2016 | >Re-PHOTO

UN Anti-Racism Day & IDS Gone – 2016

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.

Stand Up to Racism – Refugees Welcome march

Refugees Welcome Rally

Trafalgar Square

*Marcia Rigg whose brother Sean Rigg was killed by Brixton police in 2008,*

A long list of speakers came to the microphone in Trafalgar Square and I photographed most although I left before the end of the rally.

There are pictures of the following as well as Marcia Rigg on My London Diary:

Vanessa Redgrave;
Sabby Dhalu of Stand up to Racism;
Maz Saleem, daughter of Mohammed Saleem killed in a racist attack;
Stephanie Lightfoot, Bennett Co-Chair, United Friends and Families;
Dave Ward CWU General Secretary;
Sally Hunt UCU General Secretary;
Christine Blower NUT General Secretary;
Gary Younge Journalist;
Gloria Mills, Chair of the TUC Race Relations Committee;
Marilyn Reed, the mother of Sarah Reed who died in Holloway Prison;
Lee Jasper, Movement Against Xenophobia and BARAC;
Jeremy Hardy, Comedian;
Diane Abbott MP;
Michael Rosen Children’s novelist and poet;
Claude Moraes MEP;
Jean Lambert MEP;
Amna, a refugee from Mosul, Iraq;
Talha Ahmad National Council member,Muslim Council of Britain

Refugees Welcome Rally

Australians Protest on UN Anti-Racism Day

Australia House

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.

Australians protest on UN Anti-Racism day

DPAC’s ‘IDS Resignation Party’

Parliament Square

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“.

DPAC’s ‘IDS Resignation Party’

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Stop Trident March & Rally – 2016

Stop Trident March & Rally: Britain first deployed submarines carrying nuclear missiles in the Polaris programme from 1968, and these were replace by Trident in 1994-6. In 2006 Tony Blair won a vote on the principle of renewing the Trident system in the House of Commons with the support of the Tory opposition, though 95 Labour MPs rebelled.

Research into the replacement continued and this march came a few months before a House of Commons vote in July 2016. Again there was a significant Labour revolt, with 41 MPs voting against and 41 not voting, but 140 Labour MPs backed the Conservatives and it passed by a large majority.

Around 60,000 marched through London on Saturday 27th Feb 2016 to a mass rally in Trafalgar Square against the plans to replace the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons at a cost of £180 billion or more.

They say Trident is immoral and using it would cause catastrophic global damage with a global nuclear war possibly bringing all human life on the planet to an end. These weapons of mass destruction don’t keep us safe, though they do hugely enrich the arms companies and their shareholders.

Many argued that the use of nuclear weapons was illegal under international law, and a year after the decision to update Trident was taken the UN adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

*Nicola Sturgeon takes a ‘selfie’ of herself with Kate Hudson*

So far 74 countries have signed up to the TPNW which “prohibits the development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons” and for those already possessing them it gives “a time-bound framework for negotiations leading to the verified and irreversible elimination” of their nuclear weapons.

Of course no countries which currently have nuclear weapons have so far signed the treaty, and Britain continues on its program to extend its capabilities. In June 2025 Keir Starmer announced the RAF is to buy at least 12 new F-35A fighter jets which can drop nuclear bombs as a part of its commitment to NATO.

As well as increasing the risk of nuclear war, these new nuclear aircraft hugely divert more much needed money from essential spending on services like the NHS, schools and housing.

Costs of the Trident replacement over its 30 year lifetime are currently estimated to be at least £205 billion and the MoD estimate for the F-35 programme of £57 billion is bound to be subject to the usual huge cost overruns.

There was a long list of speakers at the rally, too many to list here, and I think I photographed most or all of them and put them on-line.

You can read more about the 2016 march and see many more pictures from the march and the rally on My London Diary at Stop Trident Rally and Stop Trident March.

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End NHS Privatisation, Kurds Call For Democracy – 2016

End NHS Privatisation, Kurds Call For Democracy: On Friday 4th November 2016 I photographed two unrelated protests. Opposite Parliament a rally supported the second reading of Labour MP Margaret Greenwood’s NHS Bill to end the creeping privatisation of our National Health Service, and from there I joined hundreds of Kurds as they marched through Parliament Square on their way to protest at the Turkish Embassy follow the arrest of leaders and MPs of the pro-Kurdish oppposition in Turkey earlier that morning.

Bill to reverse NHS Privatisation

Old Palace Yard, Westminster

End NHS Privatisation, Kurds Call For Democracy - 2016 — *Larry Sanders, Green Party Health spokesperson and Bernie’s brother speaking*

Labour MP Margaret Greenwood’s NHS Bill which proposes to fully restore the NHS as an accountable public service and to prevent further marketisation at the hands of the Tories stood little chance of actually being debated that day as it was low on the list. Of course had no chance of ever becoming law against a government and opposition majority including many MPs receiving donations or having interests in private healthcare.

The privatisation of NHS services was taking place under New Labour before the Tories came to power in the 2010 coalition but was accelerated by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 which allowed NHS services to be contracted out to ‘any qualified provider‘, including private companies – and increasingly Clinical Commissioning Groups have been under pressure to outsource.

In 2016 Sustainability and Transformation Plans were being developed in private for 44 areas covering the whole of England to be in place by Christmas. The NHS England director of strategy Michael McConnell had said that these STPs offer private sector companies an “enormous opportunity” but critics said that they could mean the end of the NHS as we have known it.

Private healthcare is parasitic on the NHS. Their contracts cherry-pick the more straightforward areas of provision – such as my annual diabetic eye photographs – while leaving the more difficult areas to the public sector. And where complications do happen, the private NHS badged providers are quick to pass on patients to the real NHS as they do not have the trained staff or resources to deal with them.

Only the NHS is there to cope with accidents and emergencies – the private sector offers no A&E services. And it is only the NHS that trains the doctors and other medical staff that keeps the private hospitals and the services that private healthcare contracts from the NHS running.

Of course there is no chance of Parliament reversing this trend while private healthcare makes huge donations to politicians to pursue their interests. ‘Every Doctor ‘ reported in April 2025 that “The Labour Party received four times as much in donations from donors connected to private healthcare than all other political parties combined … in 2023-2025“. Health Minister Wes Streeting alone has received “almost £167,000 from individuals and companies with ties to the private healthcare sector.” The total amount of donations to politicians from people and companies involved in private healthcare in that two year period was more than £2.7 million.

On Byline Times you can read a 2021 investigation “The Conservative Party’s Private Healthcare Patrons” which explores “the financial ties between Conservative MPs and private health companies“. It’s a remarkable list of MPs and Tory Peers with details of their connections and the amounts involved.

Although the Byline Times article is careful to point out that “There is no evidence that any of the companies have benefited due to their relationships with Conservative MPs or donors” it is hard to believe that these and the other donations have had no influence on the increasing takeover of NHS services by private healthcare companies. And although there do seem to be clear possibilities of conflicts of interest so far as I am aware no MP or Peer has ever abstained from a vote because of this.

The MP’s code of conduct is extremely weak on this matter, and simply relies on MPs to do the right thing – “Members must base their conduct on consideration of the public interest. They must avoid conflict between personal and public interest. If there is any conflict between the two, they must resolve it at once in favour of the public interest.”

This is one of the areas which have caused the current high levels of distrust of politics and politicians. We need much tighter controls on lobbying, an end the system which allows large political donations in cash or kind to MPs, and ensure that MPs who have conflicts of interest abstain from voting on these issues. MPs are paid to represent their constituents, not healthcare companies and not their own financial interests.

More about the protest on My London Diary at Bill to reverse NHS Privatisation

Kurds march for Peace & Democracy

I left the protest at Parliament when over 500 Kurds marched into Parliament Square protesting noisily against the arrest early that morning of two leaders of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP), along with at least 11 MPs.

They sat down briefly on the road in front of Parliament on their way to the Turkish Embassy in Belgrave Square.

At Belgrave Square police tried to stop them and keep them on the opposite side of the road to the Embassy, but they simply walked around the police line and crowded on the pavement and road in front of the Embassy door.

Eventually the police abandoned their attempts to push the protesters back and simply stood several lines deep in front of the doorway while the protest continued.

The rain came down heavily and we were all getting wet but the noisy protest and speeches continued. Eventually the protesters moved away from the embassy and I left them.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Kurds march for Peace & Democracy.

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Black Lives Matter London – 2016

Black Lives Matter London: Although there is a long history of Black struggles against racism in Britain the Black Lives Matter movement with its hashtag #BlackLivesMatter only really became established here in 2016, three years after it was first formed in the US in 2013.

This protest, on Friday 5th August 2016, five years and a day after the killing of Mark Duggan by police in 2011, along with those at Heathrow and in Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham were part of a ‘National Shutdown‘ which marked the emergence of Black Lives Matter UK.

The rally took place in Altab Ali Park on Whitechapel Road. Altab Ali, a Bangladeshi textile worker was stabbed to death in a racist attack by three teenagers in the adjoining street on 4th May 1978. In 1998 the park, formerly St Mary’s Park, was renamed in his memory.

"The event was called by BLMUK, a community movement of activists from across the UK who believe deeply that #BlackLivesMatter but are not affiliated with any political party. They called for justice and an end to racialised sexism, classism and homophobia and a new politics based on community defence and resilience."

Among those taking part in the rally were activists from Stand Up to Racism, from families of Sheik Bayou and Sean Rigg who had been killed by the police as well as Stephanie Lightfoot-Bennett whose twin brother Leon Patterson was battered to death by police in a Stockport cell in 1992, Movement for Justice and Sisters Uncut.

There were speeches from the various groups including BLMUK and from NUS President Malia Bouattia before the rally split into large groups from North, South, East and West London to discuss further actions.

Sisters Uncut set up flowers and candles in Altab Ali Park in East London to commemorate the many UK victims of state violence, including Duggan, Sarah Reed, Mzee Mohammed, Jermaine Baker, Sean Rigg, Leon Patterson, Kingsley Burrell and over 1500 others, disproportionately black, since 1990.

I left the rally before the end, when protesters blocked Whitechapel Road outside the park and some went on to block other roads in East London

More pictures on My London Diary at Black Lives Matter London.

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Housing and Planning Bill March – 2016

Housing and Planning Bill March: On Saturday 30th January 2016 housing activists including some local councillors and housing activist groups mainly from South London including Class War marched from the Imperial War Museum to Downing St in a protest organised by Lambeth Housing Activists against the Housing and Planning Bill.

They say the bill will have a particularly large impact in London and greatly worsen the already acute housing crisis here.

Speeches at the rally before the march in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park at the side of the Imperial War Museum by Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett and an number of housing activists including Simon Elmer of Architects for Social Housing were warmly applauded.

But there was one exception; when Southwark Council Cabinet Member for Housing Richard Livingstone the atmosphere changed, with boos and loud heckling from several people in the crowd including Elmer.

The arguments continued in the crowd after Livingstone had left the platform with Elmer pointing out the scandal over the demolition of the Heygate Estate and now the Aylesbury estate, where thousands of council homes have been demolished and few of the promises made by Southwark Council have been kept.

Financially and morally Heygate was a scandal, with the council making derisory offers of compensation to leaseholders, far less than the value of comparable properties in the area and a huge loss of social housing, while getting rid of a huge public asset at a fraction of its true value. And since it was something the council seemed determined to repeat, and it is not surprising that feelings ran high.

Rather to the surprise of many the march set off walking in the opposite direction to its final destination of Downing Street, and it soon became clear that we were on a tour of Lambeth rather than taking a direct route.

“Class War decided to liven things up a little, first by dancing along the street singing the ‘Lambeth Walk’ and then by rushing across the pavement towards a large estate agency.

Police formed a line to stop them entering and they stood outside for some minutes with their banners – the field of crosses with the message ‘We have found new homes of for the rich’ and the Lucy Parsons banner with its quotation “We must devastate the avenues where the wealthy live” before rejoining the march.”

For much of the march Lisa Mackenzie who had stood at Class War’s candidate in the 2015 General Election against Iain Duncan Smith in Chingford stood in front of the banners waving a plastic trident with a small banner ‘This Bill is the end of Council Housing’ with its second message an image of David Cameron and the alternative text ‘Bell End’. At times she donned a face mask of Smith.

Eventually the march reached Downing Street where police tried to direct them to the opposite side of Whitehall, but the marchers walked past them and crossed back to protest outside the gates, blocking traffic on Whitehall.

Here there were several groups listening to speakers and a samba band playing. Eventually police persuaded most of them to leave the road and I left for home.

More pictures at Housing and Planning Bill March.

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PIP, NHS, Trident & Cleaners – 2016

PIP, NHS, Trident & Cleaners: Wednesday 13th July 2016 was a busy day for me, covering two protests in the ‘#PIPFightback’ National Day of Action against the Personal Independence Payments, a rally in favour of a parliamentary bill to stop the ongoing privatisation of the NHS, a party against plans to spend huge amounts on new nuclear weapons and ending with a rally supporting cleaners in the longest running industrial dispute in the history of the City of London.

PIP Fightback – Vauxhall & Westminster

On this day there were around 20 actions by disabled protesters and their supporters as a ‘#PIPFightback’ National Day of Action against PIP, the Personal Independence Payments which have been a totally inadequate replacement for the Disabled Living Allowance which had previously provided support to enable disabled people to work and live on more even terms with the rest of the community.

I began at the Vauxhall PIP Consultation Centre in Vauxhall where ATOS carry out sham Personal Independence Payments ‘assessments’ on behalf of the DWP. These are carried out without without proper consideration of medical evidence and with ATOS haing a financial incentive to fail claimants.

Many genuine claimants have lost essential benefits for months before these are restored by tribunals on appeal. The temporary loss of finance has resulted in some being taken into hospitals and some commiting suicide.

Other claimants lose benefits as job centres ‘sanction’ them, often for trivial or unfair reasons such as arriving late for interviews due to bus or train delays – or because they have not received a letter about the appointment.

Among those taking part in this protest was Gill Thompson, whose brother David Clapson, a diabetic ex-soldier died in July 2013 after his benefits were ‘sanctioned’. He was left starving without money for food or electricity to keep the fridge containing his insulin running. She carried a banner with the names and a few pictures of around 100 claimants known to have died because of sanctions. This appears to be a relatively small fraction of the total which runs into thousands.

Later I joined a larger protest with members of the Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN), Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and Winvisible (Women with Invisible and Visible Disabilities) and others in Westminster outside the Victoria Street offices of Capita who also carry out these shoddy assessments.

There were speeches on the pavement there before the protesters moved onto the busy road blocking traffic in both directions, though they quickly moved aside to let a ambulance through.

After a few minutes Paula Peters of DPAC announced it was time to move on and the protesters marched along the road past the Met Police HQ at New Scotland Yard and on the the DWP offices at Caxton House.

Here they blocked the road for some more speeches before moving on to Parliament where there was another short rally on the road before they moved on to the media village on College Green where politicians were being interviewed on TV over the appointment of a new Prime Minister, Theresa May.

Police blocked them from going onto the Green, but soon some went past them and refused police requests to move; eventually they were allowed to stand on a path in the middle of the area. Although all the TV crews present could see and hear the protest, only one or two bothered to come across and find out what was happening – and I think these were from foreign news agencies.

Disabled PIP Fightback blocks Westminster
PIP Fightback at Vauxhall

NHS Bill protest at Parliament

Protesters from various campaigns to save the NHS held a protest in support as Labour MP for Wirral West Margaret Greenwood presented a ‘Ten Minute Rule Bill’ with cross-party support to stop the privatisation of the NHS and return it to its founding principles. Labour Shadow Health Secretary Diane Abbott came out to speak in support at the protest.

More pictures: NHS Bill protest at Parliament

Trident Mad Hatters Tea Party – Parliament Sq

CND members were lobbying MPs at Parliament against plans to replace Trident at a cost of at least £205 billion.

And on the square facing the Houses of Parliament was a ‘Mad Hatters Tea Party’, as well as Christians with placards stating the opposition by churches of the different denominations to the replacement.

Trident Mad Hatters Tea Party

Solidarity for Wood St cleaners – City of London

The strike by cleaners at the 100 Wood St offices managed by CBRE was now the longest running industrial dispute in the history of the City of London.

The cleaners belong to the United Voices of the World union and are employed by anti-union cleaning contractor Thames Cleaning.

Unite the Resistance, the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, Class War and others had come to support the United Voices of the World. After a rally opposite the Wood Street offices, then marched around the block and then went on hold a rally blocking the street outside the CBRE offices at St Martin’s Court.

Solidarity for Wood St cleaners

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Pride and Migrant Rights & Anti-Racist Pride 2016

Pride and Migrant Rights & Anti-Racist Pride: Saturday 25th June was I think the last time that Pride was an open event where people who wanted to take part in Pride as a protest could just turn up and join in.

When I first photographed Pride in 1993 it was much smaller and very definitely a protest. Over the years it has become a parade with many corporate groups taking part and dominating the event attracting huge audiences to watch it on the route through the West End.

And now to be in the parade you need a wristband, free for LGBT+ Community Groups but cotsing between £7.50 and £35 for others – and the media centre is insistent we call it Pride in London rather than ‘London Pride’ or ‘gay pride’, hashtag #PrideInLondon.

I can’t remember if I had bothered to get official accreditation for the event in 2016, I certainly did some years and suspect by 2016 it was needed to be able to walk around and take photographs as people were preparing for the parade. And they wanted to be photographed.

In my pictures I concentrated on those who I felt were continuing the tradition of Pride as a protest, including many I had photographed at other protests. But there were others I couldn’t ignore.

I left the official area where the parade was setting up with its corporate floats and walked down Oxford Street to where people were meeting for a Migrant Rights and Anti-Racist Pride march to join the main parade.

Movement for Justice who had organised this were joined by other protesters including London in Solidarity with Istanbul LGBTI Pride protesting the banning of Istanbul Pride, Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants and other protesters who feel the official event has been taken over by corporate sponsors such as Barclays and BAE systems and is a parade rather than a protest, no longer representing its roots.

They marched up Oxford Street and Regent Street past the front of the main parade and went to its rear where they joined other protest groups relegated to the extreme end of the Pride parade. They tried to do this again the following year but were prevented by Pride stewards and ended up maching ahead of the main procession past cheering crowds along the main route.

There are many more pictures on My London Diary
Pride London 2016
Migrant Rights & Anti-Racist Pride

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The Day After The Brexit Vote – 2016

The Day After The Brexit Vote – Defend All migrants. On Friday 24th June 2016 almost half the nation woke up to hear with shock and some measure of disbelief to hear the news that a small majority had voted in favour of leaving Europe.

In any sensible democracy the result of 52% to 48% in an advisory referendum would not have been sufficient to cause such a major constitutional change, but Prime Minister David Cameron had stupidly promised to abide by the result and so we were now en route to Brexit.

Cameron had been confident that he would win the referendum with a vote to remain but he had severely underestimated the depths of lying and misrepresentation that the Leave campaign would sink to, with some of the leading figures likely to make huge personal profits from the break.

Brexit of course needn’t have been the major disaster it has been. We could have retained a much closer relationship with Europe, our largest trading partner. It needed the total incompetence of Boris Johnson to get us the worst of all deals, not least because he and his negotiators simply did not understand what negotiation meant, with the politicians largely restricting themselves to making clearly impossible demands and then blaming Europe.

I don’t expect we will return to Europe during my lifetime, but I hope the next government will make some sensible moves to restore our relationships, although rather avoiding the subject in the current election campaign. But surely we cannot continue being unable to staff our care and medical sectors and with crops rotting unpicked on the fields. And we do need at least some of those plumbers, electricians and other tradesmen.

The Leave campaign reached new lows with things like that £350 million on the side of a bus, which everyone who made the slightest investigation knew was a lie. But the media spread it around with some suggesting it was perhaps not correct, while all should have been deriding it as nonsense. And it was a figure that stuck in many peoples’ minds.

Immigration was an issue that both sides failed on – and at times Remain seemed determined to try and outflank Leave on the right suggesting racist policies. Migrants were attacked and scapegoated not only by both Remain and Leave campaigns but by all our mainstream parties and media over more than 20 years, stoking up hatred by insisting immigrants are a “problem”.

Migration has been and will remain vital to the growth of our economy, as well as enriching our cultural life. Walk through our high streets or page through the TV schedules and cross out the immigrants and the descendants of post-war immigration and what you would be left would be limited and rather boring.

Senior Conservatives are even proposing that we should leave the European Convention on Human Rights so they can deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, and although Labour has said it will end this policy it has not yet put forward plans for safe routes for asylum seekers.

The protest on 24th June by anarchists and socialists against racism and fascist violence had been some planned weeks in advance, called by Movement for Justice, rs21, London Antifascists and Jewdas, and supported by other groups including Brick Lane Debates, National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC), Right to Remain, Radical Assembly, Clapton Ultras, the Antiuniversity, English collective of prostitutes, sex workers open university, lesbians and gays support the migrants, Razem Londyn, London Anarchist Federation, Kent anti-racist network, dywizjon 161, colectivo anticapitalista Londres and Plan C London as well as others who brought banners and many individuals.

A camera team of three working for a right-wing US website arrived and tried to provoke groups in the crowd with silly questions and appearing to gloat over the Brexit decision. Eventually police stepped in to calm things and made sure the group left.

After a number of speeches the protesters set off to march on a roundabout route through the east of the city on their way to protest outside News International in Southwark. But I think they veered off course whenever it looked likely that the large police presence might try to kettle them. Eventually I got fed up with walking and went home.

More on the protest with many more pictures on My London Diary: Defend All Migrants.

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Rip Down the Ripper Facade! – 2016

Rip Down the Ripper Facade! On Sunday 19th June 2016 after the ‘Jack the Ripper Museum’ tourist attraction on Cable St had not yet complied with the planning decision against its facade and shutter, Class War and supporters, including London Fourth Wave Feminists in cat masks, protested outside with toy plastic hammers offering to take it down for them.

The so-called museum is a tacky tourist attraction that glorifies the killing of working class women but got planning permission and attracted support for promising to provide a museum promoting the history of East End women.

Before going to the protest I’d been to a temporary exhibition being held in nearby St George in the East church, which shows some of the real history of women in the area, and was rather more interesting than the gory speculation for prurient tourists in the shop.

I photographed the Class War protesters, led by women carrying the Class War Womens Death Brigade banner as they marched to the shop. Several were carrying inflatable plastic hammers but the threat to remove the shutters was purely symbolic.

They crowded around the facade with their banner and several stuck Class War Womens Death Brigade stickers on the facade where police were protecting the doorway and stopping them from entering.

Several black-clad protesters then arrived and the scene was enveloped in bright red smoke.

I moved back both because taking pictures inside the smoke seldom works very well and also the smoke was getting in my lungs and it didn’t feel good.

Unlike at previous protests there was no sign of the shop owner, but the two women staff he had employed to run the shop watched out of the windows. But one of the protesters was wearing a mask of his face.

London Fourth Wave Feminists were wearing cat masks but also held posters expressing their opposition to the shop and calling for an end to male violence against women.

There had been a billboard opposite the shop which advertising the real exhibition about the lives of East End women but this had been vandalised, perhaps by friends of the ‘museum’.

It wasn’t then clear when or how (or even if) Tower Hamlets council intended to enforce their planning decision, and their stated opposition to the grisly shop seems to have been rather half-hearted.

Although police had come to protect the shop against this protest, and had stopped any of the protesters from entering, they had largely stood and watched, and at times some officers appeared rather amused by what was happening. By the time the protest finished the windows were fairly well covered by stickers and egg had been thrown onto one of the signs the shop had been asked to remove.

More pictures on My London Diary at Rip Down the Ripper Facade!

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Axe the Draxosaurus – 2016

Axe the Draxosaurus – On Wedesday 20th April 2016 environmental activists protested outside the AGM of Drax Plc at Grocer’s Hall next to the Bank of England in the heart of the City of London. Drax power station near Selby in Yorkshire used to be the UK’s biggest coal-fired power station, but since 2012 has become the world’s biggest wood-burning plant, and the company Drax Plc has become the second largest producer of wood pellets in the world

Drax power station now emits more CO2 than any other plant in the UK, and it does so with the aid of a huge subsidy from our UK electricity bills, almost £1 billion in 2021.

It get subsidised by the UK Government as part of the plan to decarbonise electricity generation despite the evidence from scientists around the world that the burning of forest wood for energy increases carbon emissions and is incompatible with the attempt to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

The subsidies that Drax receives increase our electricity bills and should be going to expand truly renewable energy sources such as wind, wave and solar energy. Instead they are paying Drax to pollute and pay out large dividends to their shareholders.

Sourcing the wood to burn at Drax – and for them to sell to other wood-burning plants is also a social and environmental disaster. Much of the wood comes from Drax’s pellet mills using large mmonoculture pine plantations in Southeastern USA, large sterile forest areas with little or no wildlife which have been expanded greatly in area, in part by the total clearance of areas of ancient forest.

Also in the USA, Drax buys pellets from Enviva, the world’s largest pellet producer which has come under criticism for its clearcut felling of US coastal hardwood forests.

Drax has also been criticised by environmentalists for its clear cutting of ancient forests in Canada, and its Portuguese supplier of pellets has been found to have sourced trees from nature reserves. And logging for wood pellets for Drax is also destroying ancient forests in Estonia and Latvia.

The amount of wood burned at Drax is huge – 6.4 million tonnes in 2022 – and will have involved the cutting down of twice that mass of trees. It is more than the entire UK wood production – but only supplies less than one hundredth of our energy needs.

Drax is now attempting to claim further subsidies for its BECCS (Bioenergy With Carbon Capture And Storage) project which seems very unlikely to be able to capture any significant amount of its huge annual CO2 output. It would obviously be far better simply to stop burning wood and turn to truly renewable power sources.

The protest in 2016 was organised by Biofuelwatch on whose web site you can find more a detailed briefing about Drax and why it is vital to end the subsidies for its polluting and environmentally destructive activities.

You can find information on the Axe Drax page about the trial of the #DRAX2 arrested after paint was sprayed on the government department supporting the subisdies to Drax – it begins at Southwark Crown Court on April 22nd 2024. And on August 8-13th 2024 Reclaim the Power is holding a mass protest camp for climate justice “targeting Drax – the biggest emitter in the UK, the world’s biggest burner of trees and a key driver of environmental racism.”

Drax AGM Biomass opposition

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