On 8th April 1971 the first World Roma Congress met at Chelsfield in southeast London. It called for Roma self-determination and international unity and the delegates unanimously rejected all of the names given to them by outsiders, including Gypsy (or Gipsy), still often used in English, which the community viewed as insulting. Both Rom and Romany have also been in use in English since the 19th Century, but throughout Europe the term Roma is now officially used, though in German-speaking countries the name Sinti is common.
Waiting for the march outside St James Piccadilly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people Linguistic and more recent DNA studies show that Roma originated in northwestern India around 1500 years ago and later migrated to Europe, reaching the Balkans around 900 years ago. They have long been subject to persecution and in some central and east European countries were slaves until the 1840s and 50s.
In 1930s Germany Roma in Germany were stripped of their citizenship and many were interned and there was a programme of compulsory sterilisation. In 1942 the Porajmos or Romani Holocaust began, with Roma being sent to extermination camps. Estimates vary wildly of the number killed in Germany and German occupied territories, between 200,000 and 1,500,000.
Roma as well as Jews were victims in the Holocaust
Roma still suffer considerable persecution in some countries including Romania, and the end of communist control has led to an increase in prejudice and persecution there and elsewhere. And across all countries including our own there is still widespread denial about the persecution they still face.
8th April, the day of the first congress, was adopted in 1990 as the International Roma Day of Action. Perhaps because of that denial it has not received much attention.
Roma have generally taken on the predominant religions of the countries they have settled in and the London action began with a church service at St Jame’s Piccadilly before marching through central London. I photographed them outside the church and on the march, ending my pictures as they went up Charing Cross Road.
In my account on My London Diary in 2005 I used the term gypsy as this was still almost always used in the media and Roma was not widely understood. Commonly too, Roma are called ‘travellers’ although many Roma are settled and most ‘travellers‘ are not Roma. Here’s what I wrote in 2005:
After a church service commemorating the 500,000 Roma murdered in the Nazi holocaust, Roma from several countries marched across London against the ethnic-cleansing of 30,000 gypsies from their own land and in protest over threatened evictions at Dale Farm, Essex, Smithy Fen, Cambridgeshire, and elsewhere.
After the march, gypsy Richard Sheridan was to announce that he was standing against sitting Tory MP John Baron at Billericay in the general election on 5th May 2005 in order to make the travellers’ voice heard. [He did not actually stand, but did attract some media attention to the cause.]
National Gallery, Trayvon Martin & Dykes: Saturday 31 March 2012 I began outside the National Gallery were the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) were demanding that the gallery stopped hosting events for the arms trade. From there I went to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square for a protest about the US failure to prosecute the killer of black teenager Trayvon Martin. Finally I went to London’s first Dyke March since the 1980s.
Disarm The National Gallery
Trafalgar Square
Around 20 protesters had come to Trafalgar square as ‘artists’, dressed in blue paint-stained smocks and equipped with moustaches, berets, paint brushes, palettes and easels with large sheets of paper and a smattering of Franglais.
They erected their easels in a line on the North Terrace in front of the National Gallery and painted the letters D, I, S, A, R, M, T, H, E, G, A, L, L, E, R and Y anbefore standing with them in front of the gallery.
There also brought other anti-war artworks to display and handed out postcards for onlookers to sign calling on Nicholas Penny, Director of the National Gallery, to end his support of the arms trade.
The main entrances of the gallery were closed during the protest and a long queue built up at the lower entrance. Many in that line were amazed to find that an art gallery was supporting arms sales. As the postcard says – and people overwhelmingly agreed – Art and arms don’t mix.
The Disarm the Gallery protest was organised by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) as the during the DSEi arms fair the previous September, weapons manufacturer Finmeccanica had paid the gallery £30,000 to hold events there.
DSEi is the worlds largest arms fair with buyers and sellers from around the world including many corrupt and tyrannical regimes, selling the equipment used by dictators around the world to equip armies and police to keep order and fuelling conflicts which kill thousands if not millions.
Marcia, sister of Sean Rigg, killed by police in Brixton police station speaks at the US embassy protest
Black teenager Trayvon Martin was walking back from a local convenience store to the house in Florida where he was staying with this father when he was stopped and then shot dead by George Zimmerman, a self appointed neighbourhood watchman who claimed he had felt threatened by a black teenager wearing a hoodie.
He had gone to the shop to buy a soft drink and some Skittle sweets and many at the protest wore hoodies and carried packets of Skittles and soft drinks.
Lee Jasper and Zita Holbourne of BARAC
Florida police backed Zimmerman’s story that he had acted in self-defence and refused to arrest or charge him. Later the pressure from protests like this across America and around the world led to him being brought to trial, but a Florida jury acquitted him.
People stressed that the killing of Trayvon Martin very much reflects the treatment of black people not just in the USA but elsewhere including the UK
The embassy protest was was chaired by Merlin Emmanuel, brother of Smiley Culture, killed by police in his own kitchen, and speakers included Marcia, the brother of Sean Rigg, murdered in Brixton Police Station. Other speakers also brought up cases of deaths and discriminaton by police in the UK.
Stella and Lucy of DIVA magazine in Soho Square for the London Dyke March
After a rally in Soho Square over 600 women marched through Soho and Trafalgar Square to the National Theatre.
The march was the first dyke march since the 1980s and set out to support dyke visibility and welcomed “dykes, queers, bisexuals, transwomen, genderqueers and allies” and “all folk who want to support dykes to march with us” in “a grassroots, non-commercial, anti-racist, community-centred, accessible, inclusive event.”
Speakers at the rally “were Kirstean Hearn, the chair of Inclusion London and someone who as a member of Equality 2005 gives disability equality advice to government, Lady Phyll Opoku, co-founder and Managing Director of UK Black Pride, journalist and founding editor of METQ magazine Paris Lees, Shi tou, an artist and film-maker who was the first lesbian to come out on Chinese TV and one of China’s most prominent lesbian activists, and Clare B Dimyon, awarded a MBE in 2010 for her work supporting LGBT people in Central and Eastern Europe.”
You can view many more pictures of the march and rally on My London Diary, including pictures of most or all of the speakers at London Dyke March 2012.
Stop The War – Hands Off Iraq: The protest in London against the US plans to invade Iraq on Saturday 30th March 2002 was I think the first of the really huge protests in London and across the world against the invasion then being planned by U.S. president George W Bush following the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States.
George Galloway MP at the start of the march in Hyde Park
The Stop the War Coalition had been formed shortly after the 9/11 attacks and had organised this protest together with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Muslim Association of Britain.
Air guitar – hyde park
It is hard to give any accurate estimate of the numbers taking part in protests as large as this, but I think there must have been well over a hundred thousand marching – much smaller than the well over a million that marched in London 11 months later in February 2003, but still a very significant number. It received very little coverage in the mass media and so it is now still difficult to find anything about it online.
Helen Salmon and students, Hyde Park
By March 2002 the initial huge public sympathy with the USA over the 9/ll attacks had given place to a feeling that Bush and his “war on terror” was determined to attack Iraq at all cost even though it seemed unlikely that there was any real link between Iraq and Al-Qaida, and there was little if any evidence that Iraq still possessed “weapons of mass destruction“.
Tony Benn and Dr Siddiqui at Hyde Park
Iraq had ended work to produce biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons in the 1990s and most or all of its stockpiles had been destroyed. In November 2002 Saddam Hussein had allowed UN inspectors search Iraqi facilities for WMDs and they found none. The US alleged that Iraq had hidden them – and forged documents were produced about uranium. No WMDs were found during the US invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003-2011 and US secretary of state Colin “Powell and George Bush eventually admitted Iraq had not had them.”
Stop The War – Hands Off Iraq – 2 Mar 02 – Park Lane
Despite then known facts, Tony Blair had decided to support the US invasion against the huge opposition from the British public. He and his government lied to parliament, most notably with the “Dodgy Dossier” and other documents. The dossier, “sexed up” by Alistair Campbell was largely plagiarised from a thesis by a graduate student at California State University, and contained many errors and unchecked statements, and contradicted much of actual evidence from intelligence sources. It should have ended the political career and any credibility for both.
PiccadillyTrafalgar Square
Back in 2002 I was working with both black and white and colour film, but it was difficult for me to digitise the colour work – and I only posted black and white images on My London Diary. I still have only digitised a few of the many colour images I made at that time.
Included in this post are all of the images I posted on My London Diary and below is the short text I wrote to go with them. The files are small and they were posted across several pages as many then still accessed the web on slow dial-up modems. They are reduced versions of the images I filed to my agency, made by scanning black and white prints.The original post is still online, but adds nothing to this post.
The Stop the War, Hands off Iraq demonstration on 2 March was a large sign of public opinion. People were still leaving Hyde Park at the start of the march when Trafalgar Square was full to overflowing two and a half hours later.
Police estimates of the number were risible as usual – and can only reflect an attempt to marginalise the significant body of opinion opposed to the war or a complete mathematical inability on behalf of the police.
Tony Benn told us it wasn’t worth taking his picture – “It won’t get in the papers unless I go and kick a policeman” but he didn’t and was quite right.
World leaders were to hold the G20 London Summit at the Excel Centre in Docklands beginning on April 1st (a date some thought highly appropriate), with the stated themes “Stability, Growth, Jobs“, and chaired by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Countries and organisations taking part, included Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Ethiopia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey and the USA, as well as the European Union and organisations including the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the World Trade Organisations.
The ‘Put People First’ march was the first of several major demonstrations aimed at influencing the meeting and was backed by a very wide range of over 150 organisations, both from this country and abroad.
As well as trade unions, charities, and pressure groups there were also many other less organised groups and individuals.
Those marching were calling for a new approach to social justice for the world as a whole, and for urgency in action by world leaders not just to find a solution for the current financial problems, but to tackle the even deeper problems of global inequality and of climate crisis.
But the G20 went ahead very much to prop up the banks and financial institutions that had caused the financial crisis, though agreeing on the need for greater regulation, making none of the wider changes that this and other protests demanded. If anything it worsened those deeper problems.
Unsurprisingly it was a very large march with probably several times the official police estimate of 35,000 taking party.
Most police attention was on a relatively small ‘autonomous’ block of around 800 people in the middle of the march which had a strong police escorted. They objected to the police behaviour, particularly very obtrusive photography by FIT teams and some sat down in the road blocking the march behind them for around half an hour.
Police had bullied the front of the march to set off at a cracking pace, hard for photographers to keep up with and the march soon spread out over much of the route.
I wanted to photograph as many of the marchers as I could, walking slowly and letting them go past me as they walked along the Embankment, up Bridge Street and Whitehall to Trafalgar Square. Then I rushed to get to the rally in time.
On My London Diary you can read more about the rally, and see pictures of many of the speakers. This protest was “a well ordered event with at times a carnival atmosphere, which made some of the police prognostications look rather silly.“
Politicicans and Businessmen are not ignorant – they are intelligent and corrupt. They break our legs and expect us to say thankyou when they offer us crutches
One of my fellow NUJ members filming the ‘autonomous’ block rally was stopped and searched, and he and others reported a mysterious ‘man in black’ rushing into this alternative rally and emptying half a dozen small tightly wrapped packages from a black bin bag at the bottom of the stepladder from which people were speaking before exiting rapidly stage left.
Someone kicked one of these packages open and found it contained a catapult, and all the packages were quickly kicked away under a fence into an area under maintenance behind the speakers. Around 20 minutes later, a policeman entered that area and collected the packages; the anarchists saw what was happening and rapidly dispersed.
As I ended my post on My London Diary: “Earlier in the week a police spokesman had given a widely broadcast media interview in which he predicted that there would be violence – and that some protesters would use catapults. It seems as if someone was determined to make this loony-sounding prophecy come true.”
Teachers march past Parliament on their way to a rally at Central Hall Westminster
In 2024 Dr Stephen Burley wrote in ‘School Management Plus’ “The impact of the Govian education reforms has been unremittingly negative. Content heavy GCSEs have squeezed Key Stage 3, with many schools using Year 9 to cover over-burdened specifications. The EBacc, in the state sector, has devastated uptake in the creative and technical subjects, with music and DT fairing worst. Learning has narrowed to focus much more on memorisation as students cram for final exams.”
Those reforms were only a part of his ill conceived actions as Education Minister which included a rapid expansion of academies and multi-academy trusts and the introduction of ludicrous changes to the curriculum – such as ‘fronted adverbials’. He probably would have liked to see all those primary children seated in neat rows going through those ‘times tables’ as I spent so much time doing in the 1950s – and actually stated they should be learning the names and dates of the Kings and Queens of England.
He seldom if ever missed an opportunity to denigrate the work of dedicated teachers and clearly showed a fundamental distrust for the views of teachers and educationalists, relying instead in the strange and unsupported advice of a few often working outside their areas of academic competence.
Christine Blower, NUT General Secretary
The strike on 26th March 2014 came after Gove continually refused to engage in meaningful discussions with the unions over the changes his department is pushing through over pensions, performance related pay and the dismantling of a national pay structure.
I was fortunate to have left teaching after 30 years well before Gove and in my last years to teach mainly on courses not approved by the Ministry of Education (Ofsted inspectors didn’t come to judge my teaching but had to request my permission to observe and learn) and to teach other courses that were largely or entirely teacher assessed where students learnt by doing and creating rather than regurgitating.
Thousands came to London on their stike day, March 26th 2014 calling for Gove to resign or his attacks on their pay, pensions, conditions and job security and his denigration and undermining for their professional status, and I felt a great deal of empathy with them.
ESOL, Libya & UCU: On the morning of Thursday 24th March 2011 hundreds of students and teachers portested against cuts to English lnaguage courses for speakers of other languages. Then at lunchtime Libyans came to Downing Street to thank David Cameron for air strikes against Gaddaffi’s forces in Libya. Finally in the afternoon I photographed a march to Parliament by University and college lecturers from the London region protesting over pensions, jobs and pay,
ESOL Day of Action
Old Palace Yard & Downing St
ESOL students and tutors crowd outside Downing St
Several hundred ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) students and tutors from colleges across London, including Lambeth, Hackney, Barnet, Tower Hamlets and Greenwich came to a rally opposite Parliament as a part of a nationwide day of protest against government cuts in these courses.
There were similar protests taking place in Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Halifax, Leeds, Newcastle, Nottingham, Rochdale, Sheffield and Warwickshire.
ESOL courses provide an essential service for “many asylum seekers and refugees. ESOL is essential for integrating refugees into the community here and enabling them to contribute fully to British society.”
The cuts were expected to mean that around 70% of current students would be unable to complete their courses and roughly the same proportion of classes across the country would close. The closure would particularly impact women who were the majority of students.
Cuts in ESOL funding have continued since 2011, making it now difficult or impossible for many recent migrants to access courses. Some Reform UK-led local authorities are now cutting these course completely.
Libyans chant praise for Cameron prodding the UN into action
It was highly unusual for a protest to come to Downing Street to praise the Prime Minister for his actions, but around 500 Libyans were there to give thanks to David Cameron for the air strikes against Gadaffi’s forces and his leadership in establishing a ‘no-fly’ zone.
Gadaffi was of course a highly controversial figure in Libya. Supporters praised him for “combating homelessness, ensuring access to food and safe drinking water, and to dramatic improvements in education” and great improvements in medical care including a free and universal medical system. He had also done much to improve the status of women, though keeping the “sexes as “separate but equal”.’
But there was also a considerable downside, with the persecution of non-Arab Libyans, and human rights abuses. He alienated many by largely eliminating private businesses and imposed censorship. Under him Libya had no free press and no trade unions. And under him the system was highly corrupt and unemployment was high.
His brutal clampdown on protests inspired by the Arab Spring led to an uprising and the formation of the Benghazi-based National Transitional Council which this protest was supporting. Two weeks before this event France had recognised this as the “legitimate representative of the Libyan people” and Britain together with France was urging Europe to do so.
The UN had already suspended “Libya from the UN Human Rights Council, implementing sanctions and calling for an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into the killing of unarmed civilians” the previous month and had declared a “no-fly zone to protect the civilian population from aerial bombardment”.
One lone protester called for an end to attacks on Libya
NATO went further and as well as enforcing this also carried out air strikes. Its actions are thought to have enabled the enabled the NTC – whose forces like Gadaffi’s also “disregarded the laws of war, committing human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests, torture, extrajudicial executions, and revenge attacks” – to defeat Gadaffi.
University and college lecturers had received derisive pay offers in 2010 and 2011 meaning a cut in real wages allowing for inflation of 8-10%, and those from colleges in and around London marched to Parliament to protest over pay, job cuts and pensions.
Government was threatening cuts of up to 40,000 jobs in higher education and lecturers were worried that there might be large increases in student course fees that would deter many students.
They were also angered by government claims that their pensions were ‘gold plated’ – they are actually much less generous than the government’s lies – and proposed changes to the system.
Statistics also show that lecturers are paid much less than those with similar qualifications working in private industry. And they criticise the perception encouraged by our billionaire-owned press that they enjoy lengthy holidays as college terms are short.
Lecturers around the country were taking part in a one-day strike and the march by UCU London Region was one of many events around the country.
UN Anti-Racism Day & IDS Gone: Saturday 19th March 2016 was UN Anti-Racism Day and was celebrated with a Refugees Welcome march and rally, and by Australians and others protesting at the Australian High Commission in London to condemn the Australian government’s treatment of refugees. Later in Parliament Square I joined disabled people and friends celebrating the resignation of Iain Duncan Smith whose policies had caused them so much suffering and harm.
Stand Up to Racism – Refugees Welcome March
BBC to Piccadilly Circus
Thousands met outside the BBC for a national demonstration called by Stand Up to Racism against racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and fascism and to make the point that refugees are welcome here.
They had started at the BBC pointing out that it should have a much more positive attitude to refugees. It gives much air time to the views of racists and extreme right groups and personalities and fails to adequately represent the view of the majority of the British population shown in protests such as this.
The BBC often minimises the positive contributions of migrants and refugees to the British economy and keeping vital services such as the NHS running and fails to criticise the increasingly racist government policies.
As well as a large ‘Black Lives Matter’ bloc led by Lee Jasper and Zita Holbourne, there were also groups working with refugees trapped in the camps in Calais and Dunkirk by the failure of our government to set up legal routes for refugees, demanding our government take a much more positive and humanitarian approach to refugees. Apart from a small concession for children, forced on them by Lord Dubs with massive public support, which was very grudgingly administered and prematurely ended, successive governments have responded with increasingly draconian measures.
What I wrote in 2016 is now even more apposite: “Of course there are racists and bigots who oppose Britain taking in any refugees, and those who would want to abandon the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Britain played a major role in drawing up in 1947-8. Winston Churchill – who many on the far right look on as a symbol of all things British – proposed a European Charter of Human Rights in 1947 and we were the first country to ratify it in 1951.”
A very small group of members of the far-right group ‘Britain First’ in their para-military uniforms stood guarded by several times as many police on the steps around Eros as the march past, shouting their hate and insults and making derisory and threatening gestures. Most of the marchers simply ignored them, but a few rushed towards them but were held back by police.
Australians were protesting at home & at embassies around the world against their country’s racist immigration policy.
Many who try to claim asylum in Australia are locked up and detained indefinitely in contradiction to international law on remote Pacific Islands including Manus and Nauru in detention camps run by Serco and will never be allowed to resettle in Australia.
Detainees in these camps have been sexually abused, denied proper health treatment, and in at least one case, that of a young man called Reza Berati, beaten to death by the prison guards.
Serco also run detention centres such as Yarl’s Wood in the UK, where detainees have also been mistreated, sexually abused and denied proper health treatment. The Australian protesters were joined by members of Movement for Justice, which has held many protests at UK detention centres including Yarl’s Wood and Harmondsworth.
No UK newspapers, TV or Radio media had even sent reporters to this protest. The only other photographer taking pictures at the event had been commissioned by a Sydney newspaper.
IDS, Iain Duncan Smith, was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2010 to 2016 and responsible for brutal cuts in welfare polices in those years.
In particular he decided to save money by making it harder for sick and disabled people to claim benefits, introducing new eligibility tests and benefit sanctions, incentivising DWP staff to strip claimants of their benefits often for trivial reasons or for matters beyond their control such as the late arrival of official letters or cancellation of buses and trains making them arrive late for appointments.
In 2015 the statistics showed that 2,380 people died in a 3-year period shortly after a work capability assessment declared them fit for work.
The poorly thought out nature of the introduction of Universal Credit also brought suffering to many, left for weeks without financial support. He introduced disastrous schemes to force the disabled into work and cut the support which had enabled some disabled people to work.
His period as a minister had combined a total lack of empathy with a peculiar incompetence and the National Audit Office accused the DWP of ‘”weak management, ineffective control and poor governance” and of wasting £34 million on inadequate computer systems.’
So naturally DPAC were pleased to see him go, and celebrated at this party – though with Prosecco rather than the Champagne some media reports stated. And perhaps their celebrations were a little muted by the knowledge that his successor Stephen Crabb had shown himself to be equally bigoted and lacking compassion and understanding of the needs of the poor and disabled.
Strangely, despite his long record of cutting disablity benefits, IDS’s stated reason for his resignation was that he was unable to accept the government’s planned cuts to disability benefits, later describing the policies he had spent six years putting into effect of “balancing the books on the backs of the poor and vulnerable” as divisive and “deeply unfair“.
Syria & St Patrick: Saturday 17th March 2012 was of course St Patrick’s Day, but before rushing to Willesden Green to photograph the St Patrick’s Day Parade there I photographed Syrians calling for freedom marching to the Syrian Embassy, where a rather smaller number had arrived earlier to support President Assad. When the march got to Edgware Road I took the Underground to Willesden Green and after photographing the procession rushed back to Belgrave Square and the Syrians.
Free Syrians March To Embassy
Paddington to Belgrave Square
Over a thousand Syrians had come to Paddington Green for the start of a march calling for freedom in Syria and an end to the massacres of the Syrian people.
They held a noisy rally there with a great deal of shouting, showing support for the ‘Free Syrian Army’, which included many who deserted from the Syrian Army after having been ordered to fire on innocent Syrian people.
A woman held a poster stating that 11,035 people had been killed by Asad’s forces, while others had placards giving monthly figures, for example that in December 2011 they had killed 1119 including 58 women and 68 children.
After an hour the march set off. I left them at Edgware Road but returned later to cover the events in Belgrave Square where there was a large pen filling most of the north side of the square with a platform for speakers opposite the Syrian Embassy.
Beside the tower in Belgrave Square
Next to the platform was a tall tower, a reminder of the tower in the main square of Homs, where huge peaceful demonstrations were put down by force, and where over 700 people, including many women and children were killed in government attacks the previous December.
During the speeches an effigy of Asad hanging from a gallows was carried through the crowd.
There was a large police presence in the whole area around the square and double barriers with an area empty except for police around 50 yards wide separating their protest from a smaller counter-protest by Assad supporters.
I walked away from the Free Syria protest to visit the very much smaller counter-protest. As I commented, “It seemed more a disco about a personality cult than a political rally of any kind, with almost everyone waving a placard with Asad’s photograph on it, and many wearing t-shirts featuring his face.”
They were playing music at a distressingly high volume, distorted through their speakers, clearly in an attempt to drown out the speakers at the other protest. Thankfully there were a few times when the music stopped for people to lead chants praising Asad.
There was only one speech while I was there, with a man calling on people to go to Syria and see for themselves that the situation in the country was being falsely reported by the media.
The placards and banners were all expensively produced
There had been doubts over whether there would be a Brent St Patrick’s Day procession in 2012 after Brent Council had been forced to make drastic cuts in council spending on community events.
But the event went ahead and as usual was led through the streets by the Mayor of Brent and St Patrick on its way from Willesden Green station to Willesden Library, though the streets did seem a little less crowded than in previous years.
On a smaller scale and with a more friendly atmosphere than the main London event, the procession was on St Patrick’s Day itself, which in 2012 was a Saturday. Most years I’d been there it had been on a schoolday; many children came from the schools to take part and watch along with their parents, but perhaps on a Saturday more had other things to do.
As usual, as well as the crowds that had gathered for the start of the parade, people came out of the bars on the street to watch as it passed.
There are many more pictures on My London Diary, though I had to rush away before the end to get back to photograph the Syrian protest in Belgrave Square.
Stop the War – Troops Out: The protest organised by Stop the War, CND and British Muslim Initiative on Saturday 15th March, 2008 was an impressive one, with around 50,000 marchers calling for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, no attack on Iran and a free Palestine, as well as many other groups drawing attention to other issues around the world including the genocide in Somalia.
Tony Benn
It began with a rally in Trafalgar Square where speakers included Tony Benn and Bruce Kent and then took a roundabout route across Westminster Bridge and then back over the Thames on Lambeth Bridge and up Millbank to Parliament Square. Those at the rear of the march were still passing the corner of the square when those at the front arrived back there.
It was an event that included many issues still relevant now, particularly over Iran and Palestine, but also on direct action, with a reminder of the then upcoming trial of the Raytheon 9, anti-war activists who had entered the Raytheon factory in Derry in August 2006 after learning that Raytheon missiles were being used by Israel in their 2006 invasion of Lebanon.
Occupying the offices for eight hours before they were arrested they destroyed computers and documents, and six were tried for criminal damage and affray in May 2008. One man was found guilty of stealing two computer disks but they were all acquitted on all other charges.
The police took a great deal of interest in the protest, with FIT teams who photograph protesters (and journalists, particularly photographers) took an unusual interest in anarchist protesters from Class War, the Anarchist Federation and FITwatch who use their banner to try to prevent the police taking photographs and video.
I missed seeing four of the FITwatch protesters arrested, apparently for intimidating the police. As I commented, “Since a couple of weeks ago one of their photographers and his minder had been seen taking flight and seeking refuge up the steps of the National Gallery when pursued by a polite and always well behaved woman with a shopping trolley and free cakes – much to the amusement of other police present – intimidating the FIT doesn’t seem too difficult.“
But this – like the many large pro-Palestine protests since ‘September 7th’ – was an entirely peaceful protest, calling for peace in many areas around the world and for an end to UK involvement in wars and oppression.
It was a lively protest, with samba band, sound systes, street theatre and dancing. People laid flowers at Nelson Mandela’s statue and Brian Haw – still permanently camped in Parliament Square despite the attempts to remove him by passing SOCPA – joined the protest.
And like all of these marches it also included many Jewish marchers including the Neturei Karta ultra-orthodox anti-Zionists.
A Day with Class War: On Saturday 14th March I spent much of the day with Class War who had registered as a political party to stand a handful of candidates in the May 2015 General Election. Of course they didn’t expect to gain any MPs but it had seemed a good way to attract some publicity to their views – and to have a little fun. They began at Chingford with an election campaign launch for Lisa McKenzie who was standing against Tory minister Iain Duncan Smith.
After a public meeting on the street there the group retired to a nearby pub to celebrate the election launch before I travelled with Chingford and Purley candidates and a few supporters to visit and show solidarity with people on the Aylesbury Estate in Southwark who had occupied a flat there to highlight the shameful treatment by Southwark Council of residents whose homes are being demolished and are being forced out of the area.
Class War Chingford Election Launch
Chingford, London
Police seized Class War’s ‘Political Leaders’ banner two days earlier but they still had posters from the 2010 election with the same message
Lisa McKenzie came to Chingford with a small group of Class War supporters to announce she was giving electors there a chance to kick out Tory minister Iain Duncan Smith and the evil policies he represented, which inflict misery on the poor and disabled.
From the station they marched behind the ‘Lucy Parsons’ banner “We must devastate the avenues where the wealthy live” past the Conservative Association offices and the Assembly Hall to the end of Station Rd. Unfortunately police had seized their even more appropriate banner calling the main political leaders (as I put it) ‘f***ing wankers‘ at the Poor Doors protest two days earlier, but they still had plenty of posters with the same message.
They were followed down the street by a van full of police officers who were obviously taking this first official visit by the Class War candidate for the Chingford constituency very seriously.
At the end of the street Class War turned around and walked back to a convenient place to hold a meeting where candidate Lisa McKensie, then a research fellow at the LSE whose study of the St Ann’s Estate in Nottingham where she lived for many years was recently published as Getting By: Estates, Class and Culture in Austerity Britain and several others made speeches.
Police stood and watched from the opposite side of the road and after 10 minutes an officer walked across the road and ordered Stan who was one of those holding the ‘wanker’ posters to put it away or be arrested. There was some argument but eventually Stan rolled it up and the sergeant walked back across the road, standing with arms folded staring at the group – with several others still holding similar posters.
Ian Bone mimicked the officer who was watching from across the road
Most of those who walked past ignored the group, but some took the Class War election leaflets and were clearly amused, though one elderly man on a passing bus made his opinion clear in an appropriately Churchillian fashion.
After around half an hour the launch ended and the group walked back towards the station, with Lisa stopping off briefly to put one of her election leaflets through the door of the Conservative Association. When they went inside the pub opposite the station the police van drove off, but several police remained watching the pub.
The media summary with my pictures from inside the Station House pub stated:
“After a march and street rally in Station Rd, Chingford, Class War cadres adjourned with their candidate Lisa Mckenzie, who is opposing controversial Tory minister Iain Duncan Smith, to discus their forthcoming election campaign in the constituency.“
There was some talk about the campaign and Jane Nicholl got out a few ‘Iain Duncan Smith‘ masks for people to buy and wear – and I commented “the pub seems likely to become an unofficial campaign headquarters for Class War.”
I was pleased to buy a pint and have a drink with them, something I seldom do after protests as I’m usually rushing away to get home and file my pictures. Most photographers now carry a laptop and file on the spot, but I’ve resisted doing so – few of the events I cover are breaking news.
But while we were there a phone call came from the occupiers on the Aylesbury Estate in Southwark calling for support and I decided to go with them.
I was waiting in the pub to travel with two Class War election candidates, Lisa McKenzie standing for Chingford and Jon Bigger for South Croydon, along with several supporters, across London to the Aylesbury Estate in Southwark where people had occupied a flat in solidarity with occupiers who are being forced out from the large council estate which is being re-developed.
Police watched us until the train left
Some families were still living on this block of the estate which was now surrounded with high fences and anti-climb barriers with police and bailiffs severely restricting access to the estate by residents and visitors.
As I wrote then: “Southwark Council, having neglected the estate for many years, has decided to hand it over to developers who will knock it down and redevelop the area mainly for sale or rent at inflated London prices. The residents are being forced to move out against their wishes – clearly expressed in a council organised ballot in 2001 – to stay, and most will have to move out of the area and into more expensive privately rented accomodation with little or no security of tenure.”
The fence makes this part of the Aylesbury look like a prison camp
Police followed us to the station and watched us until the train left. It was a long journey by Overground, Underground and bus, with much banter and playing with the IDS masks but fortunately I knew the right bus stop to get off.
Security men guard the entrance to the flats where 12 families are still officially in residenceSwinging up from one set of stairs to another
As we walked towards the estate we met a group of activists who led us to the only way still not blocked into the sector of the estate with occupied flat. It involved a lengthy detour on the estates elevated walkways into Chiltern House. The lift was still working – there were still a dozen families living there, but after we got off at the eight floor we still had to walk up some stairs and then swing though a narrow gap onto another set of stairs that led to the occupied flat. It was something of a challenge to me carrying my heavy camera bag.
Aysen Dennis, a campaigner from the Aylesbury EstateJon Bigger, Stan and others
We were rewarded by extensive views over most of South London both through the windows and from the balcony – which as I commented made estates like these rich pickings for developers. Southwark had made a huge loss on selling off the neighbouring Heygate Estate, selling of off for a small fraction of its market valuation and seemed to be doing the same with the Aylesbury Estate. As I commented it is “Hard to see why local councils of any hue should commit treason against their local population in this way.”
Lisa McKenzie
Some people inside the occupied flat were very hostile to photographers and I took few pictures there, mainly of the people I had come with. I think a couple of those present and most vocal against having their pictures taken were almost certainly undercover police who had infiltrated the campaign to save the estate.
Jenny and Stan hold the Class War banner next to the lifts in Chiltern House
I left with some of Class War, again making the slightly tricky and tortuous route out we had got in by to avoid the security men at the official gate in the tall fence around the block.
