>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

An Afternoon At The Seaside – Saundersfoot

An Afternoon At The Seaside: Last week I was staying with friends in a holiday cottage in Narberth, Pembrokeshire, and on Sunday 1st September after a late lunch we drove the roughly seven miles down to the coast at Saundersfoot.

Saundersfoot is a small seaside resort a few miles from its much larger neighbour Tenby but despite its size seems to have everything needed for a day at the seaside, including something that seems rare these days, sewage-free bathing, with a good sandy beach that gets cleaned by every high tide. But none of us swam there.

There were at least five coal mines in the area in the nineteenth century, producing some of the finest quality anthracite, with tramways bringing it down to the beach for shipping out. In 1829 Parliament gave permission to the Saundersfoot Railway and Harbour Company for the building of a harbour to export coal and other local goods, bringing in iron ore to produce pig iron.

The mines have long closed but the harbour is still there, now with private moorings, and still used by a few fishermen and for pleasure trips around the bay, as well as the sailing club.

Saundersfoot is also almost on the railway, with a station over a mile to the north bearing its name, but with so few trains to be almost useless. And in winter the trains are often replaced by buses.

We were able to park on the seafront, with just a footpath between us an the beach and decided to walk the short distance to the harbour.

We walked along the pier to the mouth of the harbour, then back to the town where we found a shop selling proper ice cream in a number of interesting flavours.

Then we walked along the other side of the harbour to the harbour mouth. There is another smaller beach to the south of the harbour.

Back in town (or rather large village) we followed the map on the detailed leaflet we had on Saundersfoot to look at its three nineteenth century chapels. The Congregational one is now converted to residential use, the Wesley Methodist still in business and the Baptist had a small notice announcing a temporary closure and inviting people to instead worship with the Methodists.

On our way into the village we had passed the parish church around three-quarters of a mile from the beach but didn’t stop to look at this Grade II* building with a medieval tower.

When we returned to the beach and lent on the promenade railings to look at the beach, now almost all covered by the sea. I took a few last pictures, though it’s now probably regarded as a crime to photograph people – particularly children – enjoying themselves at the seaside.

The previous day we had shared a rail replacement taxi from Carmarthen with a woman who was travelling to visit her daughter in Kilgetty, the next village to Saundersfoot and probably the only person apart from our group in Pembrokeshire that we knew. We found her looking out over the sea from same railing as us and had a short conversation.

More pictures from Saundersfoot.

Corbyn Victory & Refugees Welcome – 2015

Corbyn Victory & Refugees Welcome: Saturday 12th September 2015 was a day of hope when Jeremy Corbyn won the Labour leadership election with a landslide victory, getting more than three times the vote of his nearest rival, Andy Burnham. Several hundred Corbyn supporters met at Speakers’ Corner before the Refugees Welcome march to listen to the results of the Labour Leadership election.

Victory Party for Jeremy Corbyn – Speakers’ Corner, Hyde Park,

Tension built as the Deputy Leader results came and then erupted with Jeremy Corbyn’s first round victory.

Corbyn had only been able to stand in the election because some Labour MPs who did not support him were prepared to nominate him so that the Labour left would have a candidate in the ballot and not feel it was rigged against them. They thought he would only get a miserably low percentage of the votes.

According to Wikipedia, the release of opinion polls before the election which showed Corbyn in the lead prompted “high-profile interventions by a number of prominent Labour figures including Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, Jack Straw, David Miliband, and Alastair Campbell, among others” who felt Labour with Corbyn as leader would be unelectable.

These interventions almost certainly increased support for Corbyn, and although these and other Labour figures such as Peter Mandelson, along with most of the media and press did their best to try to get rid of Corbyn, including various plots and mass resignations from the Shadow Cabinet, he remained popular in the country.

The 2017 election turned out to be a much closer contest than most had imagined, and it was only due to deliberate sabotage by Labour party officials that Corbyn lost. A leaked report in 2020 which demonstrated this led to the setting up of the Forde report into Labour party factionalism which although it called the earlier report “factional” confirmed many of its suspicions and conclusions – as well as criticising both sides in the party – remained secret until July 2022.

What shocked many of us was the evident relief shown by some leading members of the party as the 2017 election results were coming out that their party had lost. And the witch-hunt against the left in the party continues unabated.

On the 12th September 12th 2015 there was much more media interest in the few hundred celebrating Corbyn’s victory than in the huge Refugees Welcome march which followed, and in the media scrum I got knocked flying and my equipment scattered, but managed to gather it up and continue work.

Victory Party for Jeremy Corbyn

Refugees Welcome Here Rally & March

From Speakers Corner I joined the huge crowd – at least 50,000 – filling Park Lane as far as I could see. This national march was a response to the many reports of refugees fleeing war and persecution, with people wanting to show their support for refugees facing death and hardship and their disgust at the lack of compassion and inadequate response of the British government.

On My London Diary is a list and photographs of some of the speakers before the march set off. I photographed the front of the march as it set up at the southern end of Park Lane and went with it for the first couple of hundred yards into Piccadilly, where I stopped to photograph the rest of the march as it came past.

The marchers were fairly densely packed and spread across the whole of the roadway (and sometimes on to the pavement too) and it took exactly an hour to go past me.

There were many at the protest who were not the usual protesters, people who said this was the first protest they had ever attended, as well as those that I knew from previous protests, and there were many interesting placards and banners to photograph – and many more pictures on My London Diary.

As the end of the march passed me I rushed into Green Park Station and took the tube to Westminster, arriving on Whitehall as it went very noisily past Downing Street.

I ran back to Parliament Square, and this soon filled up with people and banners. I sat down on the wall close to the Churchill statue, realising I was rather tired and hungry.

Many marchers left rather than stay and listen to the speeches, though the square was still crowded and I decided I would leave too.

More on My London Diary:
Rally Says Refugees Welcome Here
Refugees are welcome here march
Refugees Welcome march reaches Parliament

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9/11 Anniversary – EDL & Extremist Muslims – 2010

9/11 Anniversary – EDL & Extremist Muslims: On Saturday 11th September 2010 the extreme right English Defence League marched to the Grosvenor Square memorial to pay their respects to those killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, then stopped briefly at the American Embassy before going on to protest at the Saudi Embassy. Later Anjem Choudary and Muslims Against the Crusades came to hold a protest outside the US Embassy and the EDL returned to protest against them.

Around 150 EDL supporters met outside a pub close to Bond Street station to march to the 9/11 memorial in Grosvenor Square and posed there for photographers.

As well as the usual EDL St George’s flags there were also others on display, including one man with both Israeli and Portuguese flags and a Dutch Flag with the name of far-right Islamophobic Dutch politician Geert Wilders. He had been banned from visiting the UK in 2009, but the ban had been overturned on appeal.

One man proudly told the press that he had put a pigs head on a mosque, and later showed us his tattoos.

Another flag combined the US Flag and the Union Jack, with the message ‘Never Forget & Never Surrender‘ and some women carried wreaths which were laid at the memorial in Grosvenor Square with a two-minute silence before the marchers moved on for more photographs at the US Embassy.

The EDL the marched to the Saudi Embassy to show their feelings towards a country that is widely seen to have supported Muslim extremists and terrorist groups, including those involved in 9/11.

Here they burnt a number of black A4 sheets with white Islamic text which apparently included the name of Allah. There were also a number of clearly Islamophobic chants, including a blasphemous declaration of paedophilia.

I returned to the US Embassy where Anjem Choudary had arrived to protest with around a hundred extremist Muslims from Muslims Against Crusades.

They had called for the day to be made ‘International Burn The American Flag Day‘ after Florida pastor Terry Jones had threatened to burn a copy of the Qur’an on the anniversary. The regard the US flag as a symbol of unbelief and of war – military, ideological, social and economic – against the Muslim religion.

As I wrote:

“Muslims Against the Crusades (MAC) is widely seen as a successor to Islam4UK, banned in January 2010 and itself regarded, along with Ahl ul-Sunnah Wa al-Jamma (ASWJ) as a thinly veiled reincarnation of the previously banned al-Muhajiroun. Anjem Choudary, a UK born former solicitor was one of this organisation’s founders, and a leader of Islam4UK, ASWJ and MAC.”

The group, described by the Muslim Council of Britain as “a tiny, and utterly deplorable, extremist group” was finally banned in the UK in 2011. I still wonder why they were allowed to continue for so long.

The US flag they had brought proved to be fairly fireproof, although some paper copies and pictures of Pastor Jones burnt more freely, and with copious quantities of lighter fluid it did eventually melt and burn. I was in the front row of the large group of press surrounding the burning and got uncomfortably warm, though fortunately the wind was blowing the toxic smoke away from me.

Police had earlier led the EDL away towards Green Park Station, but some had managed to return to the US Embassy to protest against the extremist Muslims. At first they protested from behind the hedge to the Grosvenor Square Gardens and police cleared the area after a beer can was thrown into the centre of the MAC protest – fortunately no one was injured.

Police moved the EDL to a pen at a safe distance from the extremist Muslims and they continued their protest, shouting insults. The atmosphere was much more angry than in the morning, and at times there were threats made against the press as well as the MAC.

Police managed, with the assistance of some EDL stewards to keep the two groups apart, although I think there were some arrests. When I left an hour or so after the flag burning, police seemed very much in control, holding the EDL back while the MAC protest was continuing.

More on My London Diary:
EDL Remember 9/11
Muslims Against Crusades Burn US Flag
EDL Protest Against MAC

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Ninety from Narbeth, Pembrokeshire:

Ninety from Narbeth: Narberth (Arbeth to Welsh speakers) was until recently a place I had never hear of, a small town in Pembrokeshire with ancient origins. I spent a week staying there with a small group of friends at the start of September 2024, returning last Saturday.

Narbeth apparently grew up around the palace of a Welsh king and in the great collection of ancient Welsh stories preserved by oral tradition until first written down around 1350, the Mabinogion, is the chief palace of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed. There were ancient camps nearby and the Romans came – and went.

But it was the Normans who, having invaded England in 1066, a few years later turned their attention to Wales and left a great mark on the area, building more than 50 massive castles to invade and occupy the area. Thee wars here were a complex and changing situation and other castles were built by the Welsh to defend their land.

A castle was first built at Narbeth by the Normans around 1116, but rebuilt in stone in the following century. It formed a part of what is now called the Landsker Line, defending the territory they controlled against the Welsh. The castle is now in ruins but open to the public, though the buildings are fenced off for safety reasons.

The Landsker Line divided the largely English-speaking area of south Pembrokeshire, dominated by the Normans from Welsh-speaking Wales, and the area to the south of it was often called ‘Little England’.

Now only around a fifth of the roughly four thousand residents of Narberth are Welsh-speaking. For a town of its size it has a remarkable number of independent shops and particularly at weekends the place is crowded. Ten years ago The Guardian called it “a gastronomic hub for West Wales” and named it as “one of the liveliest, most likeable little towns in the UK.“

I can’t comment on the gastronomy, though I did help to cook some interesting meals for our small group staying there, but it does have a very fine shop making artisanal ice cream with some unusual flavours. And I only visited one of its many pubs, which was a very friendly place, though I just missed the live music there.

As well as more traditional shops, the town also has more than its share of arty shops and some with a hippy or ‘New Age’ vibe. And its certainly a very friendly place compared to suburban London and one of a number of locals we met in a pub shook my hand when I revealed one of my Grandmothers had come from Wales. I’m not surprised that Narberth was “named one of the best places to live in Wales in 2017“

It has an excellent local museum and of course a number of churches and chapels, though some now in other uses. These are among its 70 listed buildings, most of which I think are in the pictures I took, though many of the more interesting are unlisted.

It isn’t far to drive to many other attractions of the area – more castles, mills, the rugged coastal path and more sedate seaside resorts with some fine beaches. Friends took me to some of these but there were many more.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about Narberth is the railway station, around three-quarters of a mile from the centre of town. On the map the railway seems useful, but in reality there are too few trains to be of much use. The station building is now a joinery though Platform 1 (and only) still stands, with an announcement telling us that this was a request stop, and we should indicate clearly to the driver as the train approached that we wanted to board. Fortunately it did stop when we began our journey home.

All the pictures here are from Narberth town centre, and there are more on Facebook in the album ‘Ninety From Narbeth‘. I’ll make some later posts about some of the places in the area we were able to visit during our holiday.

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Netanyahu, Immigration & Shaker – 2015

Netanyahu, Immigration & Shaker: On Wednesday 9th September 2015 groups came to Downing Street both to protest against and to support the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu then making an official visit to David Cameron. And in Parliament Square there were protests supporting the parliamentary report on immigration detention which was being debated, as well as a weekly vigil calling for the release of Londoner Shaker Aamer, still then held in Guantanamo.

Netanyahu visit protests – Downing Street.

Over a thousand people had come to Downing Street to protest the official visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who they say should be arrested for war crimes in the attack on Gaza in 2014.

There were too many for the small penned area the police had allocated for the protest and many chose instead to stand in the area between the two carriageways, although police tried to clear the area.

A much smaller group who had come to support Israel were in another pen a short distnace down the road. They included supporters with a Union flag with the message UK CHRISTIANS LOVE ISRAEL.

Some of them had come with posters about other issues, including a woman holding a hand-written sign ‘THEY ARE CRUCIFYING CHRISTAINS IN IRAQ!’ But ISIS which has carried out such atrocities were encouraged by both Israel and the CIA and ISIS relies on Israeli money for the oil they smuggle out to Israel.

The pro-Israel supporters complained to police that they were not controlling the pro-Palestinian protesters, and one attempted to stop me photographing him as he did so. But I continued to photograph him.

By this time many from both sides were protesting on the pavement in front of Downing Street, and police had made a number of arrests, mainly of pro-Palestine activists. But others continued to complain to police.

Police managed to clear an area so that cars could still leave and enter Downing Street when the gates were opened, and people from both groups shouted at each other across the narrow divide. More police arrived and were able to keep this area clear.

Many protesters had remained on the far side of the road, and they were joined by anti-Zionist Neturei Karta orthodox Jews who held posters saying ‘State of “Israel” Do NOT Represent World Jewry’

Yet more police arrived and the protests continued with a great deal of noise from both sides. There were more complaints by the Zionists that a few of those at the protests were waving flags in support of the Lebanese Hezbollah. In 2008 the military wing of Hezbollah was proscribed but the parliamentary group which together with its allies had a majority in the Lebanese parliament was not – and both use the same flag.

So it was still legal to use the Hezbollah flag in 2015. But in 2019 Home Secretary Sajid Javid added Hezbollah’s political wing to the list of proscribed terrorist organisations making the flag now illegal to fly in Britain.

One of the pro-Israel protesters was holding a definitely legal Welsh flag, though I could not understand its relevance at this protest. The protest was still continuing very noisily when I left.

More on My London Diary:
Netanyahu visit protest – Free Palestine
Support for Israel & Netanyahu

Fight immigration detention MfJ tells MPs – Parliament Square

The Report of the Inquiry into the Use of Immigration Detention in the United Kingdom
by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees & the All Party Parliamentary Group on Migration was being debated in Parliament and Movement for Justice came to Parliament Square to support some of its conclusions and demand more radical action on immigration.

One of its key conclusions was that there should be a time limit of 28 days on immigration detention which is currently still indefinite. At least one person has been kept in our immigration prisons for three years (less one day) before being released, and none of those held know when or if they may be released or deported. They constantly face the risk of being forcibly deported to a country where their lives are at risk.

Some of those taking part in the protests had previously been held in detention centres for months or more, while MfJ were still calling for an end to the illegal ‘fast track’ system which is clearly designed to remove migrants and asylum seekers before they have a proper chance to prove their right to be here. They also called for a complete end to detention and immigration raids, the opening of the Calais border and an amnesty for migrants.

The report also called for “a whole-sale shift in approach, away from merely focusing on enforcement and towards quality engagement with individuals at all stages of their immigration process” which has been highly successful in other countries.

Needless to say, the Tory government failed to implement any of the changes suggested, and although Angela Rayner, now Deputy Prime Minister, was the only MP to come out and listen to the protest, there seems little chance of our Labour Government moving away from the current racist policies.

Fight immigration detention MfJ tells MPs

Shaker Aamer weekly vigils restart – Parliament Square

This was the first of a new series of weekly vigils opposite the Houses of Parliament calling for the release of Battersea resident Shaker Aamer, still held, abused and tortured in Guantanamo after more than 13 years despite never facing any charges and having been twice cleared for release.

Shaker Aamer weekly vigils restart

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Windrush & Climate – 2018

Windrush & Climate – On Saturday 8th September 2018 after photographing a protest against the continuing hounding of Windrush generation migrants to the UK in Brixton I went to a Climate Change protest outside Tate Modern.

Justice for Windrush descendants – Brixton

A rally and march hosted by Movement for Justice called for the Windrush scheme to be widened to include all families and descendants of the Windrush Generation and for an end to the racist hostile environment for all immigrants.

The Windrush scandal first came to public attention in 2017 and 2018 when we heard that hundreds of migrants including those who had been urged to come and help Britain rebuild after the Second World War and who were then given the right to live and work in this country permanently where being hounded by the Home Office and some had already been deported.

Much of the information came from the work of Guardian journalist Amelia Gentleman publishing the experiences of these people. The Home Office in 2012 under Theresa May had introduced a ‘Hostile Environment’ law which required people to produce at least one official document from every year they had lived in the UK to prove they had the right to stay here.

Many were of course unable to do this, and the Home Office itself had destroyed many of the official records which would have proved their case. Many were declared to be ‘undocumented migrants’ (or as the politicians and press racistly and inaccurately labelled them, ‘illegal immigrants’.

They “began to lose their access to housing, healthcare, bank accounts and driving licenses. Many were placed in immigration detention, prevented from travelling abroad and threatened with forcible removal, while others were deported to countries they hadn’t seen since they were children.“

The government promised to correct the matter and in May 2018 the then Home Secretary Saji Javid set up a ‘Windrush Lessons Learned Review’ under Wendy Williams. When published in 2020 it showed that the Windrush scandal was the deliberate and inevitable result of Tory government policies.

Home Secretary Priti Patel then said she accepted the reports recommendations but in 2023 Suella Braverman decided to ditch three of of them. In June 2024 the High Court ruled that her actions in abandoning the promise to establish a migrants’ commssioner and to increase the powers of the independent chief examiner of borders and immigration was unlawful.

The scandal continues, and the replacement by 2025 of physical residence permits by digital e-visas for the roughly half a million non-EU immigrants with leave to remain in the UK seems almost certain to generate a similar scandal.

After a rally in Windrush Square which included Eulalee, a Jamaican grandmother who has been fighting for 17 years to stay in the UK with her Windrush generation husband, daughter and grandchildren as well as others affected by the scandal there was a march around the centre of Brixton, with several stops for short speeches in the more crowded parts.

*Eulalee and Michael Groce on the march*

Also on the march was Michael Groce, poet, community worker and Green Party candidate as councillor in Brixton, holds a poster ‘Yes, It’s Racist’. The 1985 Brixton riots began after police shot and seriously wounded his mother, putting her in hospital for a year. Later they paid her over £500,000 in damages without admitting any liability.

On the railway bridge across Brixton Road was the graffitied message ‘CLAPHAM THAT WAY YOU 2D FLAT WHITE TEPID COLONIALIST WANKER”, with Brixton gentrification now taking away much of the unique character of the area where many who arrived on the Empire Windrush in 1948 settled after having been initially housed in a giant wartime underground shelter on Clapham Common.

After marching around the centre of Brixton spreading their message with megaphones and posters the campaigners returned for a further rally in Windrush Square.

More at Justice for Windrush descendants.

Worldwide Rise For Climate – Tate Modern

Climate Reality, a global and diverse group of activists, community leaders, organisers, scientists, storytellers and others united to act over global warming was supported by the UK Campaign Against Climate Change, Fossil Free UK and the Green Party in one of thousands of rallies around the world demanding urgent action by government leaders to leaders commit to a fossil free world that works for all of us.

They called for people to take personal actions to reduce their own contribution to climate change but more importantly to join together to press for action at local, national and international level.

In particular they called for the government to end its support for fracking and for local authorities to divest from fracking and fossil fuels.

Worldwide Rise For Climate

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No More Benefit Deaths – 2016

No More Benefit Deaths: On Wednesday 7th September 2016, the day of the opening ceremony for the Rio Paralympics, disablement campaigners demanded human rights for all disabled people and an end to the disastrous sanctions regime which has led to many deaths.

They called on Prime Minister Theresa May, newly appointed in July 2016 to make public the findings of the UN investigation into the UK for violations of Deaf and Disabled people’s rights, to scrap the Work Capability Assessment and commit to preventing future benefit-related deaths.

The UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities published its report in November 2016. It stated that the UK had committed “grave or systematic” violations of UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and in June 2017 the committee clarified the reasons behind their conclusions.

They stated that the breaches of the rights to independent living, work and employment and adequate standard of living under the convention were mainly caused by the policices introduced by Tory ministers at the DWP between 2010 and 2015. Some were grave violations, some systematic and others both grave and systematic.

The UN inquiry had been prompted by the research and lobbying of Disabled People Against Cuts, and the Disability News Service article included this quote from DPAC co-founder Linda Burnip who:

“pointed to actions such as cuts to social care, the impact of the work capability assessment – which has been linked by public health experts from the Universities of Liverpool and Oxford to hundreds of suicides between 2010 and 2013 – the hugely damaging introduction of personal independence payment and consequent cuts to support, the increased use of sanctions and the resulting deaths of benefit claimants, and the introduction of the bedroom tax.”

UN confirms that UK government’s treaty violations were both grave AND systematic

As Burnip stated, the government’s actions were “based on a deliberate intention to cause harm without any regard to the horrendous consequences for disabled people.”

The day on Wednesday 7th September 2016 began with a huge banner with the message ‘NO MORE BENEFITS DEATHS #DPAC” being displayed on the wall of the River Thames facing the riverside terrace of the Houses of Parliament.

After photographing this I hurried to Downing Street were there was a rally in on the opposite side of the street with speakers from DPAC, Winvisible, the Scottish Black Triangle Campaign and others including John Clark from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty who shared news of similar problems facing disabled people in Canada.

Gill Thompson spoke about her brother David Clapson, a diabetic ex-soldier died after his benefit was cut as he could not afford food or electricity to keep his insulin cool was there with a banner covered with the names and some photographs of around a hundred of the many who had died because of the DWP’s sanctions, cuts and scapegoating.

The protesters then lifted up the black coffin with white wreaths they had brought and began a march towards the Houses of Parliament.

As they came to Bridge Street the marchers took the police by surprise by turning towards the bridge. The giant banner which had earlier been displayed facing Parliament was now stretched across the road, blocking the bridge in both directions.

After several minutes police began trying to get people to move off the road warning them they are committing an offence and may be arrested. I was also threatened with arrest, despite showing my Press card. One carer who refused to move away from the wheelchair user he was looking after was arrested and taken to a police van.

Most of those in wheelchairs and mobility scooters refused to move or did so only after a long series of threats by police, who eventually managed to clear one carraigeway to allow traffic to move out of Westminster. But a group remained blocking traffic in the other direction until after almost two hours Paula Peters triumphantly announced the protest was ending and everyone left.

The new Labour government dropped key disablity rights pledges made by the party for its election manifesto, and since becoming the government has sidelined disabled people in its first King’s Speech. It seems unlikely that there will be any significant improvement for disabled people under Starmer, and further cuts now seem to be coming.

Many more pictures on My London Diary:
Giant Banner ‘No More Benefit Deaths
‘No More Benefit Deaths’ rally
DPAC block bridge over benefit deaths

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Stop The London Arms Fair – 2017

Stop The London Arms Fair: On Wednesday 6th September 2017 I was with protesters who were blocking the two roads leading to the Excel Centre on the side of the Royal Victoria Dock in Custom House, Newham.

Every two years the DSEI, the Defence & Security Equipment International exhibition takes place at the Excel Centre. This is the world’s largest arms fair, backed by the UK government , where arms companies and arms dealers sell weapons to countries around the world including many repressive regimes. The previous show in 2015 was found to be featuring numerous weapons prohibited under international laws.

The show has been condemned by the Mayor of London, Newham Council and the people who live in this area of East London, but still goes on. It came to the Excel Centre in 2001 and there have been protests against it since then, organised by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and many other groups.

Wikipedia quotes London Mayor Sadiq Khan in 2019: “London is a global city, which is home to individuals who have fled conflict and suffered as a consequence of arms and weapons like those exhibited at DSEI. In order to represent Londoners’ interests, I will take any opportunity available to prevent this event from taking place at the Royal Docks in future years.” Unfortunately he has had no success, and the 2025 show is already being advertised.

CAAT point out that among those official military and security delegations coming to the show are many from human rights abusing regimes including Egypt, the UAE, Democratic Republic of Congo. Arms sales to Saudi Arabia taking a major role in the war in Yemen by UK firms have been £1.9billion since the start of 2021, and overall sales to the coalition since the start of the war in 2015 have been around £18 billion.

Again Wikipeda states that “Amnesty International has criticised the event for selling weapons of torture and for providing weapons that have been traced to attacks on civilians.” You can still see their page on the 2015 arms fair, including a video . And in 2021 they found a company at the fair offering “waist chains and cuffs with leg cuffs“.

Protests at the Excel Centre in 2017 had begun on Monday 4th September when a protest camp was set up close to the Excel Centre. I’d gone there the following day to photograph ‘No Faith In War‘, a series of events organised by various faith groups.

I had returned on Wednesday 6th September when the protest theme was ‘Arms to Renewables – No to Nuclear‘ and there was music, singing, dancing, a free ‘bring and share’ picnic and a short theatrical performance urging that instead of arms industry and huge spending on Trident and on wars we should rather provide jobs in renewable energy technologies and spend the military budget on homes, schools, health and other social benefits.

During the day their were a series of lengthy lock-ons on the roads at both East and West gates blocking access to London’s ExCeL where lorries were arriving to set up the exhibition stands for arms companies. Over the six days of protests there were more than a hundred arrests – and in 2021 the Supreme Court ruled that four of those charged had a “lawful excuse” for their actions which were were “exercising their rights to free speech and assembly (under Article 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights)”.

The Supreme Court ruled that “protestors can still have a defence to a charge of wilful obstruction of the highway, even where there is a deliberate obstruction that has a real impact on other road users.” But each case had to be judged on its merits and on whether the conviction was “a proportionate response to the defendants’ actions” which in this case it was not. It seems clear to me – if not to the judge concerned – that the draconian sentences passed recently on the M25 protesters were not proportionate, and that his refusal to allow them to explain the reasons for their taking action was unlawful.

There are details and photographs of some of the events at the 2017 protests on My London Diary, including those from my later visits on the Thursday and Saturday. All the pictures here are from Wednesday 6th September. The final event on the following Tuesday when the arms show opened was a procession organised by East London Against Arms Fairs (ELAAF) carrying a white wreath with the message ‘Remember Victims of the Arms Trade’ around the Royal Victoria Dock.

No Faith in War DSEI Arms Fair protest
Protesters block DSEI arms fair entrances
Protest picnic & checkpoint at DSEI
DSEI Festival Morning at the East Gate
Festival of Resistance – DSEI West Gate
DSEI East Gate blocked
Wreath for victims of the arms trade

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Brexit, Inclusion London & Fracking – 2016

Brexit, Inclusion London & Fracking: Protests in Westminster I photographed on Monday 5th September 2016 were for and against Brexit, Disabled People Against Cuts who had been lobbying at Parliament over the Inclusion London report and a vigil by pagans against fracking.

Rival Brexit protests at Parliament

Parliament was debating a petition on the EU referendum signed by over 4 million people calling for a second referendum as there had only been a 52% vote in favour of leaving Europe, with 48% voting against. They argued that this was far too close for such a major constitutional change and at least a 60% vote should have been required for the referedum to be decisive.

Spiked magazine had organsed a protest by pro-Brexit campaigners in Old Palace Yard and they shouted loudly for Theresa May to ‘Invoke Article 50 Now!

A small group who wanted us to stay in Europe had come to Parliament Square where they held flags and banners.

Rival Brexit protests at Parliament

DPAC against cuts in care & support – Whitehall

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) had come to Parliament to lobby MPs and to present the Inclusion London report which had highlighted the disastrous effects of cutting care and support funding for personal assistance by the closure of the Independent Living Fund in 2015.

After the lobby they posed on the pavement outside Parliament for photographs and then on the road opposite.

before marching to Downing St.

In front of Downing Street the march came to a halt on the roadway.

Police directed traffic around them as they held a ‘Pop-Up Street theatre‘ performance there.

There were short speeches, poetry and songs from some of the DPAC members, showcasing the creativity of disabled people and the contribution they can make to society with proper support.

Others talked about their physical and mental health problems and the difficulties that they had suffered because of the closure of the Independent Living Fund.

DPAC were supported by other groups and individuals including Winvisible.

The protest was part of a series of protests at the same time as the Rio Paralympics, and a large banner read ‘Rights Not Games’.

More on My London Diary at DPAC against cuts in care & support.

Druids vigil against fracking – Whitehall

On the other side of Whitehall opposite Downing Street pagans were staging a 24 hour vigil against fracking.

Pagans believe that nature is sacred and find spiritual meanings in natural cycles of birth, growth and death and Druidic and other rituals are linked to the seasons. Humans, animals, trees, plants and all of the earth are part of nature, and fracking disrupts the natural order.

A banner with a tree had the message ‘Druids against Fracking – One (heart) for Mother Earth‘ while another had more esoteric symbols with the message ‘We are Nature protecting ourselves‘. One of the Druids was wearing a t-shirt with the sigil ‘The Warriors Call‘, a magic symbol widely adopted as an anti-fracking device.

Druids vigil against fracking

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Climate Rush Protest Heathrow – 2009

Climate Rush Protest Heathrow: On 4th September 2009 I joined Climate Rush at Sipson, one of the villages immediately north of Heathrow under threat from the plans to build a third runway.

Their 3 day stay here was their first stop on a one month tour of South West England and they were staying at the Sipson ‘Airplot’, bought by Greenpeace in what was planned to be the centre of the new runway. The legal owners of the plot were now “Oscar winning actress Emma Thompson, comedian Alistair McGowan and prospective Tory parliamentary candidate Zac Goldsmith and Greenpeace UK.”

Greenpeace had invited others to sign up to become ‘beneficial owners’ of small 1 metre square plots within the site and I was among the many who did so. They had hoped this would make it harder for the developers as they thought we would all need to be served with legal notices for the development to go ahead.

I’d long been opposed to the expansion of Heathrow. It remains clear that this is an airport that was set up in the wrong place, to close to London in a fairly densely populated area and with flight paths over the centre of London. And with the increasing threat of climate change and global extinction one of the last things we should be doing is increasing the carbon emissions and pollution from aviation; instead we should be looking at ways to cut down both the number of flights and the pollution from traffic and congestion in the area surrounding the airport.

I’ve lived most of my life close to Heathrow. As I wrote on My London Diary:

“I grew up under the main flight path in use for landing a couple of miles from touchdown. Although I was a plane spotter at an early age, all of us living there felt the disruption it caused in our lives, even back in the 1950s.

My teachers often had to stop and wait in mid-sentence for a plane to go over. We could often smell the fuel, and see and feel the oily grime although I don’t think the term “pollution” had then really entered normal vocabulary.

At a deeper level, I still sometimes have nightmares about planes going over in flames (as they sometimes did) and crashes, although since Terminal 4 blocked one of the existing runways (Heathrow was built with six though only two are now used) thankfully planes no longer shake my present house as they come in low on landing or take off. “

I wrote more about this back in 2009, as well as the continuing history of lies and deceit by which the airport was established and has since grown and grown. And also about the area as it was before the airport, rich agricultural land with market gardens and orchards. Of course I didn’t know it myself but my father did and cycled through it.

In the 1950s on my own bikes I cycled through the villages which would be destroyed by a third runway, particularly Harmondsworth which has retained much of its original charm, with a village green with a pub and church and, a few yards away, one of the finest medieval tithe barns (2 pictures at bottom of this page.) There is much more to read on My London Diary.

Climate Rush had organised a procession from the Sipson Airplot, led by local residents from NoTRAG, though most were at work today – more were expected later in the day and at the ‘Celebration of Community Resistance’ at Sipson the following day. “Suffragettes (including a ‘token’ male) wearing ‘Deeds Not Words ‘ and ‘Climate Rush’ red sashes carried three banners, Justice, Equity and Truth; Equity traveled on a horse-drawn cart along with a violinist. “

The banners read:
JUSTICE: Rich Countries must recognise historic responsibility for climate change.
EQUITY: Emission quotas must be per capita; the rich have no more right to pollute than the poor.
TRUTH: Emission caps must be set in line with the latest climate science.

The procession went down the Heathrow and along the Northern Perimeter Road beside the perimeter fence, where we were joined by a police car, which stopped traffic for us before retuning to the Airplot.

There it was time to rest, and to eat some of the apples from the side of the plot. “A couple of the suffragettes climbed a tree to pick some more, but they turned out to be cookers. The kettle had been hanging over the embers of a wood fire and a few more sticks soon brought it to the boil for tea.”

I’d come to Sipson on the bike which I had ridden through there fifty years earlier – a present on my thirteenth birthday – and had got a puncture just a few hundred yards short of my destination.

“I sat down to mend my puncture. Unfortunately I its a while since I checked the repair kit in my pannier, and having found two largish holes found I didn’t have a large enough patch to cover the two of them and the rubber solution had dried up. It was time for me to walk the six miles home.”

More about Heathrow and the procession at Climate Rush Procession Heathrow.
And on the following day, 5th September 2009:
Climate Rush On the Run! Sipson which has more about Climate Rush, and
Celebration of Community Resistance

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