Turkish Spring, Badgers & BNP: My day was particularly full on Saturday 1st June 2013 as I attended a memorial service for a close friend held at Southwark Cathedral in the early afternoon as well as as the protests in this post.
London Supports Turkish Spring – Marble Arch
Supporters of Turkish football team Garsi support the Gezi protests
I began at 11am at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, next to Marble Arch, where Turks were massing to march to the Turkish Embassy in Belgrave Square in solidarity with the ‘Turkish Spring’ protests against the Erdogan regime in Istanbul’s Gezi Park and across Turkey.
It was a high-octane event with a great deal of high-spirited chanting and more and more people were arriving for the march.
I had to leave as the event was getting underway, with most of the protesters sitting on the ground to listen to speeches. Later I heard that around 4,000 had marched to protest at the embassy,
This was the day on which it became legal to cull badgers in two pilot areas and over a thousand, many dressed in black and white and with badger masks or face paint met at Tate Britain on Millbank for a rally and march to Parliament against the cull.
Campaigners argue that the cull is not supported by most scientific evidence and that it will result in many badgers suffering cruel lingering deaths after being wounded by largely untrained marksmen.
Among the speakers was Queen Guitarist Brian May, a leading campaigner for badgers
I had to leave before they marched to go to Southwark Cathedral for the memorial service, but when I returned after attending this I met some of protesters who were still in Parliament Square, where they danced on the road in front of Parliament until they were cleared by police.
BNP Stopped From Exploiting Woolwich Killing – Old Palace Yard
Nick Griffin answers questions from the press under a placard ‘Hate Preachers Out’ and fails to appreciate the irony
Fortunately police had stopped the BNP from holding a mass protest in Woolwich capitalising on the killing there of soldier Lee Rigby and had also banned their proposed march from Woolwich to Lewisham on grounds of public safety. Both would have been inflammatory and Lee Rigby’s father had also made clear that he and his family did not want his son’s death to be used to stir up hatred against Muslims.
Instead Nick Griffin and a small group of BNP supporters had come to Old Palace Yard intending to march from there to the Cenotaph to lay wreaths in Rigby’s memory, but their gesture to exploit the killing was opposed by a thousands of anti-fascists. It was a confrontation that stirred up memories from the anti-fascist mobilisation at Cable Street against Oswald Mosley’s blackshirts, and as on that occasion the police attempted to force a way through for the fascists, arresting large numbers of protesters, but eventually the BNP had to abandon the attempt to march.
Across the heads of police they could see the counter-protest – and could clearly hear the chanting
There were only a small group of supporters with Griffin, who blamed the low attendance on police turning back his supporters and making Westminster a “a virtual exclusion zone”. But I’d walked there with no problems from Westminster Station; there were large numbers of police and parked police vans as well as thousands of protesters, but I was not challenged or stopped.
Griffin and his group waited for around for several hours while police attempted to clear the route for him, arresting and driving away two double-deck buses full of protesters, but there were still enough to block the route. Eventually they walked in the opposite direction to their coaches.
Anonymous were there along with Antifa, trade unionists and the UAF to oppose the BNP hate
I walked back from Old Palace Yard where Nick Griffin was being photographed and questioned by the press the short distance to Parliament Square where I saw a steady stream of protesters being arrested and taken onto two double-deck buses.
I photographed a number of those arrested, mainly walking calmly with police who were rather more violent with some others, and saw them threatening legal observers, then walked through the lines of police to the protesters who were still blocking the route. I imagine few of those arrested were charged with any offence, but probably detained for a dozen or more hours before being released – probably in the middle of the night. It’s a short period of arbitrary punishment that avoids the police having to do much paperwork.
There were some in wheelchairs who had come to block the fascists – and some were at the front of the protest.
Others were in ‘Anonymous’ masks.
Many linked arms to make it harder for police snatch squads to grab individuals
And there were some of the ‘badgers’ who had stayed on for this protest too.
The stand-off between protesters and police continued – and it was clear that it would not be possible for the police to clear the route without a clearly excessive use of force – and that they were not going to drift away as police had hoped.
There was much celebration When they heard that the BNP had abandoned their march and left the area, and the protesters marched up Parliament St to the Cenotaph, where there was a short speech and people began to leave.
Many marched up to Trafalgar Square but I went back the other way on my way home.
Smiley Culture & Orange Order: On Saturday 16th April I photographed two very different marches in London. The first was by several thousand people, mostly black, in protest over the death of reggae star Smiley Culture during a police drugs raid on his home and later I took pictures of the annual parade in Westminster by the City of London District Loyal Orange Lodge.
Who Killed Smiley Culture?
On 15th March 2011 police raided the South Croydon home of reggae star Smiley Culture at around 7am, apparently in relation to a drugs charge on which he was due to appear in court shortly. An hour and a half after their arrival, he is alleged to have been allowed to go into his kitchen alone to make a cup of tea, and to have killed himself with a single stab to the heart.
As many commented, it seemed a most unlikely story. Surely police would “not have allowed a man they had arrested to go alone into his own kitchen, where apart from the possibility of escape they would also know there would be dangerous weapons. And killing oneself with a single stab wound to the heart is not an easy task. His family and friends are sure there was no reason why he should have wanted to commit suicide.”
In April 2011 the case was being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission and their report went to the coroner. At the inquest in 2013 the jury were unable to reach a unanimous verdict but the coroner accepted a majority verdict that the death had been suicide, while criticising the police for their lack of care and the IPCC for faults in their investigation.
Wikipedia reports that at the request of the coroner the IPCC report “was neither made public nor made available to Emmanuel’s family” and questions remain about the actual circumstances of his death and of the IPCC’s statement “that there was neither criminal conduct by officers, nor individual failings by officers that might amount to misconduct.“
As I pointed out in my post, “Deaths in police custody are unfortunately not rare, and according to Inquest, in the twenty one years since 1990 there have been a total of 930, with 247 of these in the Met area.“
I went on to say that few of these cases get “more than a short paragraph in the local press” unless as in this case they involve celebrities or take place in public with witnesses and often videos of the event; “most of them take place in the secrecy of the police station or other premises with police officers as the only witnesses.“
Among those taking part in this march were families whose sons and brothers also died while in police custody, and in my post on My London Diary I mentioned some of these. The march took place on the “anniversary of the death of David Oluwale, killed in the first known incident of racist policing in 1969; his death remains the only case in British history that police officers have been found guilty of criminal offences leading to the death of a suspect, although they were found guilty only of assaults, the judge ordering the charge of manslaughter to be dropped.”
The death of Smiley Culture was one of several cases identified as a contributing factor to the riots later in the year after the police shooting of Mark Duggan by a study led by the LSE and The Guardian.
In February 2025 a blue plaque was unveiled outside Smiley Culture’s home from 1976-1980 on the Wandsworth Road, close to where this march began, celebrating his contributions to music and culture.
The City of London District Loyal Orange Lodge (L.O.L.) led their annual parade through London with lodges and bands from around the country taking part.
Founded in 1796 to uphold the Protestant religion, the Orange Order was was revived in the early twentieth century to oppose Home Rule for Ireland, and still plays a powerful role in Northern Ireland politics and government, embedded in Unionist politics.
Parades in Northern Ireland are still controversial and seen by many Catholics as deliberately provocative, while many Orangemen regard the Parades Commission, set up to regulate these events as discriminating against them. But here in London they have little political significance and are a colourful celebration of the Irish Protestant tradition.
From Millbank the parade marched around Parliament Sqaure and then on to the Cenotaph where wreaths were laid in memory of the fallen and former comrades by the City of London Lodge, two lodges from Glasgow and the Maine Flute Band from Ballymena.
I left them opposite Downing Street where some had gone in to deliver a letter to the Prime Minister before the parade moved on to its end at statue of the Duke of York in Waterloo Place.
King’s Cross, Excel and a Musical Protest: Like other posts in the early years of My London Diary the text and pictures from Saturday 26th November 2005 are rather hidden away and it isn’t always easy to connect pictures with text. And it had seemed at the time a good idea to write the texts all in lower case, which makes them rather difficult to read, so I now like to resurrect some of them occasionally in a more accessible manner, linking back to the original pages for more pictures than in these posts on >Re:PHOTO.
Kings Cross – never again!
Bob Crow (RMT), right, applauds a speaker
As I walked up the escalator (yes, I was late again) at King’s Cross I remembered the interviews with those who had been caught there in the terrible fire, thinking how hard it would be to find the way out in smoke-filled darkness. Parts of the station still look a terrible mess, though that’s not unusual in our underground system.
Up at ground level was a joint trades union demonstration in memory of the fire, and to defend the safety rules which are currently under attack by management wanting to save costs. Kings Cross – Never Again! was address by a number of speakers including Mick Connolly, John Mcdonnell MP Jeremy Corbyn MP, Keith Norman (ASLEF), Matt Wrack (FBU), and Bob Crow (RMT), all worried by the threat to the public and those who work on the Underground or in rescue services.
Islington MP Jeremy Corbyn
Proper safety procedures are particularly vital when as well as accidental disasters such as the King’s Cross fire, the safety of the system is also threatened by deliberate terrorist attacks.
I’d hoped the event would end in time for me to get to a lecture at the ICA, but it was too late. I went that way just the same, getting off the tube at Charing Cross and walking down Whitehall to Westminster station for the Jubilee Line, past the Cenotaph, surrounded now by a low fence. It was still covered by the wreaths of poppies from earlier in the month, now partly covered by the falling leaves from the many London plane trees, another and in some ways more touching symbol of loss.
Victoria Dock, Spillers Millennium Mills and Pontoon Dock, with new Riverside Flats in distance, Silvertown, London.
It was an afternoon of low winter sun, and stormy showers, with impressive clouds in the wide open skies over the expanse of the Royal Docks, and some peculiar colours. The demonstration I’d gone to see was nowhere to be found when I arrived, and I wandered the dock estate marvelling in the views.
In particular the high-level bridge over the dock is one of new London’s more spectacular sights, and a fine viewing platform. Unlike the last time I visited, the lifts were working too. A small group of people with musical instruments began to gather on the top, but they turned out only to be a band coming for a photo session.
Musicians from ‘East London Against the Arms Fair’ treat visitors to the Excel centre to a musical welcome
I’d more or less given up and decided to go home at that point when in the distance I heard the brassy notes of the Red Flag, and made my way towards them. By the time I’d arrived at the entrance to the Excel Centre, they were into the Internationale, complete with new words for the occasion (except that no-one was singing them, and I didn’t fancy a solo role):
We are told that profit from the arms fair will trickle down all over town, But it’s killing our sisters and our brothers, it’s their blood that is trickling down.
All people now rally! No arms fair any place! The Intenationale unites the human race!
Next came the Cutty Wren, a song from the Peasant’s Revolt, which took my mind back to Fobbing where I’d been ten days earlier.
The Excel centre has hosted several arms fairs which have attracted a number of protests from local groups. One of the local papers, the Newham Recorder, found in a poll that 79% of local residents oppose them, and London Mayor Ken Livingstone has also voiced his opposition. Further arms fairs are already booked for 2007, 2009 and 2011 and the musical protest was one of a number of actions attempting to get the Excel centre to cancel these future events.
And I returned in those later years to photograph many protests agains the arms fairs – and you can find pictures of them on various September pages on My London Dairy.
Borough Market & Apprentice Boys: On Saturday 21st October I went to the 250th anniversary celebrations at Borough Market and then to a march celebrating the closing by apprentices of the gates of Derry to the forces of King James II in 1688 which led to the siege of Derry the following year. Here are my accounts of both events from My London Diary in 2006 with a few minor alterations to make them more readable and links to more pictures on the site.
Borough Market: 250th Anniversary – Southwark
Borough Market started with the Romans a couple of thousand years ago, and around a thousand years ago was thriving on and around London’s only bridge across the river Thames. In the next few centuries it moved a little south into Borough High Street, and in 1550 received a royal charter, although like all London markets it was under the control of the City of London.
Increased congestion in Borough High Street lead to the first of nine Acts Of Parliament about the market’s activities in 1754, which moved it out of the road a few yards west to its present site. The agreement with the city authorities, which established the new market was made 250 years ago in 1756. Every year the Lord Mayor of London visits the market and collects fruit for the poor. It is now the only remaining wholesale and retail market in London.
The market is now officially a charity, but has always existed to support the residents of St Saviour’s Parish. Any surplus made by the market now goes to Southwark Council and the residents of the former parish get a rebate on their council tax.
The Worshipful Company of Fruiterers have also been celebrating the 400th anniversary of their Royal Charter in 1605. They had been inspecting (and levying duty) on London’s fruit and veg since 1292 or earlier, and received ordinances in 1463.
Until recently, Borough Market was a wholesale market, but its small size and transport problems meant that ten years ago it was almost empty and in a very poor state. Since then it has grown as a retail site for high quality food and drink, with many small specialist suppliers, as well as other small businesses. Two small parts of the site have been sold to provide money to rebuild and improve the market.
The Lord Mayor arrived with a small guard of pikemen and there were a few speeches. The fruiterers provide fresh fruit for a number of shelters for the homeless. The Lord Mayor and his party then toured the market, which had some fine displays of produce as well as its normal superb foods.
The Apprentice Boys Of Derry is a protestant organisation dedicated “to maintaining the spirit of liberty” displayed by the 13 apprentices who closed the gates of the city to the approaching army of the Catholic King James II in 1688. He demanded that the city surrender, receiving the now famous reply “No surrender!” The association which now organises parades to commemorate this was founded in 1814.
As well as in Derry itself, there are Apprentice Boys Clubs around the world, and each year there are several marches in London. At times their marches by or through largely Catholic areas have been extremely contentious, and the banning of their Portadown march in 1986 led to serious riots. Recent events in today’s calmer climate have caused fewer problems.
The march started near Victoria Station and went through Parliament Square to the Cenotaph in Whitehall where a wreath was laid. I left them at Trafalgar Square, on their way to a service at the Independent Congregational Church in Orange Street, behind the National Gallery, followed by a social evening.
Land Army, Charity Pull & Rosary Crusade: Saturday 8th October 2005 was a day of considerable variety as well as some tricky travelling around London for me, beginning in Whitehall with the women of the Land Army, rushing to Lewisham for a charity event organised by the Mayor and then back to Westminster Cathedral for a religions procession.
Commemoration of the Women’s Land Army – Cenotaph, Whitehall
During the Second World War many women joined the Women’s Land Army. First set up in 1917 during World War One, it was reformed in June 1939 when World War Two seemed inevitable, before the war actually began at the start of September.
During WW2, over 200,000 Land Girls worked in the Women’s Land Army, playing a crucial role in feeding the nation at war – and it continued for some years after the war ended in 1945, finally ending in November 1950.
For many joining up was a healthy alternative to working in munitions or joining the other services, less regimented and offering a wide range of activities. Few had any previous experience in agriculture, but “they ploughed, grew produce, milked cows, caught rats, drove tractors – and much more.”
But the war had ended 50 years earlier and they were now in their 70s and 80s when I met them opposite the memorial to the Women Of The Second World War which had recently been unveiled near the Cenotaph.
Some I talked to had been at the unveiling of that memorial and were extremely scathing about it and had been and were disappointed that the Queen had not spoken at all at the event.
They were a sprightly and feisty group despite their age. A few had come in 1940s dress but most wore some of their uniform often with a number of medals. They marched to the Cenotaph where wreaths were laid and a bugler sounded ‘The Last Post’. After which I rushed away to Charing Cross to catch a train as the event had run late.
Every year like most Mayors the Mayor of Lewisham has a charity appeal and for some years a Charity Vehicle Pull from Downham to Lewisham was organised as a way of raising money for this.
I’d got a later train than I’d hoped, so sat on the train trying to work out where the vehicle pull would be by the time the train arrived in the area. I left the train at Ladywell and rushed from the station to Lewisham High Street and fortunately found my guess had been correct.
“I took a few pictures – there isn’t a huge lot you can do with an event like this – and then got on the top floor of a bus which was travelling along the open lane inside the event, hoping to overtake them. It would have worked, but for an illegally parked vehicle that was blocking the lane.”
Rosary Crusade of Reparation – Westminster Cathedral
At Lewisham Station I’d missed the Victoria train, and had to run under the subway to jump on a Charing Cross service just as the doors were closing, changing at Waterloo East to Southwark Station on the Jubilee line, then at Green Park to the Victoria line to Victoria.
I hurried the short distance from Victoria Station to Westminster Cathedral arriving just at the right time for the start of the Rosary Crusade of Reparation.
The Rosary Cruade had started in Vienna in 1947, with a series of processions with the statue of ‘Our Lady of Fatima’.
The Virgin Mary appeared to Portuguese children at Fatima in 1917 and had asked for prayers and penance to avoid further wars and achieve world peace. This call was renewed in the Rosary Crusade by Father Petrus Pavlicek following a vision during his visit to a Marian shrine in 1946.
The processions became an annual event, held on or around 12th Sept, the Feast of The Name of Mary (which celebrated the defeat of Turkish armies surrounding Vienna in 1683), and soon spread to other countries.
When Russian troops left Austria in 1955, many Austrian catholics ascribed this to their prayers in the rosary crusade.
Open House, Sewol, Iran, Sabah, Sarawak & Orange Order: Saturday 16th September 2017 was another busy and varied day for me in London, beginning with two visits on Open House Day and continuing with four protests.
Open House – Banqueting House – Whitehall
Though I’d often walked past the Banqueting House in Whithall, usually on my way to protests at Downing Street or Parliament Square, I’d never before been inside the building. But when I came past on Open House Day there was only a short queue and entrance was free. I had time to spare as a protest I’d hoped to photograph had failed to materialise, so in I went.
Inigo Jones designed (or copied from Andrea Palladio) the Banqueting House for the Palace of Whitehall, built 1619-22, and it is the only remaining building from the palace. It was the first neo-Classical building in England.
I went to Peckham to see a few things in the Peckham Festival including the Open House showing of the Old Waiting Room at Peckham Rye station which was housing a photographic exhibition of old pictures of Peckham.
The building itself turned out to be more interesting than the exhibition which lacked any real examination of the more recent past of Peckham. But there were other things to see in Peckham, and a short walk around Rye Lane and the Bussey Building is always interesting.
Back in Central London, my first protest was in Trafalgar Square where a small group mainly of SOuth Koreans was continuing their series of monthly vigils in memory of he Sewol victims, mainly school children who obeyed the order to ‘Stay Put’ on the lower decks as the ship went down.
They continue to demand the Korean government conduct a thorough inquiry into the disaster, recover all missing victims, punish those responsible and enact special anti-disaster regulations.
Overthrow the Islamic Regime of Iran – Trafalgar Square
Also in Trafalgar Square the 8 March Women’s Organisation (Iran-Afghanistan) were protesting on the 29th anniversary of the massacre of political prisoners in Iraq following a fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini calling for the death of all Mojahedins and leftists as ‘fighters against God’ and ‘apostates from Islam.’
The fatwa led to over 30,000 political prisoners, mostly members of the main opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) being executed, largely hanged in groups of six and buried in mass graves.
The protesters call for the overthrow of the Islamic regime as necessary for the ‘litigation movement’ can achieve justice and build a society where such executions cannot occur and no one is suppressed, imprisoned or tortured for their ideas.
A short distance down the road at Downing St, Sabahans and Sarawkians were protesting on Malaysia Day, which they say is a ‘Black Day for Sabah and Sarawak’, calling for a restoration of human rights and the repeal of the Sedition Act and and freedom for Sarawak and Sabah.
Among them was Doris Jones, the leader of the Sabah Sarawak Keluar Malaysia secessionist movement in London.
When Malaysia was founded on 16th September 1963 the two independent countries in North Borneo joined with the Federation of Malaya and Singapore and were given promises, assurances and undertakings for their future in the federation. These included ’20 points’ of an Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC) Report, which the prrotesters say have been cast aside, and anyone raising them is being detained under a draconian Internal Security Act.
The annual Lord Carson Memorial Parade, one of several annual parades by lodges of the Orange Order came to the Cenotaph for wreaths to be laid. As well as various lodges dedicated to the Apprentice Boys of Derry there were others remembering the Ulster regiments that fought on the Somme. As well as members of lodges in the Home Counties and London, these parades also include some who come from Ulster and Scotland.
Lord Carson (1854-1935) was a leading judge and politician in the UK becoming Solicitor General and First Lord of the Admiralty. He had joined the Orange Order at the age of 19, and in 1911 became the leader of the Ulster Unionists, determined to fight against home rule for Ireland by “all means which may be found necessary“, becoming one of the founders of a unionist militia that became the Ulster Volunteer Force.
But in later years he warned Unionists not to alienate the Catholics in the north, something which parades such as this clearly do in some areas of Northern Ireland. In London they are much less controversial, although I have at times been threatened by those taking part for photographing them. But on this occasion I received just a few hard stares and even some faintly welcoming grins from some who recognised me.
People’s Assembly, Class War, Anonymous, ENA & Dykes: Saturday 22nd Jone 2013, ten years ago today, was a rather odd day for me. It began with an event I didn’t go to and instead photographed groups outside, was followed by an meeting to which I had been invited by the extreme right English National Alliance who needed a police escort to lay flowers at the Cenotaph and ended with a Dyke March.
People’s Assembly – Methodist Central Hall, Westminster
I had decided not to attend the People’s Assembly being held in Methodist Central Hall. It was a large event but was being managed so that any criticisms of the Labour Party and trade unions were banned from the main event, with people including Ken Loach being relegated to a hall down the road.
Others had expressed the opinion that this event was intended to “disperse some of the head of steam that had built up among the rank and file” for more direct action against the government. It reminded me of events following the huge ‘Stop the War’ protest in Feb 2003, at which Tony Benn and others had called for decisive action, but Stop the War had failed to do more than call instead for just another protest a while after Blair had declared war. It was hardly surprising that this was much smaller than the previous event and had absolutely no effect.
I commented in 2013:
It was a feeling reinforced by the statement ‘We will work together with leading experts and campaigners both here and abroad, and friendly think tanks, to develop rapidly key policies and an alternative programme for a new anti-austerity government‘, which seemed to make it clear that after the assembly it was the long grass for any ideas, and an end to any action.
And there seems to have been nothing that has happened as a result of this event; for a few years Corbyn gave the Labour Party some hope, but he was stopped from winning a general election by the right in the party. Nothing in Labour policies now suggests they would offer any real alternative should the Tories lose the next election. Or that they can win if the Conservatives don’t defeat themselves.
One of several groups protesting outside was Class War. Ian Bone had called for “a f**king big mob outside” (my asterisks) the People’s Assembly, but as I wrote, only around enough for a football team turned up for their alternative event, though there were several other groups around also opposed to the “pointless jamboree” taking place inside the hall.
So although there were a series of speeches by Bone and others, all amusing and in parts thought-provoking and certainly more interesting than most inside the hall, these were largely made to a mainly empty street.
Outside The People’s Assembly – Anonymous Occupy the Grass
A small group of ‘Anonymous’ and Occupy London supporters handed out leaflets, offered free hugs, and had a picnic outside the People’s Assembly Against Austerity.
Police kept a close eye on them but didn’t interfere with them.
The English National Alliance is one of a number of small ‘patriotic’ groups on the extreme right who I’ve photographed over the years, with some members who have also been involved in other similar groups. Their leader is a former BNP member who was expelled from the EDL in 2011 apparently for extremist statements.
Although I’ve made no secret of my disagreements with their views, I’ve always tried to present them clearly and accurately as a journalist, as with other groups I’ve photographed. I’ve felt it was my job, and one that informs the wider public who I think can be trusted to see them for what they are.
Many in these groups complain about the unfair press they receive, and they had a particular gripe that some pictures of people at protests who were just waving being captioned as making Nazi salutes. It certainly has happened, but as they agreed there are also some people at protests by extreme-right groups who will make Nazi salutes.
The ENA had decided to march to the Cenotaph to lay flowers on the way to taking a statement of their views in to Downing Street and I had been invited to join them at the pub where they were meeting for the march. I was surprised how few of them had come, as was the event organiser, and there were a number of phone calls made to try to get more to turn up, but eventually they decided to march.
I was surprised when the small march and its police escort turned down in front of the hall where the People’s Assembly was taking place and small groups of left-wingers were still protesting outside. I’m not sure whether the marchers or police had decided to take this route, but the response was entirely predictable.
Some of the marchers shouted “No Surrender” and they were almost immediately surrounded by people shouting back at them “Fascist scum!”, “Racists!” and there were some minor scuffles. Police managed to push a way through for them and made one arrest before the ENA march, now accompanied by a few counter-protesters was able to continue towards the Cenotaph and Downing St.
By now it was time for me to be at another event, and said goodbye to the ENA and left, with a copy of the long statement they were about to take in addressed to David Cameron from the “Patriots of England who are supporters of every street activist and political party in the United Kingdom.”
Well, no. The last half mile had been clear about that. But you can read my précis of their statement with a number of quotes along with more about the march on My London Diary at ENA Meet Left Opposition.
Dykes March – Berkeley Square to Soho
The Dyke March the previous year in London had been the first such event for many years, and this year’s event was on a rather smaller scale, but there were still around 300 who turned out to march.
The event began with a rally with speakers who included Roz Kaveney, (above), writer, critic, poet and deputy editor of the trans digital magazine META who read one of her poems and long-standing LGBT activist and historian Sue Sanders who tested the crowd on their knowledge of lesbian icons including suffragette composer Dame Ethyl Smyth. I think I recognised more of them than most of the crowd.
The route the march took was based in part on that taken – though in the opposite direction and ending in Hyde park by the 1908 Votes For Women March.
The march was to end with a rally in Soho Square, but I left it to go home from Piccadilly Circus.
It’s easy to forget in our current government racist climate towards asylum seekers that Britain has a long history of giving sanctuary to political activists from around the world who have been forced to leave their countries and there are a number of statures, memorials and plaques around the city that remind us of this.
Of course our historical record is blemished; although we supported those striving for freedom from the rule of other European countries, attempts in our own Empire to gain independence were met with often illegal, ruthless and horrific violence as well as deliberate famines starving many of the general population – as in India, Ireland, Kenya and elsewhere.
Despite increasingly draconian laws enacted in recent years Britain remains a relatively free country. Protests are coming under increasing restrictions, but we can still protest although it is now rather more likely we may end up in prison for doing so in any active way – and protesters have even been jailed recently for contempt of court for attempting to defend their actions.
Over the years I’ve covered many protests by communities from other countries living in the UK, often involving people who came here as asylum seekers. Most are protesting in solidarity with protesters and victims in their home countries and some because those at home are unable to protest.
The three events I covered on Saturday 20th April 2013 were taking place for different reasons but all involved people whose origins are in other countries and were protesting about events in those countries, current or historical.
Armenians Remember the Genocide
Armenians march through London every year in memory of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey. Beginning in 2015, Turkey arrested around a thousand members of the Armenian community and murdered them, followed by the killing of around 300,000 Armenian conscripts in the Turkish Arm and then “mass killings, deportations and death marches of women, children and elderly men into the Syrian Desert. During those marches, many of the weak or exhausted were killed or died. Women were raped. The deportees were deprived of food and water. Starvation and dehydration became commonplace.”
Most of the deaths came in 1915, but massacres and deportations continued on a smaller scale until 1923, with around 1 – 1.5 million people – roughly 70% of the Armenian population in Turkey – being killed.
Armenia has an ancient cultural heritage, with the first Armenian state dating back to 860BC, and at times its territory has included large parts of its surrounding countries. It was invaded by many other countries and in the 16th century was divided between the Turkish Ottoman Empire and Persia (Iran.) Russia took over the Iranian area following a war with Persian in the early 19th century.
The Armenian Genocide took place during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. After the Turkish revolution of 1908 there had been a massacre of around 20-30,000 Armenians at Adana in 2009. But it was during the First World War when Russia and the Ottoman Empire were fighting each other that the genocide took place, probably as a reaction to Armenian volunteers fighting on the Russian side.
Turkey still denies that the genocide took place, despite the incontrovertible evidence, and say that the deaths were the result of a civil war although the Armenians had no weapons and no military organisation.
Although the UN Commission on Human Rights has described it as genocide and many countries around the world have officially recognised it as such, including the United States, France, and Germany and the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland parliaments, the UK government has instead come up with trivial excuses for refusing to do, including the fact that the term genocide was only defined in 1948. When the UN did so then, Raphael Lemkin who had coined the term genocide, described it as “The sort of thing Hitler did to the Jews and the Turks did to the Armenians.”
My London Diary describes the march through London to the Cenotaph, where there were speeches and wreaths were laid. I left the march as it moved off to a service in St Margaret’s Church in Parliament Square. Armenians Remember the Genocide.
Copts Say End Egyptian Persecution – Old Palace Yard, Westminster
Around the corner from the church I joined UK Copts who were protesting Against the new Muslim Brotherhood led fascist regime in Egypt, which is attacking freedom, muzzling the press, undermining the legal system and encouraging attacks on religious minorities.
The protest followed an attack on April 8th on people leaving a mass funeral in St Mark’s Cathedral, Cairo, for 5 Copts who had been killed in violent clashes in the northern suburbs of the city. As the hundreds of worshippers tried to leave they were attacked with stones and Molotov cocktails thrown from nearby buildings and had to retreat back into the cathedral.
Clashes continued outside the cathedral, Egyptian security forces fired shots into the building and police fired tear gas. One Copt was killed and 84 people including 11 police were injured.
After the attack President Morsi spoke with Pope Tawadros II and issued a statement that he had given orders that the police guard the cathedral and that the state would protect the lives of both Christians and Muslims. But this was just one of many attacks on Copts in Egypt and they feel the authorities are encouraging violence against them.
The Copts see this as part of a growing Islamicisation which is also undermining Egypt’s judicial system, and as a deliberate attack on all opposition, including the liberal and left political opposition as well as all minority religious groups. The stress their protest was not against Muslims but to persuade the British government to stop supporting the current fascist regime in Egypt and to put pressure on the Egyptian government to uphold human and civil rights.
Following the death of President Hugo Chávez on 5 March 2013, elections were held in Venezuela on 14 April 2013 which resulted in a close victory with a majoirty of around 223,600 votes for Nicolás Maduro, the successor chosen by Chávez to stand for the United Socialist Party.
Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles refused to accept the result, demanding audits – which confirmed he had lost. Venezuela has a highly sophisticated and automated voting system that left no room for reasonable doubt that he had lost.
Middle-class Venezuelans who oppose Maduro and come along to protest at the embassy, and a wider group of people, mainly South Americans but not all from Venezuela, had come to defend it.
As I commented:
Maduro’s support comes largely from the workers in Venezuela, for whom the Chavez ‘revolution’ has seen real gains, including much improved healthcare. Many of those who were there to support him today had come to Britain as refugees – largely as a result of US-backed military coups in their countries. Their support for Chavez, and after him Maduro is hardly surprising.
Silent Remembrance Peace Vigil – Trafalgar Square, Sat 11 Nov 2017
I came up the steps from the Underground into Trafalgar Square just as the clocks struck 11am on Saturday 11th of November 2017, exactly 99 years to the minute after the end of fighting following the signing earlier in the morning of the Armistice in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiègne. Though actually an hour late, since it was 11.00 am Paris time, an hour ahead of GMT.
A revolt by sailors in the German Navy, beginning in Wilhelmshaven on 29-30th October 2018 had lead widespread actions across Germany with the proclamation of a Republic which forced the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm and made the end of the war inevitable – it had largely been a family quarrel between the ruling royals.
As I came up into the square a whistle marked the start of the two-minute silence, and at least one bus swerved to the side of the road and stopped, though much of the traffic continued around it. A few people in the square stood to attention, but many of the tourists continued as normal. And I stood for a few seconds then kept on walking to photograph a small group of Quakers on the North Terrace wearing white poppies and beginning a 45 minute silent remembrance peace vigil outside the National Gallery.
White poppies were first made in 1933 by the Co-operative Women’s Guild to hold on to the key message of remembrance, ‘never again’. The First World War, known at the time as The Great War, had been called “the war to end all wars” but by 1933 many were beginning to think that another world war was coming.
The white poppy remembers all victims or war, both civilians and military, and of all nationalities and has become more important as our official armistice events have over the past years become more and more militaristic celebrations. Sales of white poppies have increased greatly in recent years, with demand outstripping supply.
The white poppy challenges war and militarism and any attempt to glorify or celebrate war, and shows a committment to peace and nonviolent solutions to conflict. This year writer and poet Benjamin Zephaniah appears in a popular https://youtu.be/jtjCGCxT_PU video where he explains why he wears a white poppy and urges others to do the same to remember all victims of war and to work towards a world where there is no war.
Close Canada Goose for animal cruelty – Regent St, Sat 11 Nov 2017
Fur is Worn By Beautiful Animals and Ugly People!
Several hundred campaigners marched from a nearby square to protest outside the newly opened flagship Regent Street Canada Goose store where the protest continued for most of the day. Police struggled to clear a path through the protesters for customers to enter and leave.
Canada Goose was selling coats with fur trims using trapped wild coyotes, which may suffer for days in cruel traps, facing blood loss, dehydration, frostbite, gangrene and attacks by predators, some even trying to chew off their own trapped limbs to escape before a trapper returns to strangle, stamp or bludgeon them to death.
The down in their jackets is from ducks and geese that have their throats slit and are dumped into scalding hot water for feather removal while often still alive and feeling pain to make the down-filled jackets.
The London protests followed years of protests in New York and Toronto and continued weekly and at times more frequently. The shop gained an interim injunction restricting the activities outside the Regent St shop at the end of November 2017, but this was discharged in 2019 and their request to make it final refused, with the High Court saying the right to protest is an important legal right.
In June 2021 Canada Goose announced it would stop buying fur by the end of that year and no longer make products using real fur no later than the end of 2022. The protests backed by Peta for 15 years had eventually led to success, although the company denied that they had any part in its decision. The campaign to stop them using geese and duck feathers continues.
Remember Refugees on Armistice Day – Whitehall, Sat 11 Nov 2017
Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants hosted a a commemoration ceremony to lay a life-ring wreath in memory of the people who have died fleeing their war-torn countries to seek refuge over the past year.
The event began at the Ministry of Defence. Many feel that the official celebration of Remembrance Day has gradually become more militaristic and a celebration of our victories rather than remembering the deaths of many in all the wars that our country has played a part in.
Among those taking part were a number of refugees as well as some activists who had supported them in the camps at Calais and on Greek Islands.
After speeches on the steps of the Ministry of Defence people held up posters with the details known about some of the migrants who have died trying to cross to the UK, but for many the posters read ‘Name Unknown’ – all we know is their date of death.
Then people processed holding wreaths of orange poppies and burning candles to the Cenotaph where they laid these to remember those who died seeking sanctuary. There were 17 small wreaths, the average number of people who have died so far trying to migrate each day in 2017.
Orange Lodges Remembrance Day parade – Whitehall, Sat 11 Nov 2017
As I was at the Cenotaph I heard the sound of a flute band and drums as the London City District No 63 and the Houses of Parliament Lodge marched up Parliament St with visiting loyalists on their annual Remembrance Day parade in central London.
I photographed them marching and laying wreaths, but didn’t go with them as they went to lay further wreaths at the Duke of York Column in honour of Prince Frederick, Duke of York, the second eldest son of King George III and a Grand Master of the Loyal Orange Institution of England and then to St James’ Square for the end of their parade, where they were to lay a wreath at the memorial to WPC Yvonne Fletcher. Although I had no problems in Whitehall on this occasion I have been attacked at some other Orange events in London.
When I was young everything still stopped for two minutes at 11am on Armistice Day although the main remembrance events had been moved to Remembrance Sunday in 1939 so as not to interfere with the war effort. But traffic still pulled into the side of the road here. In France the Armistice de la Première Guerre mondiale is still a national holiday.
Paris lle, 11 Nov 2008
I’m not a pacifist, but I am firmly opposed to most wars, both historic and current. The First World War was clearly a disaster that should not have happened, a family quarrel that should not have resulted in such incredible suffering and loss of life largely with people killing others who they had far more in common with than with those who sent them into battle.
Clearly US war in Vietnam (and earlier the French in Indochina) was wrong as was the invasion of Iraq. And equally clearly we as a nation should not be wasting money on pointless nuclear weapons and selling arms to promote wars around the world such as that in Yemen. And so on.
Remembering Animals Killed in War, Park Lane, 11 Nov 2006
But while it seems clear that America should not have been fighting in Vietnam, it seems clear that the Vietnamese had to fight against them, just as it seems clear that Cubans were justified in fighting against Batista and US imperialism – and the same applies to other struggles against colonialism and for national liberation.
School Students Against the War, Oxford St, 11 Nov 2006
I’ve recently re-read George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia and although Stalinists contest his view of events it remains powerful both as a personal account of the war in Spain and makes clear the main reasons why the democratically elected government was defeated by the fascists – and Stalinist Russia’s contribution along with fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to that defeat, which made a wider war inevitable. If you’ve not read it, this is a book I highly recommend – and there is an excellent article ‘Orwell and the Spanish Revolution‘ by John Newsinger in International Socialism Journal which explains Orwell’s position and deals with some of his detractors.
Staines, Nov 11 2007
I grew up in the years following the Second World War and had my share as a wolf cub and boy scout of standing in short trousers with the bitter November wind blowing up them at Remembrance Sunday parades at local war memorials. Of course we should remember those who died, but not in the kind of militaristic and often jingoistic fashion that most or all such events have in England. The best way to honour their sacrifice is surely to work for peace. In Germany they have a day as a peace celebration.
Families of Servicemen Killed in Iraq, Cenotaph, Whitehall. 11 Nov, 2006
After briefly photographing the event at the Mairie in the 11th arrondissement – I’d rushed out from a café when I saw the event happening – we strolled the short distance to the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise.
