Posts Tagged ‘Boris Johnson’

Kick Boris out of Uxbridge – 2019

Thursday, November 16th, 2023

Kick Boris out of Uxbridge – When Boris Johnson was coming to the end of his wrecking spell as Mayor of London he decided he wanted to confer the same benefit on the country and the first step in that was to become an MP again. So in the 2015 election he was elected as the member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, a safe Tory seat on the edge of West London.

Anarchists came to join the FCKBoris protest on Saturday 16th November 2019

He got roughly the same percentage of votes – just over 50% – there in 2017, but the Labour candidate managed to cut his majority considerably, and there were hopes in 2019 that this trend might continue. Unfortunately it didn’t and Johnson increased his percentage of the vote by 1.8% while the Labour vote went down by a little more.

Kick Boris out of Uxbridge

After Johnson’s resignation the by election there in 2023 was a close run thing, with the Tory vote down 7.5% and Labour’s up by 5.6% and the Tory candidate just scraping in with a majority of 495. Most commentators saw the result as being caused by the unpopularity of London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ low emission zone extension which was to include the area later in the year overcoming the incredible unpopularity of the Tory government.

Kick Boris out of Uxbridge

But in 2019, many felt Labour had a chance in what had for many years been a safe Tory seat with a solid blue vote of around 50%. And among them were a group who called themselves FCKBoris who came to campaign there against him on Saturday 16th November 2019.

Kick Boris out of Uxbridge

I went there to photograph them and others went to protest with them. Uxbridge is only around 7 miles from where I live, but it isn’t a place I often visit, not least because public transport on the edges of London isn’t too hot. There are no direct links and my fastest route is on a bicycle. But I was feeling lazy and instead took three buses, with waits at each change. Two years later we now have a sightly faster service, at least in theory.

Arriving in Uxbridge I came across a fairly small group of people wearing orange woolly hats and handing out fliers with the message ‘Boris Doesn’t Want You to Vote…’ and telling people who were not registered how to get themselves on the electoral roll.

A few of London’s anarchists had travelled out from London to join them, bringing posters encouraging people not to vote but instead to revolt and some with photographs of the Bullingdon Club and the message ‘FUCK OFF BACK TO ETON’ – Johnson’s old school only a few miles away.

There were just a few other placards and banners, and also an open-top bus wth a large banner with the message #KICKBORISOUT from which a hefty sound system pumped out a rhythm that kept many of the campaigners dancing both on the street and on the top of the bus where I joined them briefly.

But the effectiveness of the bus was greatly reduced by the pedestrianisation of much of the town centre with an impenetrable one-way system and soon a police officer came along to tell the driver very politely that he couldn’t park where he was. And soon the bus and protesters set off slowly to march to Brunel University, accompanied by a handful of police.

And it was perhaps the university and its students which was the main focus of the campaign with the message directed more at them. Although students can register to vote both at home and where they live during the universtiy term, relativley few generally bother to do so. So much of the messages of this protest were aime at them, though there were some posters which might have had a more general appeal, such as one describing Johnson as “UNFAITHFUL, LIAR, SELF-SERVING, WIFE BEATER? DRUNK?” and saying ‘Don’t trust Boris Johnson. Don’t give him your vote‘.

They were joined at Brunel by a few more protesters with posters including one wearing a rainbow flag and carrying a ‘Queers Against Boris’ poster and with FUCK BORIS written on her forehead,

But otherwise once on the campus it seemed pretty deserted and people didn’t know what to do. Finally they formed up again behind the bus which drove off back towards the centre of the town. But I decided I’d walked enough and sat down at a bus stop for a long wait for a bus to Heathrow where I could wait again for a bus home.

Probably the campaign had very little influence on the result of the election on 12th December, where the Tory campaign was almost entirely on their promise to “Get Brexit Done”. Johnson’s majority here was 7,210 and he went on to make the worst of all possible deals we are now suffering from, largely because of a Tory conviction that bluster and intransigence is the best form of negotiation.

More at Kick Boris out of Uxbridge.


Turkey’s War on Kurds, Bunhill Fields – 2016

Monday, March 6th, 2023

Break the Silence! Turkey’s War on Kurds – BBC to Trafalgar Square

Turkey's War on Kurds

Turkey’s War on Kurds. On Sunday 6th March 2016, several thousand of Kurds and their supporters marched through London in solidarity with the Kurdish people calling for an end to the silence from Turkey’s NATO allies and the western press over Turkish war being waged against Kurds in northern Syria.

Turkey's War on Kurds

This area of Syria has successfully broken away from control by the Syrian regime under President Assad and set up a popular progressive participatory democracy under the name Rojava. Although Kurds form the majority, the impressive constitution of the new area guarantees the rights of all the minority groups and also has enshrined the equal rights of women. Many see it as a model for future democratic states elsewhere.

Turkey's War on Kurds

The Kurds also call for the UK to decriminalise the PKK Kurdish liberation Movement here, and for the release of their leader Abdullah Ocalan who has been in jail in Turkey since his illegal kidnapping in Kenya in 1999. In 2003 the European Court of Human Rights ruled his trial unfair, and called for a retrial. Turkey lost an appeal against this decision in 2005 but have still refused to hold a retrial.

The march began with around 5,000 people massing outside the BBC, who have consistently failed to cover the real issues over the Kurdish struggle and like to almost totally ignore any political protests taking place in the UK. True to form there appeared to be no mention of this large march in any BBC national or local news in the following few days.

The protest was called by his protest was called by Stop the War on the Kurds and supported by a huge array of groups, which I listed on My London Diary. Here it is again.

Peace in Kurdistan, Kurdistan National Congress (KNC), Scottish Solidarity with Kurdistan, Day Mer, GIK-DER/RWCA, National Union of Teachers (NUT), Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers Union (RMT), Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA), Trade Union Congress – International Section, Greater London Association of Trade Union Councils (GLATUC), Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN), Unite Housing Branch, Unison Islington, Stop the War Coalition, People’s Assembly, Unite Against Fascism (UAF), Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Resistance, Plan C, Revolutionary Communist Group, Left Unity, Green Party, Kurdish Community Centre, Halkevi, Roj Women’s Assembly, Kurdish Students Union, Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL), Anti-Fascist Network (AFN), National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC), Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), Democratic Union Initiative & PYD and other groups.

The march slowly went down Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus where the head of the march stopped and briefly sat down, blocking the junction. A few minutes later they got up and marched down Haymarket to a rally in Trafalgar Square. I left them to go to another event as te rally began.

More pictures on My London Diary: Break the Silence! Turkey’s War on Kurds.


Bunhill Fields Under Threat

Bunhill Fields is one of the City of London’s most special places, a Grade I cultural heritage site owned by the City of London and enjoyed by many nearby office workers in the area as a quiet space for their lunch breaks, though I think these are rapidly becoming, like the cemetery a thing of the past, with many working from home or snatching a quick sandwich at their desk still staring at a terminal.

William Blake was buried a little this side of the tree on the far side of the path. His wife on the south side of the cemetery close to Susannah Wesley

It’s a quiet place, a sanctuary and every similar cliche you like to throw at it, and of course always under threat from rapacious developers (are there any other kinds?) Although the cemetery itself is protected by its listing, I’d signed a petition against a development immediately on the north-east boundary which will result in this small and important site being overshadowed by a large and inappropriate development.

Tomb of John Bunyan

The proposed 10 and 11 storey skyscrapers would set a precedent soon to be followed by others and would severely change its nature, depriving it of light and altering its micro-climate. Islington Council had rejected the planning application but it was called in by then London Mayor Boris Johnson who allowed it to go ahead, along with other damaging schemes around the city.

Bunhill Fields was a burial ground mainly for nonconformists who could not be buried in Church of England churchyards and cemeteries and was in use from 1665 to 1854. It is best-known as the burial place of William Blake, Daniel Defoe, Isaac Watts, George Fox and John Bunyan, as well as others including Susannah Wesley.

Susannah Wesley’s stone is brilliant white. Now you can only walk along the path by it if accompanied by an attendant

The cemetery, which has a public path through its centre, is opposite Wesley’s Chapel on the City Road, with the path leading through to Bunhill Row. Most of the monuments in it, many listed, are in enclosed areas behind fences and can only be viewed from the paths, though years ago it was possible to wander more freely. There is still a garden area at the north of the site, where many, including Blake, were buried, with a lawn and seating.

More pictures at Bunhill Fields Under Threat.


Bikes Alive Say Stop Killing Cyclists

Monday, January 9th, 2023

Bikes Alive Say Stop Killing Cyclists
At Kings Cross wiaiting for the protest to begin

On the evening of Monday 9th January 2012 cyclists and pedestrians protested at Kings Cross in the evening rush hour calling for an end to the killing of cyclists on city roads.

Bikes Alive Say Stop Killing Cyclists
Ghost bike’ for Deep Lee killed here in October 2011

Bikes Alive wanted Transport for London to make changes in their policies which are leading to too many cyclists being killed on London’s Streets and were taking more direct but peaceful action to put pressure on them to make cycling in the city safer.

Bikes Alive Say Stop Killing Cyclists
Jenny Jones holds her at right

Kings Cross was chosen as one of the most dangerous areas for cyclists with major roads including Euston Road, Pentonville Road, Caledonian Road, Kings Cross Road all meeting in a gyratory system of confusing one-way streets.

In particular they want changes at all major road junctions with longer gaps between different phases that would allow both pedestrians and cyclists to clear junctions before traffic from other directions dashes across, as well as changes that will lead to reductions in private car use in London and an increase in bike use.

Tamsin and a man with a bike block traffic for the ride to start

Similar protests in later years have been organised by Stop Killing Cyclists who began with a major ‘die-in’ protest outside TfL’s HQ in November 2013.

Cyclists take to the road

I arrived early for the Bikes Alive protest and found a group of friends of cyclist Deep Lee (Min Joo Lee), a 24-year old student who was killed riding her bike there on 3 Oct 2011 came to put fresh flowers on the ‘ghost bike’ which is chained to a lamp post at the centre of the junction.

and some people on foot

Others soon began to arrive on bikes and on foot, gathering on the wide pavement in front of Kings Cross Station, including a dozen or so police officers on bikes. As well as Bikes Alive spokesperson Albert Beale who had said that this protest “is the first step in a campaign to stop – by whatever nonviolent means needed – the completely unnecessary level of deaths, injuries and fear inflicted by motorists on the more vulnerable“.

The ride goes past the ‘ghost bike’

Green Party mayoral candidate Jenny Jones took part, stating “London’s roads must be fixed urgently if we are to make them safe for cyclists and all other road users. This is the Mayor’s responsibility, and I hope that if we make a statement through peaceful, direct action he will start to listen.”

The protest blocks the box junction and Tamsin leads some chanting

Also present was Tamsin Omond of Climate Rush, who have organised several cycle protests, including one in July 2011 against London’s terrible air quality with briefly blocked a junction a little to the west of tonight’s protest.

Jenny Jones

Eventually the protester began to cycle slowly, accompanied by protesters on foot on the roads around the junction, turning up York Way and then returning back down Caledonian Road and returning to Kings Cross where some stopped to block the box junction. When police came and told them they had to move they made a few circuits along a short section of the Euston Road in front of Kings Cross, making a ‘U’ turn at the traffic lights and going back east along the road to go around the one-way system again. By the time they were on their second or third circuit I felt I had seen enough and left.

London’s roads eleven years later remain dangerous for cyclists, and this junction in particular was among the three still named as the most dangerous of 22 that the London Cycling Campaign named in parliament in November 2022 as needing urgent action. There have been some improvements, with new cycle ‘super-highways’ and changes in traffic light phasing, but much more still needs to be done to make the city safer, with huge benefits in public health as many more people who would cycle if they felt safe. Unfortunately some London councils, partly thanks to lobbying from taxi drivers and others, still have virulent anti-cycling policies.

More at Bikes Alive – End Killing Of Cyclists.


Bhopal: Drop Dow From London Olympics

Earlier that day I had photographed another protest, where Farah Edwards, a survivor of the Bhopal Disaster, challenged Lord Coe, and Mayor Boris Johnson, to taste some Bhopal drinking water, bottled as ‘B’eauPal’ mineral water. 200 days before the start of the London Olympics they called for London to drop Dow Chemicals as a major sponsor, as thousand of families in Bhopal are still being poisoned by the Bhopal disaster, when Union Carbide, a subsidiary of Dow Chemicals, released a huge dense cloud of lethal gas from their plant on the night of December 2-3, 1984.

Barry Gardiner MP holds a bottle of contaminated Bhopal water in Trafalgar Square

Government estimates say more than 3,700 died immediately and since deaths have risen to between 8,000 and 25,000 people. Around 100,000 to 200,000 people are thought to have permanent injuries and the number continues to grow as much of the contamination produced by the disaster has not been cleaned up.

But of course the idea that Lord Coe or Johnson would worry for even a split second about taking dirty money for the Olympic project was ridiculous.

Bhopal: Drop Dow From London Olympics


Firefighters and Nurses – 2015

Friday, December 2nd, 2022

Key Workers were protesting in London on Wednesday 2nd December 2015, but their protests were ignored by government and then Tory Mayor of London Boris Johnson. Since then we have seen that the warnings of the protesters were real and the consequences of Tory policies have led to disaster. It’s a failure of our system of government that allows dogmatism and class interests to pursue such irresponsible policies at both local and national level, and one hugely facilitated by a media largely controlled by a handful of billionaires.


Firefighters say cuts endanger London – City Hall, Wednesday 2nd December 2015

Firefighters and Nurses

Firefighters and supporters protested at City Hall against plans to get rid of 13 fire engines and slash 184 firefighters in the London Fire Brigade. These came on top of previous cuts and station closures which have already led to increases in the time taken for firefighters to arrive at fires which have lead to people who would otherwise have been rescued dying in fires.

Firefighters and Nurses
The People of Shoreditch Say… Bozo Don’t take or Fire Engine Away! – Bozo the Clown of County Hall’

Trade unionists and others came to support the firefighters and some spoke at the rally along with speakers from the FBU. It took only a little persuasion to get George Galloway to speak. Members of the London Assembly had put forward an alternative plan to make savings and avoid the loss of the fire engines but these were dismissed by London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Firefighters and Nurses
George Galloway came to show support

One of the consequences of the cuts to London’s fire services came sadly and disastrously with the loss of 72 lives at Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017. We found then that London simply didn’t have a single fire engine capable of dealing with a fire in the upper floors of the building. Fortunately Surrey, although it has far fewer high rise buildings had kept one which could be called in to help, or the death toll would have been even higher.

Firefighters say cuts endanger London


Save NHS Student Bursaries – Dept of Health, Whitehall, Wednesday 2nd December 2015

George Osborne had decided to scrap NHS student bursaries from 2017. Nurses and other healthcare students have to spend around 50% or their time working in hospitals for the NHS during training and so are largely unable to take on part-time work as many other students do. They only payment they get for this work is through the bursaries.

It seems totally unfair to ask them to take out student loans and work for the NHS for nothing as well. And since many of the jobs they go into are not particularly well-paid, it makes little financial sense as many would probably never fully repay their loans.

Always plenty of money for our arms manufacturers

But what nurses said it would do was to lead to a reduction of students applying for healthcare courses, particularly the many single mothers and more matures students who are enabled to take the courses by the bursaries. And to take this action at a time when there was a critical shortage of medical staff was sheer lunacy.

Of course they were right. The situation in the NHS is even worse now partly due to this axing of bursaries. Of course there are other factors too – including a racist immigration policy which has been made much worse with Brexit. And the continually increasing privatisation taking place.

The NHS has so far suffered various areas of breakdown caused of exacerbated by various government policies – including some under New Labour who promoted disastrous PFI schemes that have brought some hospital trusts to financial ruin. Covid was another savage test and things look set to get far worse in the coming winter months. And given the years of below inflation pay offers its hardly suprising that nurses are now about to strike.

The problems with scrapping the student bursary were so intense that the government was forced to set up a new bursary scheme in 2020. But while the previous scheme had a maximum of £16,454 a year, with a minimum of £10,000, the new scheme was considerably less generous, at a standard £5000, with additions for shortage areas and childcare giving a maximum of £8000.

Save NHS Student Bursaries


Housing For All – Focus E15

Monday, September 19th, 2022

Housing For All - Focus E15

On Saturday 19th September 2015, two years after the start of the Focus E14 and a year since their successful occupation of empty flats on Stratford’s Carpenters Estate gained national headlines about both their own treatment by Newham Council and the problems faced by others around the country in finding homes, Focus E15 organised a march, rally and party.

Housing For All - Focus E15

In a ‘long read’ published in The Guardian at the end of June 2022, Oliver Wainwright writes about the particular problems that Newham and the other ‘Olympic boroughs’ are facing and how these have been worsened since the Olympics came to the area. His ‘A massive betrayal’: how London’s Olympic legacy was sold out details how the many promises made before and after London’s winning bid have failed to materialise.

Housing For All - Focus E15

As Wainwright states, in the area “there are almost 75,000 households on the waiting list for council housing, many living in desperate poverty. Thousands of former residents have also been rehoused outside the area since the Olympics took place.

Wainwright quotes the former directory of the agency which bought up land for the Olympic site and evicted local businesses as saying “There is no pretence any more that the legacy is trying to get a positive outcome for East Enders .. It is driven by a total market ideology, dressed up in some good aspirational talk, with a few baubles thrown out to keep local people happy, while mostly catering for the rich. It is a massive failure at every level

Although Wainwright points out the naivety of London Mayor Ken Livingstone in his ruthless support for the bid – which he saw as the only way to get the billions needed to develop the area – he makes clear who the real villain was, Livingstone’s successor Boris Johnson.

Many pointed out the problems over the years the bid was being made, and locals and others actively campaigned against the Olympic bid, over the removal of many successful businesses from the area, the demolition of a fine cooperative housing estate, the removal of allotments and the cycle circui, the loss of green space. People warned that the Olympic priorities would result in a development very different to that serving the needs of the area. And it has.

I’m pleased to have recorded at least some of that opposition in My London Diary over the years. I’d come to know the area over a number of visits since the 1980s and knew some of those involved in the protests which I photographed throughout the period, as well as continuing my photographic documentation of the area, much of which was published in my 2010 book ‘Before the Olympics‘, where I wrote ‘Stratford Marsh was one of the areas I found most interesting from the start; then a curious mixture of wilderness and industry … What was once an exciting and varied area with a great range of wildlife is now sterilized and under concrete.

The 2008 financial crisis meant the government had to pick up many of the bills, and large parts became publicly owned. Wainwright points out that the sale of the athlete’s village for around half what it cost to build meant a £275m loss to the taxpayer, who had funded the social aspects including a “school and health facilities, while the private sector kept the more profitable parts of the scheme – the shopping mall, the offices and the luxury flats.”

Newham’s Mayor until 2018, Robin Wales, encouraged the development of high-priced flats as attracting a wealthier demographic to the borough, and at the same time presided over a policy of ‘displacement and relocation of low-income households, as far afield as Stoke-on-Trent’. The Focus E15 mothers he tried to disperse away from London named it clearly – ‘Social Cleansing’.

The huge redevelopment in the area since 2012 has resulted in only 110 genuinely affordable homes. Newham currently has over 27000 applicants on the Housing Register and some 4500 families in temporary accommodation. Newham began emptying one notable large estate in central Stratford, the 1967 Carpenters estate of 710 homes in 2004 and by 2012 more than half of the homes were empty. The residents had wanted the estate refurbished, but Newham hoped to sell it off. When protests led to UCL withdrawing plans for a new campus, they looked for a developer, but those plans were dropped in 2018 and a new start made.

Bridge House – LB Newham’s Housing Office

There is much more in Wainwright’s article than I’ve mentioned, along with some of my own thoughts here, particularly about the huge failures of Boris Johnson and the failure to provide the kind of overall planning that could have occurred had the area been developed as a new town with the legacy corporation reinvesting “profits back into the future of the place, as happened in the postwar New Towns and places like Milton Keynes.” But instead it has been a commercial operation and one that has turned into a financial disaster for the taxpayer, rich pickings for developers and a social and environmental mess.

Wainwright describes the outcome in his final paragraph as “a nice park dotted with impressive sports venues and high-end homes, with some cultural attractions on the way.” I have to disagree, particularly about the park. It’s a park that is still scarred by the Olympics with large arid areas which I think will leave much of it forever beyond redemption, though there are some nicer parts. But I can only echo his next sentence: “But the poorest and most vulnerable, in what remain London’s most deprived boroughs, have lost out.

The Focus E15 march began with a rally in Stratford Park. It was supported by people from a huge list of organisations I list on My London Diary. They they then marched around Stratford town centre, past the bus station, the station and the Theatre then back down the Broadway, stopping briefly outside Foxtons, where Class War staged a brief protest inside the estate agents offices.

They then moved on to the LB Newham’s Housing Office at Bridge House for another protest. Finally the marched on to the Carpenters Estate to hold a rally in front of the flats they had occupied for two weeks in 2014. Their occupation had led to these flats being re-occupied along with a few other of the roughly 400 empty properties on the estate.

If you’ve not yet read ‘A massive betrayal’: how London’s Olympic legacy was sold out please do. You can read more of what I wrote back in 2015 and see many more pictures on My London Diary:
Focus E15: Rally before March
Focus E15: ‘March Against Evictions’
Class War Occupy Stratford Foxtons
Focus E15: Anniversary of Carpenters Occupation


Tories Out March – 1st July 2017

Friday, July 1st, 2022

Class War wrap a march steward in their banner at the start of the march

Tories Out March – 1st July 2017: Five years ago, shortly after the Labour right working inside the party had managed to prevent a Corbyn victory by sabotaging the campaign for the 2017 General Election, the People’s Assembly Against Austerity organised a march through London calling for Theresa May and the Conservatives to go.

Of course they didn’t go, and later when Boris Johnson called an election over Brexit, he gained a landslide victory, rather than the close call in 2017 which left Theresa May having to bribe the Northern Irish DUP, a deeply bigoted party with links to Loyalist terrorists to support her.

This reliance on the DUP has eventually led to the current problem over the Irish Sea border arrangements which Boris Johnson persuaded the EU to adopt as a vital part of his Brexit deal, and which the government is now pushing through a bill to enable us to renege on.

And the Johnson administration has continued and worsened the Tory policies which in 2017 should have resulted in a Labour victory. In my account of the protest march 5 years ago today I wrote

“The election showed a rejection of … austerity policies and the Grenfell Tower disaster underlined the toxic effects of Tory failure and privatisation of building regulations and inspection and a total lack of concern for the lives of ordinary people. The protesters, many of whom chanted their support of Jeremy Corbyn, say the Tories have proved themselves unfit to govern. They demand a decent health service, education system, housing, jobs and living standards for all.”

Rev Paul Nicolson from Taxpayers Against Poverty rings his bell

The full facts of the sabotage of the Labour election campaign from inside the party had not then come to light – and we are still waiting for the Forde inquiry into the leaked report which exposed the racism, hyper-factionalism and electoral sabotage by party officials as well as the misguided attempts of the Corbyn leadership such as the expulsion of Jackie Walker and the resignations of Chris Williamson and Ken Livingstone.

But although this was largely a march of Labour supporters there were still a number of groups on the march who were critical of Labour’s policies and the practices of London Labour councils, particularly on housing, where councils are “demolishing council estates and colluding with huge property developers to replace them with expensive and largely private housing. It is a massive land grab, giving away public land often at far below market value and pricing the former residents out of London in what they call ‘regeneration’ but is quite clearly a process of social and ethnic cleansing.”

It is also a process that has resulted in considerable personal financial advantage for some of those who have led it, with councillors and officers either leaving to work for the developers or in organisations set up by councils to manage their estates. Setting up organisations such as the TMO responsible for the unsafe condition of Grenfell Tower has enabled these bodies to hide information about such activites as using consultants to advise them on circumventing adequate fire inspections outside of the purview of Freedom of Information requests.

Most obvious among these groups was Class War, alway ready to make their views known and to challenge authority. At the start of the march close to the BBC they had a little run-in with the march stewards, which resulted in them briefly wrapping their banner around one of him – though of course they soon released him. Later at the rally in Parliament Square I unfortunately missed a confrontation in which Lisa McKenzie stood in front of both Len McCluskey, General Secretary of Unite the Union and Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn and loudly asked them the simple question ‘When are you going to stop Labour councils socially cleansing people out of London?’. Both men simply ignored her and walked away.

Much more about the event and many more pictures at Tories Out March.

Defend All Migrants

Friday, June 24th, 2022

Defend All Migrants. June 24th 2016 was the day after the Brexit referendum when by a narrow majority – 3.78% – the British population voted to leave the European Union. Although it was a non-binding referendum, the government had unwisely promised they would implement the result and eventually did so in the worst way possible, leading to many of our current problems.

Of course it’s done and although we were lied to and tricked in many ways it is a decision which cannot be reversed in the foreseeable future, though hopefully a new government will abandon the current excessively combative approach and try to negotiate some more sensible ways to live with our neighbours. On many levels we remain a part of Europe and need to find policies which recognise the facts of culture and geography.

One important aspect of the campaign to leave Europe was the encouragement of racism and xenophobia particularly by the UKIP-linked Leave.EU, but also by the official Vote Leave campaign. London Mayor Sadiq Khan was one of few politicians at the time to accuse Vote Leave of promoting ‘Project Hate’ but academic research as well as Parliament’s own Digital, Culture, Media & Sport committee has shown clearly how they used TV adverts and social media to use racism to promote the Brexit vote. You can read more in Truly Project Hate: the third scandal of the official Vote Leave campaign headed by Boris Johnson.

So on the day following the referendum Socialists and anarchists held a rally in East London before marching to the offices of News International on a roundabout route for migrant rights and against racism and fascist violence. Migration and immigrants have been attacked and scapegoated not only by both Remain and Leave campaigns but by mainstream parties and media over more than 20 years, stoking up hatred by insisting immigrants are a “problem”.

As I stated on My London Diary, “The event was 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.

Despite the large number of organisations, the actual number of people who turned up for the protest wasn’t huge, though there were probably well over a thousand in Altab Ali Park by the time the speeches began. As I wrote, ” People stood around in groups bemoaning the result of the referendum; most had either voted to remain or chosen not to vote – or had not been eligible as EU citizens or foreigners working here. They represented much of mainly young London, very few of whom voted to leave the EU, and most like me who were shocked and bitterly disappointed by the Brexit vote.

A group of three people interviewing people to camera for a right-wing US website had clearly come to provoke people, asking silly questions and appearing to gloat over the Brexit result. People told them to leave but they persisted and eventually the woman interviewer complained to police that her jokey Brexit hat had been stolen and her cameraman had been punched, though it seemed more a performance to camera than a genuine complaint. Although police talked to a few nearby protesters who failed to back up her complaints they also made sure the crew left the park rather than continue to stir up trouble.

After a number of speeches the march formed up and moved off, with the organisers apparently taking a tour of the East End and the City on the way to London Bridge. A number of smoke flares made its progress colourful and there was considerable noise from slogans and some loud music. When the march turned north rather than south on Houndsditch I decided I’d walked far enough and left it to go home and file my story.

Much more on My London Diary: Defend All Migrants.

Focus E15 Mums at City Hall 2014

Monday, February 21st, 2022

Focus E15 Mums at City Hall 2014. Focus E15 mothers and children, threatened with eviction from the Mother and Baby Unit at the Focus E15 hostel in Stratford came on a decorated bus to City Hall, holding a party outside and trying to hand in a petition and card to then city Mayor Boris Johnson.

I’d met the Focus E15 Mums the previous month when they partied inside the Stratford offices of East Thames Housing Association who run the hostel, but the eviction notices had come in October 2013 because Newham Council had decided to cut the funding for the hostel.

Newham was then at the centre of a post-Olympic housing boom, with both private developers and East Thames building large blocks of flats around the area. But the great majority of these are for sale or rent at market prices, and many were being bought not to live in but by overseas investors keen to cash in on the steeply rising prices of housing in London. Even housing associations build mainly for those on good salaries who can afford shared ownership schemes, with minimal homes at council-level rents.

Newham Council Mayor Robin Wales told the mothers there were no properties available in the area at council rents. He made it clear than if you are poor, Newham doesn’t want you, and they were offered rented accommodation far outside of London, in Birmingham, Manchester, Hastings and even Wales – “expensive, sometimes poor quality, insecure one year private rents” – with the threat that anyone who turned down the offers would be regarded as having made themselves intentionally homeless and get no help from the council.

The mothers in the hostel decided to stand together and fight the council, demanding they be placed within suitable socially rented accommodation in Newham. Among other areas they point out that there is good quality council-owned housing on the Carpenters Estate, a short walk from their hostel, which Newham council have left empty, in some cases for ten years, as they try to sell off the area for development – despite having the highest waiting list for social housing in London.

As I wrote in 2014, London Mayor Boris Johnson Boris Johnson “has made it clear that he is opposed to the gentrification of London, stating: ‘The last thing we want to have in our city is a situation such as Paris where the less well-off are pushed out to the suburbs’ and promising ‘I’ll emphatically resist any attempt to recreate a London where the rich and poor cannot live together…’ But these turned out to be typically Johnsonian empty words and during his time as London Mayor he did nothing to help those in housing need and stop those cleared from council estates having to move miles further out.

The card Boris Johnson wouldn’t accept

On the day of the protest the mothers tried to deliver a card to him, but his office simply refused to take it. The assistant director of the affordable homes programme in London, Jamie Ratcliff did come down to meet them and took their petition, but had little to say to them, giving them his card and telling them to email him.

Mothers go in to deliver the card but no-one would accept it

More on the event on My London Diary at Focus E15 Mums at City Hall.

The Focus E15 Campaign eventually got all or most of the mothers and children rehoused locally, and they continue to compaign in Newham for Fair Housing For All, holding a street stall despite harassment from council and police every Saturday on Stratford Broadway, helping homeless families get proper treatment from the council, protesting for those in terrible conditions in temporary accomodation and stopping evictions, and taking part in protests and campaigns for social housing in London and elsewhere.


Remember, Remember – Nov 5th

Thursday, November 5th, 2020
Nov 5th 2014

As England begins four weeks of partial lockdown I ponder briefly on the significance of the date and the incompetence of our government before looking at some protests in recent years on November 5th.

Nov 5th 2014

Guy Fawkes was it is often said, the only person to enter Parliament with honest intentions, perhaps a slightly harsh judgement on our politicians, but events over the past few years have certainly shown that being honest has not served Jeremy Corbyn well. Although we no longer openly torture prisoners and Corbyn, though clearly put on the rack by the media is unlikely to be actually hung, drawn and quartered – much though some might revel in it – and he is unlikely to have to jump from the scaffold like Fawkes to avoid this excruciatingly gory fate. But the establishment have become no less weak, simply more devious and discrete in protecting their enormous wealth and privileges against all-comers.

And Covid has given the government an excuse to clamp down on protests across the board, though some have still continued. But with various police actions and Acts of Parliament we are clearly moving closer to a police state, with the active support of a failing opposition in Parliament.

Nov 5th 2013

Fawkes was the inspiration behind  the anonymous anti-hero of the graphic novel ‘V For Vendetta’ written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd later made into a film. It shows an England without political or personal freedom caused not by a pandemic but after a devasting war.

Anonymous, a loose internet based movement of hacker activists took on the Guy Fawkes mask from the film as a symbol, uniform and disguise for their activities, in online videos and street protests – ironically greatly benefiting the mask copyright owners Time Warner who get a royalty from every official sale. And one of their main protests in ‘meat life’ is the ‘Million Mask March’ taking place on November 5th every year.

Nov 5th 2014

But Anonymous is not the only Nov 5th game in town. Guy Fawkes celebrations traditionally include bonfires, and in 2014 Class War took their own guy, an effigy of then London Mayor Boris Johnson to their ‘Poor Doors’ protest at One Commercial St in Aldgate. 

Class War’s guy dressed as London Mayor Boris Johnson burns vigorously at the protest at One Commercial St, Aldgate against separate doors for rich and poor residents. Nov 5th 2014

I wasn’t quite clear how Boris got set on fire (my back was possibly deliberately turned at the time as I don’t seem to have any pictures), though it was always inevitable, and he burned merrily but safely in the middle of the wide pavement.

For reasons best known to them, the police went ballistic, calling in first the Fire Brigade, who were clearly not pleased to have been troubled and arrived some time later with just a bucket of water when the fire was already more or less burnt out, and then making the scene a major emergency with police vans, cars and blue flashing lights, before surrounding and arresting Class War’s Jane Nicholl.

Jane is arrested – Nov 5th 2014

The crowd surrounded them and tried to prevent her being taken to the police van, but there were now probably more police then protesters and they managed to force their way through. Another protester was also arrested and taken to a van, I think for being one of the fifty or more who had tried to stop Jane’s arrest.

Surprisingly Jane Nicholl’s case was actually taken to court, but the police were unable to produced any evidence that anyone had been ‘injured, interrupted or endangered’ by the burning Boris – with the prosecution having already admitted that burning effigies on Bonfire night was perfectly lawful and the case – which had already been altered three times to try to find different offences – collapsed. Clearly the police and Crown Prosecution Service were using the arrest and trial simply to harass and intimidate Class War into ending their ‘Poor Doors’ protests. As they did with other arrests on other occasions, none of which led to a conviction.

I don’t know if there will be people trying to take part in a ‘Million Mask March’ in London this year despite the lock-down; the Facebook pages have only small numbers signed up though already well over 6,000 have expressed an interest for Nov 5th 2021. I suspect police will be out in force as in previous years to stop the event taking place. But I’ll certainly be staying at home.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.


Students for democracy

Thursday, February 6th, 2020

After a lengthy rally in a packed Whitehall, so full that police asked the organisers to tell people at the end only to move out in the direction of Trafalgar Square to avoid the danger of people being crushed as the Parliament Street end was so packed, Youth Strike for Climate and other mainly young protesters decided it was time for some more direct action.

It had been a long rally, with speaker after speaker, and the crowd in front of the stage was so packed that I was unable to move through it as I usually do during the more tedious of the speeches. There were some good speeches, and some well-known speakers, but I now find standing in one place for a long time makes my legs start to itch and throb, inflaming my varicose eczema.

So when the Youth Strike moved off, I was more than happy to follow them, though I did hope they would not move too far. There were other groups that marched as well as those I was with, some going into the West End, but fortunately these marchers went to a rather more convenient place for my journey home.

As they marched up Whitehall, police appeared to be forming a cordon across the top of the street, and they turned right down Whitehall Place, then continuing up Craven Street to The Strand. Police made no further effort to stop them, with just a few officers marching with them as they made their way onto Waterloo Bridge and sat down, blocking the south-bound carriageway.

They began their own rally there, and there were several short speeches, but the lure of Waterloo Station just a short distance further on soon proved too great, and I left to go home. As I walked off the bridge, several vans full of police arrived and were doubtless about to attempt to re-open the bridge to traffic, but I’d had enough.

More pictures Students March to Defend Democracy.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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