Haringey Development & Ritzy Strike: On Saturday 23rd September 2017 hundreds marched from a rally in North London against the council’s plans to make a huge transfer of council housing to Australian multinational Lendlease, which would result in the demolition of thousands of council homes, replacing them largely by private housing. I left the march close to its end taking the tube to Brixton where strikers at the were marking a year of action with a rally.
Haringey Against Council Housing Sell-Off
People had come to a rally and march against Haringey Council’s ‘Haringey Development Vehicle’, HDV, which proposed a £2 billion giveaway of council housing and assets to a private corporation run by Australian multinational Lendlease.
This would result in the speedy demolition of over 1,300 council homes on the Northumberland Park estate, followed by similar loss of social housing across the whole of the borough.
Similar ‘regeneration’ schemes in other boroughs such as Southwark, Lambeth and Barnet had resulted in the loss of truly affordable housing, with the result of social cleansing with many of the poorer residents of the redeveloped estates being forced to move out of these boroughs to areas with cheaper private housing on the outskirts of London and beyond.
London’s housing crisis has been made much worse by the activities of wealthy foreign investors buying the new properties and keeping them empty or only occasionally used as their values rise. Among the groups on the march were those such as Class War and Focus E15 who have down much to bring this to public attention.
In London it is mainly Labour Councils who are in charge and responsible for the social cleansing of the poor and the loss of social housing that is taking place on a huge scale.
Along with speakers from estates across London where similar schemes are already taking place there were those from Grenfell Tower where cost cutting and ignoring building safety and residents’ complaints by private sector companies including the TMO set up by the council created the disaster just waiting to happen.
On My London Diary I quoted part of a speech by then Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn a few days later at the Labour Party conference which condemned current practice on estate ‘regeneration’ and housing of which the HDV is the prime example.
“The disdain for the powerless and the poor has made our society more brutal and less caring. Now that degraded regime has a tragic monument: the chilling wreckage of Grenfell Tower, a horrifying fire in which dozens perished. An entirely avoidable human disaster, one which is an indictment not just of decades of failed housing policies and privatisation and the yawning inequality in one of the wealthiest boroughs and cities in the world, it is also a damning indictment of a whole outlook which values council tax refunds for the wealthy above decent provision for all and which has contempt for working class communities.”
“Indeed it has. And high in the list of that brutality is the estate regeneration programme that threatens, is currently being implemented against, or which has already privatised, demolished or socially cleansed 237 London housing estates, 195 of them in boroughs run by Labour councils, which vie with each other for the title of ‘least caring’, and among which the councils of Hackney, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Lambeth and Haringey could give the Conservative-run Kensington and Chelsea council a lesson in disdain, privatisation, failed housing policies and the inequality they produce. But it’s good to hear Corbyn discard the Tories’ contemptuous terminology of ‘hardworking families’ and ‘ordinary people’ and finally – if belatedly – refer to the ‘working class’.“
They go on to comment less favourably on Corbyn who they say had ignored “the estate regeneration programme that is at the heart of London’s transformation into a Dubai-on-Thames for the world’s dirty money” and so had failed to perceive that “every estate undergoing demolition and redevelopment could produce a similar testimony of inept and incompetent local authorities, bad political decisions and a failed and broken system of democratic accountability.”
The grass roots revolt against the HDV plans resulted in a political change and the scrapping of the plans. But the Labour Party has also changed radically, and those very people responsible for those ‘least caring’ local authorities in London and across the country are now in government.
A quite different vehicle was the star of the show in Brixton, where BECTU strikers at the Ritzy Cinema were celebrating a year of strike action with a rally supported by other trade unionists, including the United Voices of the World and the IWGB and other union branches.
The strikers continued to demand the London Living Wage, sick pay, maternity and paternity pay, for managers, supervisors, chefs and technical staff to be properly valued for their work, and for the four sacked union reps to be reinstated.
After speeches in English and Spanish, came the surprise. The vehicle in Brixton was the newly acquired ‘Precarious Workers Mobile’, a bright yellow Reliant Robin, equipped with a powerful amplifier and loudspeaker, and after more speeches this led the protesters in a slow march around central Brixton.
Various actions at the Ritzy had started three years before this, when workers called for a boycott of the cinema. In 2019, after an industrial tribunal had won some of their claims BECTU suspended the boycott and the Living Staff Living Wage campaign although still continuing to fight for equal pay and against other dismissals.
Ministry of Justice cleaners protest: On Thursday 9th August 2018 United Voices of the World (UVW) cleaners and supporters celebrated the end of their 3-day strike with a rally outside the Ministry of Justice in Petty France with a lively protest despite pouring rain.
Cleaners from the UVW had also been taking part in the 3-day strike at Kensington & Chelsea Council and hospitals and outpatient clinics in London run by Health Care America. They were all demanding the London living wage and better conditions of employment.
I’d been with them a couple of days earlier at Kensington Town Hall where, after the council had withdrawn a promise made to the cleaners earlier in the day to take them into direct employment, they interrupted a council planning committee public meeting to state their case.
The cleaners and supporters left the council offices then after they had been promised further talks the following morning, but their strike continued.
All these cleaners – like many others across the country – are not employed by the companies and organisations whose premises they clean. Instead the cleaning is outsourced to contracting companies who generally pay the minimum wage and fail to provide the kind of sick pay, pensions and other conditions of service that directly employed workers normally get. Often they are bullied by management and not treated with the dignity and respect we all deserve.
It was raining as the protesters gathered outside the Ministry of Justice, but there was a yard or so of shelter at the front of the overhanging building where people lined up with banners. But soon it was really pouring down and everybody was getting wet.
Among those coming to support the UVW were another union which fights for low-paid workers, the Independent Workers Union, IWGB, Class War and other trade unionists.
Austin Hearney of the PCS came out to give support from his members working in the Ministry of Justice, and Shadow Justice minister Richard Burgon arrived to give the Labour Party’s support.
Workers were entering and leaving the building for lunch, and most took the flyers the protesters were offering with some expressing support, though a few seemed to be angered by the protest.
At one point when people were getting really wet, Petros Elia, co-founder and General Secretary of the UVW tried to lead the protesters into the building, but was stopped by security and police officers and the protest continued in driving rain.
I was getting very wet, and my cameras too. One of the protesters kindly held an umbrella over me for some minutes so I could continue to work. While there was space for some protesters to keep out of the worst of the rain, I had to stand in it to photograph them.
The rain eased off a little towards the end of the protest and people moved further out into the street – most of them were pretty wet already.
The had brought a pink pinata, a pig labelled with the initials of employers RBKC and MoJ and began hitting it with folded umbrellas and fists until it burst open releasing its multi-coloured contents onto the pavement.
There were celebrations and several coloured flares were set off, though the effect was rather dampened by the rain. There were more speeches and more flares and poetry from one of the Poetry on the Picket Line.
By no the rain had stopped and the protesters were dancing on the pavement and in the road as the protest came to an end.
PIP, NHS, Trident & Cleaners: Wednesday 13th July 2016 was a busy day for me, covering two protests in the ‘#PIPFightback’ National Day of Action against the Personal Independence Payments, a rally in favour of a parliamentary bill to stop the ongoing privatisation of the NHS, a party against plans to spend huge amounts on new nuclear weapons and ending with a rally supporting cleaners in the longest running industrial dispute in the history of the City of London.
PIP Fightback – Vauxhall & Westminster
On this day there were around 20 actions by disabled protesters and their supporters as a ‘#PIPFightback’ National Day of Action against PIP, the Personal Independence Payments which have been a totally inadequate replacement for the Disabled Living Allowance which had previously provided support to enable disabled people to work and live on more even terms with the rest of the community.
I began at the Vauxhall PIP Consultation Centre in Vauxhall where ATOS carry out sham Personal Independence Payments ‘assessments’ on behalf of the DWP. These are carried out without without proper consideration of medical evidence and with ATOS haing a financial incentive to fail claimants.
Many genuine claimants have lost essential benefits for months before these are restored by tribunals on appeal. The temporary loss of finance has resulted in some being taken into hospitals and some commiting suicide.
Other claimants lose benefits as job centres ‘sanction’ them, often for trivial or unfair reasons such as arriving late for interviews due to bus or train delays – or because they have not received a letter about the appointment.
Among those taking part in this protest was Gill Thompson, whose brother David Clapson, a diabetic ex-soldier died in July 2013 after his benefits were ‘sanctioned’. He was left starving without money for food or electricity to keep the fridge containing his insulin running. She carried a banner with the names and a few pictures of around 100 claimants known to have died because of sanctions. This appears to be a relatively small fraction of the total which runs into thousands.
Later I joined a larger protest with members of the Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN), Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and Winvisible (Women with Invisible and Visible Disabilities) and others in Westminster outside the Victoria Street offices of Capita who also carry out these shoddy assessments.
There were speeches on the pavement there before the protesters moved onto the busy road blocking traffic in both directions, though they quickly moved aside to let a ambulance through.
After a few minutes Paula Peters of DPAC announced it was time to move on and the protesters marched along the road past the Met Police HQ at New Scotland Yard and on the the DWP offices at Caxton House.
Here they blocked the road for some more speeches before moving on to Parliament where there was another short rally on the road before they moved on to the media village on College Green where politicians were being interviewed on TV over the appointment of a new Prime Minister, Theresa May.
Police blocked them from going onto the Green, but soon some went past them and refused police requests to move; eventually they were allowed to stand on a path in the middle of the area. Although all the TV crews present could see and hear the protest, only one or two bothered to come across and find out what was happening – and I think these were from foreign news agencies.
Protesters from various campaigns to save the NHS held a protest in support as Labour MP for Wirral West Margaret Greenwood presented a ‘Ten Minute Rule Bill’ with cross-party support to stop the privatisation of the NHS and return it to its founding principles. Labour Shadow Health Secretary Diane Abbott came out to speak in support at the protest.
CND members were lobbying MPs at Parliament against plans to replace Trident at a cost of at least £205 billion.
And on the square facing the Houses of Parliament was a ‘Mad Hatters Tea Party’, as well as Christians with placards stating the opposition by churches of the different denominations to the replacement.
The strike by cleaners at the 100 Wood St offices managed by CBRE was now the longest running industrial dispute in the history of the City of London.
The cleaners belong to the United Voices of the World union and are employed by anti-union cleaning contractor Thames Cleaning.
Unite the Resistance, the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, Class War and others had come to support the United Voices of the World. After a rally opposite the Wood Street offices, then marched around the block and then went on hold a rally blocking the street outside the CBRE offices at St Martin’s Court.
Rip Down the Ripper Facade! On Sunday 19th June 2016 after the ‘Jack the Ripper Museum’ tourist attraction on Cable St had not yet complied with the planning decision against its facade and shutter, Class War and supporters, including London Fourth Wave Feminists in cat masks, protested outside with toy plastic hammers offering to take it down for them.
The so-called museum is a tacky tourist attraction that glorifies the killing of working class women but got planning permission and attracted support for promising to provide a museum promoting the history of East End women.
Before going to the protest I’d been to a temporary exhibition being held in nearby St George in the East church, which shows some of the real history of women in the area, and was rather more interesting than the gory speculation for prurient tourists in the shop.
I photographed the Class War protesters, led by women carrying the Class War Womens Death Brigade banner as they marched to the shop. Several were carrying inflatable plastic hammers but the threat to remove the shutters was purely symbolic.
They crowded around the facade with their banner and several stuck Class War Womens Death Brigade stickers on the facade where police were protecting the doorway and stopping them from entering.
Several black-clad protesters then arrived and the scene was enveloped in bright red smoke.
I moved back both because taking pictures inside the smoke seldom works very well and also the smoke was getting in my lungs and it didn’t feel good.
Unlike at previous protests there was no sign of the shop owner, but the two women staff he had employed to run the shop watched out of the windows. But one of the protesters was wearing a mask of his face.
London Fourth Wave Feminists were wearing cat masks but also held posters expressing their opposition to the shop and calling for an end to male violence against women.
There had been a billboard opposite the shop which advertising the real exhibition about the lives of East End women but this had been vandalised, perhaps by friends of the ‘museum’.
It wasn’t then clear when or how (or even if) Tower Hamlets council intended to enforce their planning decision, and their stated opposition to the grisly shop seems to have been rather half-hearted.
Although police had come to protect the shop against this protest, and had stopped any of the protesters from entering, they had largely stood and watched, and at times some officers appeared rather amused by what was happening. By the time the protest finished the windows were fairly well covered by stickers and egg had been thrown onto one of the signs the shop had been asked to remove.
Holloway, Nabja, Vegans, Refugees & Topshop – I celebrated 14th May 2016 with a busy day of protests around London.
Reclaim Holloway
Jeremy Corbyn
Islington Hands Off Our Public Services, Islington Kill the Housing Bill and the Reclaim Justice Network marched from rally on Holloway Road demanding that when Holloway prison is closed the site remains in public hands, and that the government replace the prison with council housing and the vital community services needed to prevent people being caught up in a damaging criminal justice system.
The prison is in Jeremy Corbyn’s constituency and the then Labour leader turned up on his bike to speak before the march to give his support.
There was a long rally outside the prison with speeches by local councillors, trade unionists and campaigning groups.
Islington Council wanted to see the site used for social housing and in 2022 gave https://www.ahmm.co.uk/projects/masterplanning/holloway/ planning permission for a development by Peabody, who bought the site in 2019 with help from the GLA, and London Square for 985 new homes. 60% of these will be affordable, including 415 for social rent, together with a 1.4-acre public park, a Women’s Building, and new commercial spaces.
A rolling protest outside shops which support the Israeli state made its way along Oxford St from Marks and Spencers, with speakers detailing the continuing oppression of the Palestinian people, and opposing attempts to criminalise and censor the anti-Zionist boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
It came on the day before Nabka Day, the anniversary of the ‘day of the catastrophe’ which commemorates when around 80% of Palestinians were forced to leave their homes between December 1947 and January 1949, and later prevented by Israeli law from returning to their homes, or claiming their property.
The protesters included both Palestinians and Jews opposed to the continuing oppression of the Palestinians by the Israeli government. They were met by a small group of people holding Israeli flags who stood in their way and shouted insults, accusing them of anti-Semitism.
The organisers were clear that the protest was not anti-Semitic but against Zionism and some actions of the Israeli government. Both police and protesters tried hard to avoid confrontation with those who had clearly come to disrupt and provoke.
Many UK businesses play an important part in supporting the Israeli government by selling Israeli goods and those produced in the occupied territories and in other ways, and their were brief speeches as the protest halted outside some of them detailing some of these links.
Vegan Earthlings Masked Video Protest – Trafalgar Square
Vegans in white masks from London Vegan Actions were standing in a large circle on the North Terrace of Trafalgar Square, some holding laptops or tables showing a film about the mistreatment of animals in food production, bullfighting, etc. Although bright sun made the laptop screens almost impossible to see and the sound outdoors was largely inaudible the large circle of people standing in white masks did attract attention.
Refugees Welcome say protesters – Trafalgar Square
Also protesting in front of the National Gallery were a small group holding posters calling for human rights, fair treatment and support for refugees. Some held a banner with the message ‘free movement for People Not Weapons‘.
After Topshop suspended two cleaners who were members of the United Voices of the World trade union for protesting for a living wage and sacked one of them protests were taking place outside their stores around the country.
The UVW were supported by others at the London protest which began outside Topshop on Oxford Street by others including trade unionists from the CAIWU and Ian Hodson, General Secretary of the BWAFU as well as then Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and Class War.
A large crowd of police and extra illegal security guards wearing no ID blocked the entrance to the shop stopping both protesters and customers from entering. The several hundred protesters held up placards and banners and protested noisily but made no serious attempt to go in to the store.
A man wears a mask of Topshop owner Phillip Green
Some protesters, led by the Class War ‘Womens Death Brigade’ moved onto the road, blocking it for some minutes before the whole group of protesters marched to block the Oxford Circus junction for some minutes until a large group of police arrived and fairly gently persuade them to move.
They stopped outside John Lewis, another major store in a long-running dispute with the union as it allowed its cleaning contractor to pay its cleaners low wages, with poor conditions of service and poor management, disclaiming any responsibility for workers who keep its stores running.
The protest there was again noisy and there were some heated verbal exchanges between protesters and police, but I saw no arrests. After a few minutes the protesters marched off to continue their protest outside another Oxford Street Topshop branch close to Marble Arch.
Baltimore to Brixton – Black Lives Matter! The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter was first used on Twitter on 12th July 2013 but only became common in 2014 after the killings of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice in 2014, reaching a peak when it was announced nobody wold be prosecuted over the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson. According to a list published by Twitter on the tenth anniversary of the platform in 2016 #BlackLivesMatter was the third most used hashtag in those ten years, beaten by #Ferguson at number one and #LoveWins, celebrating the US Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage.
Of course the UK has its own cases of people, especially but not only black who have been killed by police and otherwise in custody and an annual march takes place in Whitehall on the last Saturday of October by the United Families and Friends Campaign to remembers them, with a list of over 2000 names being carried to a rally at Downing Street.
The United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC) describes itself as “a coalition of families and friends of those that have died in the custody of police and prison officers as well as those who are killed in immigration detention and secure psychiatric hospitals. It includes the families of Roger Sylvester, Leon Patterson, Rocky Bennett, Alton Manning, Christopher Alder, Brian Douglas, Joy Gardner, Aseta Simms, Ricky Bishop, Paul Jemmott, Harry Stanley, Glenn Howard, Mikey Powell, Jason McPherson, Lloyd Butler, Azelle Rodney, Sean Rigg, Habib Ullah, Olaseni Lewis, David Emmanuel (aka Smiley Culture), Kingsley Burrell, Demetre Fraser, Mark Duggan and Anthony Grainger to name but a few. Together we have built a network for collective action to end deaths in custody.”
And we have a long history of racist prosecutions, most notably perhaps the trial of the Mangrove Nine in 1970. The defendants, most of whom defended themselves, were finally all acquitted on the main charge of incitement to riot with four receiving suspended sentences for less serious offences. But the judge made clear in his comments that the authorities and in particular the Metropolitan Police had been racist in their actions and in bringing the prosecution.
Since then there have been other high profile cases which have demonstrated the institutional racism of the police force – notably over their investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the police murder of Jean Charles de Menezes. In 2023 the report by Baroness Casey was only the latest to castigate them as racist, sexist and homophobic.
Activists in the UK have also responded to the police murders in USA, and on Sunday 3rd May 2015 following the killing of Freddie Gray in Baltimore and police attacks on his funeral which led to massive protest in the USA, they protested in Brixton in solidarity and pointed out similar problems in Brixton and the UK.
It wasn’t a huge protest but was supported by a wide range of groups from Brixton and across London, including London Black Revs, Class War, the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, Reclaim Brixton, Women of Colour and the All-African Women’s Group from the Global Women’s Strike, Brixton Latin American Community, Mexica Movement London Chapter, Our Brixton, Latin Brixton, Justice for Christopher Alder, BirminghamStrong, Justice 4 ALL, The Brick Lane Debates, Occupy UAL, RCG, Revolutionary Communist Group, Occupy London, Rojava Solidarity Working Group, Algeria Solidarity Campaign, Environmental Justice North Africa and Justice4Paps.
On My London Diary I give some brief facts about the killing of 25-year-old African American Freddie Gray and the attack on his funeral by police which provoked riots. You can read a much more detailed account on Wikipedia.
The march began by going through the large barrier bloc of Southwyck House, built in the 1970s as a shield for the urban motorway, plans for which were dropped after the devastation it would cause became obvious after the Westway section was built in North Kensington, stopping for a brief protest there before it continued to a housing occupation against Guinness Trust opposite the Loughborough Park Estate. It then through the centre of Brixton to a rally in Windrush Square.
People then marched along Brixton Road past the Underground Station to Brixton Police Station and on to the Loughborough Estate to a community centre on Somerleyton Road.
I’d walked far enough and left the march there, walking back along Atlantic Road where I photographed some of the murals against the eviction of local shopkeepers from the railway arches before taking the tube to Westminster to go to visit the Occupy ‘Festival of Democracy‘ in Parliament Square, then in Day 3.
Fighting Brixton Gentrification – On Saturday 25th April 2015 the local community in Brixton held a day of activities to reclaim its social & cultural diversity, threatened by increasing rents and property development that are forcing out local businesses and residents.
I’d arrived early for main ‘Reclaim Brixton’ event in Windrush Square and first made my way to Atlantic Road where long-established local businesses were being forced out from the railway arches which line one side of the road. They were under threat from Network Rail who with support from Lambeth Council were carrying out a refurbishment programme which would result in their shops being closed and the rents for the shops after being three times as high, pricing the low cost local businesses out of the area.
All the stores were closed for two hours across lunchtime in protest, and mural artists had been invited to work on their metal shutters. In 2015 I wrote: ‘On Stella’s Exclusive Hair & Beauty Salon an artist was working on a mural for the United Families and Friends campaign, celebrating Cherry Groce, Sean Rigg and Ricky Bishop, all killed by Brixton police. All the shops on both sides of the arches were closed, and most had white sheets with the name of the business and a punning message about the evictions. Some of them have traded here for many years – Denmay Fabrics since 1948, and L S Mash and Sons have been fishmongers here since 1932. Their message to Network Rail – ‘Don’t rip the soul outta my place”
Street theatre groups walked past on their way to ‘Reclaim Brixton’ some in exotic dress carrying cardboard homes and others with posters against the threat to Communities, Homes, Businesses from Lambeth Council.
I walked along to the gentrified Brixton Village, an extensive arcade between Atlantic Road and Coldharbour Lane, to find that police and security were keeping out protesters who, led by London Black Revs, had planned to go through the market in a peaceful march.
I found Class War at Brixton Station and walked back with them to Brixton Village, where other campaigners including some from the Ayslesbury Estate where I had photographed the previous day making their banner and other South London housing campaigners were arriving for the march.
Rather to my surprise the march when it finally started was a short and fairly direct one to Windrush Square, turning off Coldharbour Lane to enter the square via Rushcroft Road.
Close to the mansion flats which had been squatted for 32 years before residents were violently evicted in July 2013 people accompanying the long black banner of B.A.G.A.G.E (Brixton Action Group Against Gentrification and Evictions) with its message ‘Refuse to Move – Resist the Evictions – Support your Neighbours’ and others let off several red flares.
Windrush Square in front of the Tate Library and opposite Lambeth Town Hall was a few years earlier re-landscaped by Lambeth Council, who deliberately turned what had been a popular place for locals into a bleak and unwelcoming windswept area to discourage the informal gatherings that took place there.
Perhaps it was partly due to this that the event taking place there seemed to lack any real cohesion with various groups doing their own thing in different parts of the large area and largely ignoring the speeches and performances at the Unite Community stage.
After an hour or so with not very much happening, activists decided it was time for a march and took to the road blocking traffic and walked up Brixton Road.
They stopped for a while outside Brixton Underground, drumming and dancing and shouting.
Then they marched along Atlantic Road and rather to my surprise returned directly to Windrush Square along Coldharbour Lane.
Marcia Rigg, Sean Rigg’s sister, still fighting for justice for her brother’s killing by Brixton police in August 2008 and friend
I hung around for a while in Windrush Square where nothing much was still happening slowly and things seemed peaceful. I decided I had done enough for the day and left.
This was a mistake. Shortly after (probably when Class War came out of the pub) sthings kicked off and some people stormed and briefly occupied Lambeth Town Hall, a large window at Foxton’s estate agents was broken, and a few activists went into Brixton Village with banners.
UVW Protest Topshop & John Lewis – Saturday 16th April 2016 was a busy day for me in London with a large march and rally by the Peoples Assembly Against Austerity demanding an end to privatisation of the NHS, secure homes for all, rent control and an end to attacks on social housing, an end to insecure jobs and the scrapping of the Trade Union Bill, tuition fees and the marketisation of education and smaller protests against repression in Iran and Palestine, all of which you can read about on My London Diary.
After all that I went with the grass roots trade union United Voices of the World on their protest against Topshop, demanding the reinstatement of 2 workers there suspended by cleaning contractor Britannia for calling for the London Living Wage of £9.40 for Topshop cleaners. All of the pictures in this post come from the UVW protests at first outside Topshop on the Strand, and then at the Topshop at Oxford Circus.
On Strand the shop was protected by security but soon a large group of police arrived and tried to move the protesters away from the store. The protesters refused to move and police began pushing them around roughly, but soon stopped, perhaps because they were being photographed and filmed by a large group of press who like me had been at the Peoples Assembly rally.
Police pulled one protester to the side and started to ask questions and a large crowd formed around him; the man refused to answer police questions and eventually the officer concerned gave up.
There was a short rally on the pavement outside and Susanna, one of the two cleaners victimised by Britannia and Topshop spoke briefly but soon broke down in tears. After a couple of minutes she started again and was loudly applauded.
The protesters then marched off and I met them again on Oxford Street outside the flagship Topshop store close to Oxford Circus.
A squad of police rushed to stand in line to guard the main door on Oxford Street and pushed the protesters away. After a short while the UVW protesters marched around the block to other entrances, where police moved inside the store to meet them.
The UVW moved back to Oxford Street to continue the protest outside the main entrance, again blocked by police. Class War who were supporting the UVW moved their banner up to the police line and there was a standoff as the two groups eyed each other from a couple of feet away.
Class War then produced some yellow ‘Crime Scene’ tape and stretched it across in front of the police line, which left some officers looking rather perplexed.
The protesters then marched off towards John Lewis, where the UVW has long been The protesters then marched off towards John Lewis, where the UVW has long been holding protests calling for the cleaners to be treated equally with other workers in the store.
They walked towards the doors, but police pushed them back forcefully knocking one woman flying. Others rushed to help her, and UVW General Secretary Petros Elia protested angrily at the officer who had pushed her.
Eventually a senior officer came to see what had happened and listened to the complaint. To my surprise he then asked the officer to apologise for using excessive force – something I’ve never known to happen at a protest before.
There were a few speeches to explain to the shoppers walking by why the protest was taking place. Clearly many who listened felt that the cleaners were being shabbily treated by companies like Topshop and John Lewis who use outsourcing to get work done on the cheap with conditions that are greatly inferior to their directly employed workers.
The UVW left to return to continue their protest at Topshop, but I left them at Oxford Circus to take the tube – I was already late for dinner.
Sudan and Brunei Gay Sex: I began work on Saturday 6th April 2019 at the Sudanese Embassy and then left for the Dorchester Hotel in Mayfair where protesters had come after the Sultan of Brunei had announced death by stoning as a punishment for gay sex, adultery and blasphemy.
Sudanese for Freedom, Peace and Justice – Sudan Embassy
War is raging again now in Sudan between between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Back in 2019 people were protesting against the extreme violence in Sudan against peaceful protests calling for for an end to the violent and corrupt Sudanese regime and for president Omar al-Bashir to ‘Just Fall’ and stand trial by the ICC for genocide in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and South Blue Nile.
People in Sudan had been protesting for 17 weeks and over 70 protesters had been killed and thousands injured.
Five days later, Omar al-Bashir was deposed by the Sudanese Armed Forces and in May 2019 was charged al-Bashir with “inciting and participating in” the killing of protesters. Later other charges were brought, including of corruption and money laundering. Other trials followed and he has been accused of genocide. The prison in which he was being held has been overrun by the current fighting between forces led by the generals who deposed him and he is currently held in a military hospital in Khartoum.
I left the protesters still in and around the protest pen outside the embassy opposite St James Palace in Cleveland Row and rushed the three quarters of a mile or so to the Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane, where I knew the protest had already begun.
Brunei Sultan gay sex stoning protest – Dorchester Hotel
A large crowd had gathered on the streets in front of the Dorchester Hotel behind barriers that kept them out of the area directly in front of the entrance.
There were a number of speeches including those by Labour Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Emily Thornberry MP and activist Peter Tatchell condemining the announcement by the Sultan of Brunei of death by stoning as a punishment for gay sex, adultery and blasphemy.
It was a colourful protest with many from the gay community with some interesting posters and placards. Police continually harassed protesters to keep the roads open, although there were really too many people to make this sensible.
After an hour or so, Class War decided to move from behind the barriers and pushed some aside to protest directly in front of the hotel doors. They were followed by many of the other protesters and a noisy protest continued there.
Dolce & Gabbana, Sanctions & Poor Doors Thursday 19th March 2015 -protests at a Mayfair fashion store, the Department of Work and Pensions and another of Class War’s long series of protests at One Commercial St, Aldgate.
Dolce & Gabbana Boycott – Old Bond St
Domenico Dolce and his business partner Stefano Gabbana are apparently well known fashion designers and have a range of over 200 shops in plush areas of cities in 41 countries dedicated exclusively to selling their overpriced clothing. In London I think they have one in Sloane Square as well as the Mayfair store this protest took place outside.
For some reason our media treats anything to do with fashion as important news, and there were more photographers and TV crews packing the narrow pavement than protesters when I arrived making covering the protest difficult, particularly for those of us who prefer to work at close range.
The Peter Tatchell Foundation and the Out and Proud Diamond Group had called the protest in support of the international boycott over homophobic statements by the two designers. Almost certainly a much higher proportion of the shop’s customers are gay than in the general population and Dolce & Gabbana have profited massively from sales to the gay community over the years.
Unite protest against Benefit Sanctions – Caxton House, Westminster
Gill Thompson, whose brother died after being sanctioned holds her 211,822 signature petition
Unite here and at Job Centres around the country were having a day of action against punitive benefit sanctions on over 2m people which had led to increased poverty, misery and even death. They say the are a ‘grotesque cruelty’ and are often imposed for trivial reasons.
People have been sanctioned because postal delays meant they never got notification of an appointment they missed, or because they were 5 minutes late as a bus was cancelled. Often job centre staff are under pressure to issue sanctions and may be penalised if they do not sanction enough of their clients.
At the protest was Gill Thompson, whose brother, David Clapson, a diabetic ex-soldier, died after being sanctioned. She had brought her 211,822 signature petition calling for an inquiry into benefit sanctions to the protest to present to the DWP.
Among others who spoke was Rev Paul Nicholson of Taxpayers Against Poverty.
Poor Doors Protest Blocks Rich Door – One Commercial St, Aldgate
When Class War read a newspaper article about the separate entrances for rich residents and those in social housing in a new block at One Commercial Street in July 2014 they were disgusted and decided to launch a series of weekly protests outside the block every Thursday evening.
I missed the first of these but you can find reports of almost all of the rest of them, at least 29 in all, on My London Diary. For an overview you can read John Bigger’s article on Freedom in which he gives an insider’s view and assesses the impact of these protests, and the ‘zine’ I published Class War: Rich Door, Poor Door with over 200 photographs from 29 protests is still available. But though this is reasonably priced, postage costs roughly double this – so you really need to buy half a dozen copies or more and give or sell some to your friends. Be warned the print quality in what Blurb calls a MAGAZINE is pretty low.
The protest on 19th March was a lively one and the management at One Commercial Street had locked the rich door and were I think telling the rich residents of that section to enter and leave instead through the hotel at the Commercial Street side of the building. Class War held up banners and posters and some stuck stickers onto the glass of door and large windows. Someone lit a red smoke flare and threw it onto the pavement. There was a lot of loud chanting and some short speeches.
Some younger anarchists present took plastic barriers from the works taking place on the pavement and piled them in front of the locked door. Others took them onto the busy Whitechapel High Street and blocked the traffic.
A man and a woman who had been watching suddenly grabbed one of those present, threw him to the floor and handcuffed him, holding up their warrant cards to show they were plain clothes police. I didn’t recognise the man they arrested who was not one of the regular Class War protesters, and as usual they refused to answer questions about why he was being arrested. But their arrest effectively blocked the only lane of the road which the protesters had not already blocked.
More uniformed police arrived and dragged the arrested man away to a police van, removed the barriers and protesters from the road and the protest continued with Class War holding up flaming torches in front of the rich door.
There were a few more short speeches and then the protesters left as usual after about an hour, leaving their posters attached to the glass on the front of the building by Class War stickers.
