat in Notting Hill on the market with a number of agents and had then sent closely matched Black and White investigators to ask for a viewing of the property.
The ‘Counihan Family Campaign’, a part of the ‘Housing for All’ campaign was supporting the protest
At National Estates, the Black applicant was told the flat had already been let, while the White man was given an appointment to view.
A to Z Property told the Black investigator they would ring back – but never did, while offering the White investigator a viewing. It seems clear that both agents were operating an illegal colour bar.
It was well known that many letting agents were acting illegally. The the BBC report quoted a Runnymede Trust survey “29% of black people seeking private housing had experienced discrimination – compared to 1% of white respondents.” It also stated that “36 people told the Property Ombudsman they were the victim of racial discrimination in the past three years, not one single complaint was upheld” and only two of the allegations were fully investigated.
It seemed to many a return to the disgusting practices of the 1950s and 60s, made illegal under the 1968 Race Relations Act, and now against the Equality Act 2010. The protesters called for prosecutions and an end to all illegal discrimination by housing agents.
Both of the named agencies were closed and shuttered for the day. After speeches and protesting outside National Estate Agents, the group of around 30 protesters marched the half mile along Willesden High Rd to A to Z Properties, where a further protest with a few short speeches was held.
Brent is one of London’s more multicultural boroughs, and one with a proud record of community activities celebrating this. Brent councillors and Brent Housing Action promised to take further action to stamp out the housing colour bar to “make sure these practices – and the racism underpinning them – can finally be consigned to history.”
The National Estates Agent shop is now a nail bar, but A to Z Property Services is still at the same address on High Road Willesden.
Unfortunately such discrimination is still common in letting agencies. Shelter and others including the UK Government give advice on what to do if you feel you have been discriminated against, but I think there has been little real action to stop it happening, although the law has been strengthened to prevent discrimination against Of course what we really need is far more council housing to provide homes for all at a fair cost, but while we still have a high-priced private housing market – often taking half of tenant’s wages for substandard accommodation and paying huge subsidies to private landlords – at least that market should operate within the law.
Muslims Call for End to Vilification of Islam: A protest close to Google’s offices on Sunday 14th October 2012 called on them to withdraw a short anti-Islamic video and other Islamophobic material from their YouTube channel.
Muslim men show their anger over the film
The video, variously titled but mainly known as Innocence of Muslims was first uploaded to YouTube in July 2012 in an English language version but was the dubbed in Arabic in early September that year.
The protest was on Buckingham Palace Road, next to Victoria Station, where Google had its UK HQ
Wikipedia quotes a Vanity Fair review of the video: “Exceptionally amateurish, with disjointed dialogue, jumpy editing, and performances that would have looked melodramatic even in a silent movie, the clip is clearly designed to offend Muslims, portraying Mohammed as a bloodthirsty murderer, Lothario and pedophile with omnidirectional sexual appetites.“
At first the protest was in one carriageway only and a large pen was filled with Muslim men, with speakers and screen at the far end
The videos were apparently trailers for a full length film called ‘Desert Warrior’ which had been filmed as being about life in Egypt 2,000 years by US non-profit Media for Christ, but in post-production was altered by directory Nakoula Basseley Nakoula , working under the pseudonym Sam Bacile, to be crudely and explicitly anti-Islamic, much to the disgust of at least some of its actors. It isn’t clear if the full film was ever completed, although an early version was apparently screened once in California to an audience of ten people.
Its director was arrested in late September in Los Angeles under various charges related to the making of the film and his use of the alias “Sam Bacile”, and later sentenced to a year in prison and 4 years of parole.
The videos on YouTube led to protests around the world, including in the Middle East, North Africa, Asia and Europe, some violent with “over 50 deaths, including 23 in Pakistan.” The protest in London was a peaceful one, organised by the Muslim Action Forum who called on YouTube to remove the video and for the the UK Government and other organisations to endorse a ‘Declaration of Global Civility.’
Soon more men arrived and the protest spilled out across the whole road
The UK government Commission for Countering Extremism in 2024 commissioned an independent report into Blasphemy Extremism in the UK, which incorrectly states that the The Muslim Action Forum “first emerged in 2015 when it organised a large protest outside of Downing Street to express anger over plans by Charlie Hebdo to republish its 2012 cartoons of Mohammed.”
Had the authors looked at My London Diary they would have known it was organising protests in 2012, and that it was founded following a meeting of “over 100 leading Muslim Scholars, Spiritual leaders and representatives of major Muslim organisations” in Birmingham in September 2012.
I had first thought there were no women at the protest, but then saw this block beyond where the men were saying prayers
In my post on My London Diary I made my own comments about the MAF and their Declaration of Global Civility, in particular noting “What many might feel is missing from the declaration is the lack of any reference or acknowledgement to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948 and is the foundation of our ideas of what a civilised society should be.”
I also commented that “global civility should include rather more tolerance for the expression of views which are abhorrent to you, and should certainly preclude the kind of violent responses that this film has aroused in some Muslim countries.” And I commented on the way that women were marginalised in the protest, kept at some distance from the speakers and the men, with no women speakers.
You can read my lengthy account of the protest and seem many more pictures I took at the event on My London Diary: End the Vilification of Islam.
Stop the War March: The Stop the War march in London on Saturday 13th October 2001 was the first protest where I put more than a handful of pictures on My London Diary. They were all black and white, although I took pictures in colour as well I didn’t at the time have any way to produce good quality digital images from the negatives.
Trafalgar Square
I printed some of the black and white images in the darkrom and took 10x8s to a picture library and a few have been published in print since then, but the colour negatives simply went into my files, though I usually made contact sheets or, if the film was trade processed, got enprints.
The black and white pictures I put on My London Diary at the time were usually scanned from prints made in the darkroom, scanned using a black and white flatbed scanner. It was only later that I got a decent film scanner and a colour flatbed. The main commercial demand for work was still black and white – though I made many colour prints in my darkroom. And because most people then still accessed the internet through slow dial-up connections, I posted images on line at small sizes and greatly compressed – these image files are only 20-40 Kb each, while now I might post files 50 times larger.
Free Palestine
A little over a year after taking these pictures I got my first digital camera capable of professional work, though I’d been playing with consumer digitals for several years. The move to being completely digital took me a few years, mainly because I had specialised film cameras that could let me work in ways that were not then possible with digital.
I didn’t in 2001 write anything directly about these pictures, or about the protest which was against invading Iraq, one of a whole series by Stop the War I photographed. The only major London protest against the Iraq invasion I missed was the huge one in February 2023, when I had only come out of hospital the day before and was still too weak to work.
But the US decision to invade Iraq – already actually made when this protest took place although the invasion only took place in March 2003 – was a response to the September 2001 attacks by Al Queda when two planes were flown into and destroyed the Twin Towers in New York.
I was in 2001 working for a New York based web site, though writing my content here in England. I was also teaching part-time and had ended a lesson and was getting ready to leave for home when a distressed colleague in tears called me into her office and we watched together as the attack unfolded on the news on her PC. She had lived and worked in New York not far from where it was taking place.
Just over a month later, with these pictures I posted some of my thoughts. I had earlier written about the photographs of the events in a feature which had attracted over a million views on-line overnight. The pictures and videos taken by people as they fled down the stairways or watched in shock from outside had a raw power that was often enhanced by their flaws. Anyway, here is what I wrote in 2011, which I think is still relevant.
September 11 actually had a serious impact on my work. Most of the people who read my features are in the USA and I had to think carefully about what to do. I was asked to write a piece about the photography of the event and spent a long time looking at the pictures and writing.
Justice is perhaps the most important of concepts to get to grips with. I have a firm belief that in a just society things like the WTC horror would not happen. I’m not a pacifist – I think there are times when non-violence is an effective tactic and other occasions where it just will not work. However I think that there were many more avenues to be explored before anyone could be justified in starting a military attack. Not only is the actual attack likely to be counter-productive, but it will result in the USA and its allies taking their eyes off the real ball.
And that is not in Afghanistan but in the Middle East, in Jerusalem and in Gaza.
Mother Earth, Greenpeace & Agrofuels: On Monday 12th October 2009 I came to London for a protest over the threat of agrofuels both to the native Latin American people and to the planet. Later there was a protest against the UK subsidising power stations that use agrofuels and research into agrofuels for aviation which would enable that industry to continue to hugely pollute. Going home from Westminster I photographed protesters who were still on the roofs of the Houses of Parliament protesting against the failure to act on climate change.
London Mobilisation for Mother Earth
Embassies of Colombia, Peru & Spain
At the start of the protest opposite the Colombian embassy in Kensington
The Global Mobilisation for Mother Earth, an international day in support of the struggles of Latin American native people and to protest against the increasing threat of agrofuels, was called by the Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indigenas on the day celebrated as a public holiday in the USA as Columbus Day, though it has other names in some South American Countries. It marks the day Columbus landed on Abya Yala (the Americas) in 1492.
The London protest was organised by the Coordinadora Latino-Americana which unites a number of Latin American solidarity groups in support of peoples along the Andes in Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru who were marching against the European Union’s Free Trade agreements with Latin American countries. These will allow multinational companies to exploit resources on favourable terms, with deals by Colombia and Peru that will destroy the ancestral territorial rights of indigenous peoples. Former EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and his replacement Cathy Ashton, had played a leading role in these agreements.
On the way to the Peruvian embassy
The UK government was diverting large amounts of funding meant for renewable energy projects to the use of agrofuels which worsen global warming and threaten food security around the world.
Reading the letter to Peru outside the embassy
Large areas of land in Latin America and elsewhere in the global South is being taken over by multinationals for agrofuel production, displacing the inhabitants, and introducing monoculture that destroys biodiversity and rapidly exhausts the soil. Large areas of irreplaceable ancient forests are also being felled mainly to grow these crops, but also as timber and to burn in power stations.
After a protest with speeches relevant to Colombia outside their embassy and the delivery of a letter there, the protesters walked on the the Peruvian Embassy, where we listened to a clear exposition of the link between opposition to agro-fuels and the indigenous struggles in Peru by eco-socialist Derek Wall of Green Left. Another letter was handed on and we moved on to the Spanish Embassy for a further protest. I left them there to go to the protest at the Department for Energy and Climate Change.
The Department of Energy & Climate Change was briefly surrounded by flames – but police said remove them
Around a hundred protesters turned up for a demonstration at the DECC in London calling for an end to government subsidies for agrofuels because of their serious harm to communities and ecosystems and contribution to climate change.
The UK Government is diverting renewable energy subsidies (Renewable Obligations Certificates – ROCs) to subsidise power stations that use ‘agrofuels’. Fuel produced from palm oil was getting twice the subsidy that wind power would get to produce the same amount of energy. The hugely polluting wood-burning power station at Drax in Yorkshire was getting huge subsidies for its climate-wrecking activities.
Agrofuels were once seen as part of the solution to our environmental crisis, but we now know that they cause serious harm to the climate, wreck communities whose land is taken for their growth, destroy biodiversity, replace complex natural ecosystems by agrochemical based monoculture, and by replacing food crops, cause starvation.
Agrofuels allow industrial companies to continue ‘business as usual‘ and export their environmental problems to the non-industrial south, buying up land and creating ‘biofuel refugees‘ of indigenous peoples. A UN source has described this as a ‘crime against humanity.’
John Stewart
One of the speakers was John Stewart, who warned that the air transport industry sees agrofuels as their salvation, allowing them to continue offering cheap flights and increasing air traffic, while pretending to be green.
The Latin American ‘Mobilisation for Mother Earth’ arrives to join the protest
The protesters here were later joined by those who had been on the Mobilisation for Mother Earth protest against the the destructive alliance between multinational corporations and local elites in South America, particularly in mining and agrofuel production, and a speaker talked of their struggle for a dignified future for their children and their communities.
I stopped on my way home as I walked past the Houses of Parliament amd took a couple of pictures. Around 20 Greenpeace protesters who had been on the roof since the previous evening were still there, although they came down shortly afterwards and were arrested.
They held bright yellow banners with the message ‘CHANGE THE POLITICS SAVE THE CLIMATE’ and called on the UK Government to take effective measures to combat climate change, including stopping airport expansion, a refocus of taxes on pollution, fair financing to help pay for low carbon.
Greenpeace say we have to change to green policies rather than simply mouth green rhetoric and listed 12 policies to save the climate and our planet and end the locking of the UK into high carbon lifestyles. They said “The International Energy Agency and leading economists agree that failure to act now will lead to economic as well as environmental disaster” and this is now increasingly becoming obvious.
Although the protest gained considerable media attention, almost all of this in the major news media was about the breach in security on the Parliamentary Estate and not about the much more vital issues raised by the protesters.
Elephants, Football Lads & Stand Up To Racism: On Saturday 7th October 2017 I went to Parliament Square where people were holding a silent vigil against the ivory trade and then to Park Lane to photograph a rally and march by the Football Lads Alliance and Veterans Against Terrorism following terrorist attacks in the UK and Europe. Stand Up To Racism had organised a rally in Whitehall when their march was passing, calling on everyone including the Football Lads, to stand together against racism and Islamophobia.
Silent Vigil for Elephants and Rhinos
Parliament Square
A campaigner wearing a t-shirt ‘Only a Rhino Needs Its Horn’ holds a mock elephant tusk
Parliament Square was filled with carefully lined up protesters in t-shirts against the ivory trade, with some holding mock elephant tusks or rhino horns in a half hour long silent vigil. The event was part of the annual Global March for Elephants and Rhinos taking place around the world.
They called on the UK Government to bring in a full ban on ivory trade, saying that sales by antique dealers in Britain plays a major role in keeping ivory markets open and is driving the poaching that threatens elephants and rhinos with extinction.
Veterans Against Terrorism and football supporters with wreaths at the rally in Park Lane
The protest followed a number of attacks by terrorists across Europe, including the Westminster and London Bridge attacks in London in April and June 2017, and brought around 5,000 from the Football Lads Alliance and Veterans Against Terrorism to a rally and march to lay wreaths at Westminster Bridge.
Many had come with wreaths in their team colours and badges and posed with them before the really began.
Among those at the protest were families of the victims of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings for which six Irishmen were wrongfully convicted using coerced confessions and fabricated evidence, serving 16 years in prison in one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history. Their convictions led to an end to investigations that might had led to the actual killers being found.
Up the Gas (Bristol Rovers football club)John Meighan, founder of Football Lads Alliance
The event organisers emphasised that they were exposed to all extremism and racism, but some of the speeches were clearly racist and suggested that many thousands of Muslims in the UK were Islamist extremists and should be locked up, and were met with shouts of approval and much applause.
The event demanded the locking up of all terrorist suspects and the deportation of any of foreign origin. As I commented, “It was hard to avoid the impression that it was a meeting to stir up Islamophobia, and there seemed to be a total lack of sympathy with refugees fleeing their countries to seek asylum here.”
What shocked me most was the response of the crowd when a speaker mentioned Diane Abbott, then Shadow Home Secretary. There was a huge and prolonged outcry with a loud shout from a man behind me that she should be raped that met with approval from at least some of the crowd.
On my way to the rally I had walked past several pubs where supporters of the FLA were drinking, with small crowds of them on the pavement outside. Several people had shouted abuse at me and I recognised others from EDL, Britain First and other extreme right events I’ve photographed.
There were a few more I recognised at the rally and again I got a few hostile comments and I quickly moved away, but most of those at the event were keen to be photographed and get publicity for their event. Fortunately I think most of those in the pubs stayed there to join the march as it went past.
A Leeds United fan holds up a message ‘Together we are stronger’ on Whitehall
The Football Lads Alliance and Veterans Against Terrorism marched from Park Lane to Westminster Bridge to lay wreaths where the April terrorist attack had taken place. Among those taking part were groups representing clubs large and small around the country.
It was impossible to get a view of all of those at the front of the march as people kept walking in front of the photographersThe march begins… but I left shortly after and rejoined it at Trafalgar Square
The organisers had billed it as a silent march, and certainly some marched in silence as it left Park Lane, but it was quite loud by the time it arrived at Trafalgar Square. There it was joined by a group of a couple of hundred Gurkhas, many wearing their medals.
A large group of Gurkhas joined in front of the march at Trafalgar Square
The Gurkhas marched in front of the rest for a few yards, but were then soon overtaken by the march organisers including FLA founder John Meighan and Phil Campion former SAS Special Ops from SOFREP (Special Operations Forces Situation Report), a pro-military information site run by veterans, both of whom had made Islamophobic speeches at the Park Lane rally.
Going down Whitehall the march became very noisy, especially as it passed the small group form Stand Up To Racism opposite Downing Street. Police stood on the pavement between them and the marchers as they attempted to hand out leaflets suggesting how people might follow the march slogan ‘Together We Are Stronger‘ in a more inclusive way and to avoid the movement being dominated by the extreme right.
By the time the march arrived at Bridge Street to go onto Westminster Bridge, the numbers seemed to have roughly halved from those who had set out, despite several hundred people having joined it at Trafalgar Square. Some of them had stopped to confront the Stand Up To Racism protesters until police finally persuaded them to move on, but others had stopped off at various pubs.
A man rips up one of the leaflets from Stand Up To Racism
Stand Up To Racism had not tried to organise a large counter-demonstration but instead a small group had come to hold up banners and hand out leaflets to the marchers.
They had been careful not to call the marchers racists, but clearly many of the marchers felt they were being accused of racism and shouted abuse and threats at Stand Up To Racism (and at photographers.) Most from Stand Up To Racism stood well back from the march with banner.
Stand up to Racism supporters try to had out a flier to the marchers, but are largely met by shouted insults
“A few from Stand Up to Racism stood between the police lining the kerb were handing out a flier ‘Some questions for the leaders of the FLA’, which asked them to take steps to ensure their movement was not taken over by racists. Although the FLA strongly denies accusations that they are racist and against Muslims in general, there were many former supporters of far-right groups such as the EDL among those marching.”
A few take the leaflet and read itShow Racism the Red CardPolice eject a FLA supporter from the protest by Stand Up to Racism
A few FLA marchers tried to get into the SUTR protest but were ejected by police, but others were held back by friends.
A woman shouts at me for taking pictures, accusing me of calling her and the FLA racist
A crowd of the marchers stopped and continued to abuse the SUTR protesters. Eventually the police brought up reinforcements and pushed them away down the road.
Cut the Carbon March: Tuesday 2nd October 2007 saw the final stage of Christian Aid’s Cut the Carbon March of a thousand miles by marchers from around the world as well as the UK which had begun 80 days earlier in Northern Ireland. The march aimed to increase awareness of the growing danger of global heating with world temperatures increasing as we continue to put greenhouse gases into the air by burning fossil fuels, and to prompt the New Labour government led by George Brown into decisive action to end fossil fuel use. Among those who took part in 2007 were groups from countries already suffering from the effects of climate change.
Unfortunately although it did something to increase awareness it led to little real action and now when we in the UK are beginning to feel the heat we have a Labour government which is likely to approve the production of natural gas from the Jackdaw North Sea field and oil from Rosebank north-west of the Shetlands.
Christian Aid – Cut the Carbon March – The Final Mile
City Hall to St Paul’s Cathedral
The final mile took marchers from a rally at City Hall to St Paul’s Cathedral – the end of their 1000 mile walk
Around a thousand supporters turned up on a dull damp Tuesday morning to accompany the Christian Aid ‘Cut The Carbon’ marchers on the final mile of a walk that had started in Bangor, Northern Ireland, then took them a thousand miles via Edinburgh, Newcastle On Tyne, Leeds, Birmingham, Cardiff, Bournemouth (for a meeting with George Brown at the Labour Party conference) and on to London (including a picnic at Battersea the previous Sunday.)
AA few of the international marchers had to go home before the end, but most, together with those from the UK, made it to the end, and spoke at the rally in the City Hall Scoop before the march set off.
The route led over London Bridge and then up past the Stock Exchange to St Paul’s Churchyard, where there were more speeches, particularly from a Muslim marcher, before a service in the cathedral.
As photography isn’t allowed at events inside St Paul’s (its one of the few places I’ve actually been thrown out of for trying to take pictures) I came home as people streamed inside. The marchers were due to meet with Hilary Benn afterwards to press the case for climate justice. [Benn was Secretary of State for International Development from 2003 until earlier in 2007 and was in October 2007 Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.]
Several speakers from this country and abroad had made the point that Britain lead the world in creating the problem when we began the industrial revolution and so should feel a great obligation to get things going to save the world from the disaster into which it is currently fast heading.
Protesters at St Paul’s Cathedral send a clear message to Hilary Benn and the government to Cut the Carbon
Other demonstrators at St Paul’s made the point that raising animals was an important factor in the high carbon footprint; growing and eating crops can be far less wasteful and polluting. [They pointed out that] Christian Aid’s development policies would be better directed to encouraging vegetarian and vegan production rather than the current reliance in some projects on raising animals for food.
I was pleased that my exhibition of pictures of environmental protests at London as a part of Foto Arte in Brasilia in December 2007 was able to include the top picture in this post, showing the Brazilians from the Movimento Dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (Landless Workers’ Movement) leading the march with Tower Bridge in the background, and I think some from this group may have come to the talk on car culture I gave at the festival.
Some travellers came to the die-in with the message ‘Stop Airport Expansion’ inside their suitcases
Heathrow flashmob against airport expansion: On Saturday 1st October 2016 I made my way from Hatton Cross Station with protesters to Terminal 2 after we were informed that this was where the planned ‘#StayGrounded‘ flashmob protest organised by Reclaim The Power was to start shortly.
Although the location had been kept secret before the event, and most of the several hundred protesters told to gather at the underground station, Heathrow security seem to be expecting us when we arrived and the Departures lounge and had obviously decided to treat the event with a minimum of intervention so as not to give it greater publicity.
Security watched the protest standing around the area where it was taking place and only stopping protesters when they tried to go in further to the check-in area, but otherwise making no attempt to stop the protest or prevent me and the other press photographing it.
I, seated at left, watch some of the protestersas we wait for the protest to start
I sat somewhat uneasily in the departures lounge, discretely photographing the protesters, many of whom had come with suitcases and bags to blend in with the passengers until red handkerchiefs have the signal for the protest to begin.
When it did come the protesters quickly moved into the open space and staged a die-in, some opening their jackets to reveal ‘No Third Runway’ t-shirts.
Others took out aprons from their luggage and stood with the message ‘Climate Change Has A Death Toll’.
People began to loudly read out information about the effects on climate of air travel.
Some taking part in the die-in had brought posters and held them on their chests and others wore medical face masks to point out the pollution caused by air traffic and road traffic bringing fliers to the airport.
The readings continued and a group of protesters dressed as ‘frequent fliers’ in business suits apparently waiting to catch a plane became increasingly restive at being held up by the protests.
Some of the ‘frequent flyers’ began to move forward stepping over the protesters to reach the ‘High Polluters Club Frequent Flyer VIP Check-in’ which had been set up for them.
There they sipped champagne (from empty glasses to comply with airport restrictions), chatted idly and held up large cartoon ‘speech bubbles’ with messages including “When People have to fight to breathe clean air, the government is not fit for purpose“, “‘I got £100K bonus this year“, “I’m one of the 15% who make 70% of flights” and “I‘m flying to my 2nd home in France“.
Next came some songs specially written for the occasion which unfortunately I didn’t record and then some dances, with an an aviation version of ‘Ring a-Ring of Roses’ which of course ends with everyone falling down.
At the end of the protest came a special version of ‘Auld Lang Syne‘ against airport expansion and a little more dancing before we all left the terminal.
I took a few pictures on the way out, then went to the bus station to catch a local bus to Terminal 5 from where I could get a bus home.
But as well as the protest inside the airport I had photographed, there had also been a protest by cyclists which had been met with a huge reaction from the police, disrupting traffic for miles around and leading to wide diversions. My bus was diverted by the M4 and M25 taking over twice as long as normal.
Heathrow expansion is now back on the table, although only if it can be shown to be consistent with our climate change obligations. Of course there is no real chance that it ever can be, but often things like this have been fudged to allow things to happen – Heathrow itself only came about on the basis of lies that it was needed for military use. And a very significant part of this fudging is the recent Draft Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement published in June 2026 and the proposal to prioritise hub airport capacity and national economic growth as ‘Critical National Growth Infrastructure’.
