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Defend Our Juries Protest Palestine Action Ban – 6th Sept 2025

Defend Our Juries Protest Palestine Action Ban: Last Saturday, 6th September, 2025 around a thousand people came to sit calmly and peacefully in Parliament Square holding signs with the message ‘I OPPOSE GENOCIDE – I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION’.

The protest was against the ban on Palestine Action imposed in July by then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper who designated the direct action group as a ‘terrorist organisation’ following extensive and dishonest lobbying from arms manufacturers and the Israeli government. Yvette Cooper is said to have received £215,000 from the Israel lobby last year.

The protest was the second mass protest in Parliament Square organised by Defend Our Jories, (DOJ) an organisation set up to defend the jury system against attempts by the government to “violate the most basic principles of natural justice and the right to a fair trial.“

The jury system is designed to “put the moral intuitions of ordinary people at the heart of the criminal justice system“. As DOJ says, “when juries have heard evidence of why people have taken direct action to advance climate or racial justice, or to stop genocide in Gaza, they have repeatedly reached not guilty verdicts.”

“These verdicts are deeply embarrassing to the government and the arms and oil industries, contradicting the narrative that the public supports the ‘crackdown on protest’. Lobbyists for the arms and oil industries, such as Policy Exchange, embedded within government, have been working to put a stop to them.”

As they say “extraordinary measures have been taken that violate the most basic principles of natural justice and the right to a fair trial“, with judges telling juries that they cannot acquit a defendant as a matter of conscience, and in at least one case threating the jury with criminal proceedings if they did so.

Defendants have been banned from mentioning climate change in court and two Insulate Britain members were jailed for 7 weeks for doing so. Giovanna Lewis, a town councillor from Dorset told judge Silas Reid why she had defied his ruling, “I continue to be astonished that today in a British court of law, a judge can or would even want to ban and criminalise the mention of the words ‘fuel poverty’ and ‘climate crisis’. I wanted to bring public attention to the scandal of thousands of deaths in the UK due to fuel poverty and thousands of deaths around the world due to climate change. There is no choice but to give voice to the truth.”

The UN have declared that this violates international law, and carried out a mass protest after Trudy Warner was prosecuted for holding a sign “Jurors you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience” outside the trial of Insulate Britain activists, re-stating the principle of ‘jury equity’. This had been enshrined in a English law since 1670 as a memorial at the Old Bailey states. Eventually the High Court rejected the government’s application to send her to prison.

The protests by DOJ against the ban on Palestine Action in August and last Saturday were both entirely peaceful. Those taking part had come to be arrested and sat waiting for the police to do so. But a crowd of supporters in the square were appalled at the way in which the police did so, with snatch squads going into the protest and picking on individuals seemingly at random.

The squads were soon surrounded by crowds, many intent on recording the arrests on cameras and mobile phones, many shouting ‘Shame on You‘ at the police for their actions. While other police simply stood around the perimeter of the square and watched in silence, some clearly uneasy about what was happening, those making the arrests sometimes reacted violently to the crowds around them. I saw one officer lashing out with his baton, though his colleagues soon stopped him.

London, UK. 6 Sep2025. A man is arrested.

It was difficult to understand the police tactics. Rather than go about making arrests in an organised and systematic manner by using the very large forces present to surround an area of the protest and carry out the arrests within that cordon, they appeared to have decided to do their job in the most provocative manner possible. Perhaps it was to put on a display for their political masters – and our now Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood was impressed as she watched the screens in the police control room.

I think they had decided to arrest first some particular individuals in the crowd – perhaps those who were in breach of bail conditions from the previous month’s protest. But nobody present was trying to evade arrest – the 1500 (according to DOJ) had all come to be arrested, although I think almost half got fed up with waiting and left. Others were still being arrested seven hours after the protest began.

*London, UK. 6 Sep 2025. Neil Goodwin as Charlie X was later arrested*

I left after watching for almost an hour to photograph the Palestine march, with around 200,000 people slowly marching towards the rally in Whitehall. Later that afternoon I uploaded around thirty images of this protest to Alamy and these together with a few more to a Facebook album.

One of the founders of Palestine Action has been granted an appeal against the ban – although the government is appealing against her right to appeal – almost certainly because they fear it will succeed. I hope for the future of our legal system and country it does.

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Frack Off, Animal Exports & Hands Off Queers! – 2013

Frack Off, Animal Exports & Hands Off Queers! On Saturday 10th August 2013 I went to Trafalgar Square for a small anti-fracking protest, took a few more pictures there and met a march from Covent Garden against live animal exports which ended with photographs on the Trafalgar Square steps. Then I made a short walk down Whitehall to photograph a protest against the homophobic policies of President Putin.

Frack Off – Trafalgar Square

Frack Off, Animal Exports & Hands Off Queers! - 2013

Protests were continuing at Balcombe, a small village in West Sussex, against test drilling and possible fracking for oil there by Cuadrilla, and a small group had come to Trafalgar Square to support their protests.

I took a few pictures and then wandered around the square a bit and missed them when they left to protest at Downing Street. Although a fracking ban later ended Cuadrilla’s attempts, Balcombe is still under threat from drilling for oil by another company, and legal battles continue.

Frack Off

Also in Trafalgar Square

I took a few pictures as I walked around Trafalgar Square, some including the blue cockerel then standing on the fourth plinth. It was hard to imagine why “Hahn/Cock” by German artist Katharina Fritsch had been selected other than to provide material for jokes, including many about us not needing another massive cock in London as we already had our then Mayor.

Trafalgar Square seems now more often to be used for religious events than political protest, and one of these was just starting, with a white-clad gosspel choir. But as I commented, “Nice hats, but some seem to have taken singing lessons from Florence Foster Jenkins” and I hope they got better after they had warmed up.

Also in Trafalgar Square

Against Live Animal Exports

I was hanging around in Trafalgar Square waiting for a march by Compassion in World Farming against the live export of farm animals. I knew it was starting from Covent Garden but stupidly I hadn’t bothered to find out its route so I could meet it on the way.

Live exports take place under the 1847 UK Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act 1847 which prevents public ports in Britain from refusing to export live animals as a part of the “free trade” in goods.

But EU law has recognised animals as sentient beings rather than “goods” since 1999, and different rules and regulations should apply to them.

In 2012, over 47,000 young sheep and calves were crowded into lorries for long journeys from as far afield as Wales and Lincolnshire across the channel to France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. The journeys inflict great suffering on the animals concerned with animals having no access to water and with temperatures inside the are often 30 degrees or more, and they are sometimes confined for 80 hours or more.

In 2012, 45 sheep died in a lorry at Ramsgate that had previously been declared several times unfit for use.

The marchers defied attempts by the Heritage Wardens to stop them posing on the wide steps in Trafalgar Square for photographs at the end of the march.

Many more pictures at Against Live Animal Exports.

Putin, ‘Hands Off Queers!’ – Downing St

Protesters had come to protest opposite Downing Street against Russian president Putin’s homophobic policies.

They called on the UK government to urge Russia to respect gay rights and for an end to the torture of gay teens in Russia.

*Peter Tatchell with his poster ‘Vladimir Putin Czar of homophobia’*

The protesters called for a boycott of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, the release of Pussy Riot and for freedom of speech in Russia.

*Street theatre called for the release of Pussy Riot*

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Putin, ‘Hands Off Queers!’

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Carnaval, Right To Protest & Tobin – 2005

Carnaval, Right To Protest & Tobin: On Sunday 7th August 2005 I began by photographing London’s Latin Americans getting ready for the Carnaval Del Pueblo procession, then went to Parliament Square for an illegal protest against the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 which had come into force on August 1st and among other things restricted the right to demonstrate within a large area around parliament without prior written notice to the police. Finally another illegal protest on Westminster Bridge expressed support for the Tobin Tax, a low rate of tax on currency conversions with the aim of discouraging short-term currency speculation and so stabilising currency markets. Here is what I wrote about the day in 2005 with some pictures and links to more on My London Diary

Carnaval del Pueblo – Southwark

Carnaval, Right To Protest & Tobin - 2005

Sunday I started off photographing London’s Latin American communities getting ready for the start of their annual Carnaval Del Pueblo procession. This year it was starting from Potters Fields near the GLA headquarters, on an empty site awaiting development, rather than from a street, and this made photography a little more difficult.

It was good to see so many groups taking part, although I found it very difficult to sort out the different nations, and found myself unable to recognise most of their national flags.

This procession, making it’s way to Burgess Park where there is a Latin-American Festival, is one of London’s most colourful events, with some costumes to rival those seen at the much larger annual Notting Hill event at the end of the month.

I was sorry not to be anle to go on to the festival, especially since there was to be a short period of silence to mark the tragic shooting by police of the innocent Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, on a tube train at Stockwell Station the day following the second round of bombings in London.

I followed the procession up to London Bridge Station where I needed to get on a train to get to Westminster.

More pictures

The Right to Protest – Parliament Square

*Police arrest a demonstrator in Parliament Square, London. The crime? Holding a protest banner. Welcome to Britain, the police state (not that I think the police particularly welcome it.).*

Britain once had a deserved reputation as a haven for free speech and the rights of the citizen. A number of acts by our New Labour government have seriously curtailed these freedoms – including introducing a number of measures that they had opposed before they came to power.

Some of these measures have just been a part of the general trend to central control begun under Thatcher, but others have been brought on by the threat of terrorism and even more by the growth of opposition to government policies, and in particular to the war on Iran.

Formerly a life-long supporter of the party it saddens me, and angers me. One of the signs that Brian Haw holds in a picture is a quotation from a speech by Condoleeza Rice in January 2005, when she said “if a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. We cannot rest until every person living in a ”fear society” has finally won their freedom.”

New restrictions have been brought in that move Britain into that realm of a “fear society”.

This afternoon I saw five people arrested for simply peacefully holding banners supporting the right to protest. It happened on the square opposite our Houses of Parliament, and it made me feel ashamed to be British.

Although the law was passed largely to get rid of Brian Haw, it turns out not to alter his right to be there, as his protest started before the act became law and is thus not covered by it. Rather a lot of egg on government faces there.

[The High Court decision that agreed Haw was not covered by the Act was overturned by the Court of Appeal in an alarming decision in May 2006.]

More pictures

The Westminster Tea Party – Time for Tobin Tax

*Holding up tea bags on Westminster Bridge*

In 1978, Nobel Prize-winning economist James Tobin proposed a uniform world-wide tax at a very low level – perhaps only 0.2% – on all foreign currency exchange transactions. The aim was to deter speculation on currency movements, thus giving the elected governments greater control over their fiscal and monetary policies, and reducing the power of unelected speculators (who include some of the larger multinational companies) to affect the markets.

Exporters, importers and long-term investors would all benefit from less volatile exchange rates, and the revenue raised by the tax could make a significant contribution both to the revenue of national economies and also for international development projects.

As a small gesture of support for the Tobin Tax, another illegal demonstration took place in Westminster this afternoon, unnoticed by police. A small group of demonstrators, again following an example from Boston – although this time from 1773 – chose tea as a way to symbolise their protest. Each threw a teabag, produced by one of the giant corporations, from the middle of Westminster Bridge into the River Thames below.

A couple more pictures at the bottom of this page on My London Diary.

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Racist Borders Agency & University Protest Ban 2013

Racist Borders Agency & University Protest Ban: On Thursday October 24th 2013 I photographed a protest against the racist actions of the UK Borders Agency outside the Home Office Reporting Centre in Hounslow, West London before travelling into central London where supporters of the campaign calling for proper sickpay, holidays and pensions for all workers at the University of London defied a ban on protests by the University authorities.

Southall Black Sisters Protest Racist UKBA – Eaton House, Hounslow

The racial profiling of the UK Borders Agency in their spot checks at rail and underground stations in areas such as Southall, Slough, Brent and East London cause great anxiety in our minority communities, many of whom are British citizens born in this country.

Home Secretary Theresa May had in 2012 announced that her aim “was to create here in Britain a really hostile environment for illegal migration”, and set out to do so by a series of measures, some illegal and all morally reprehensible.

After a successful legal challenge to the Home Office use of slogans on advertising vans, the UKBA had, according to Southall Black Sisters had “shifted the ’Go Home’ message to reporting centres in Glasgow, Croydon and Hounslow.” And so they had decided to hold this protest at the Hounslow centre inviting others to join with them “in demonstrating against the Government’s anti-immigration campaigns.“

They said “We will not tolerate underhand tactics used to instil fear and divide us. Let us return to the streets and make our voices heard. We need to fight for our rights.”

Most of the 30 or so people who made their way to the centre, housed in the former offices of a pharmaceutical company on the edge of London, opposite Hounslow Heath, poorly served by public transport (perhaps deliberately remote to make life more difficult for migrants and asylum seekers who have to report there) were from Southall Black Sisters, but there were a few from other groups with a banner with the message ‘F**K ALL RACISM – NO ONE IS ILLEGAL’.

A few police had turned up to watch, and one officer complained about the language used by one of the women present. She complained strongly that she had been responding to a racist remark by a passer-by, and asked why the officer had not responded to that. He replied that he had not heard the remark, but had heard her reply, and was surrounded by a group of women blowing whistles and horns and banging drums for a couple of minutes before being rescued by Pragna Patel, Director of Southall Black Sisters, who told the group they should get on with their demonstration.

The protest was still continuing when I left after about an hour to get one of the infrequent buses to the centre of Hounslow to catch the tube.

You can read a more detailed account of the event and more pictures at Southall Black Sisters Protest Racist UKBA

3 Cosas Defy London University Protest Ban – Senate House, University of London

Supporters of the ‘3 Cosas’ campaign for sick pay, holidays and pensions for all workers at the University of London and others today defied University management ban of protests by holding a noisy protest in and around Senate House.

The ban was seen by students and staff at the University, including cleaners as an attempt to prevent free speech and freedom of assembly at the university and the threat to bring in the police to prevent further protests as one which recalls the actions of authoritarian regimes overseas, rightly condemned across academia and the rest of society. The university was threatening to bring charges of trespass against any protesters.

The protest was called by the 3 Cosas campaign (Spanish for ‘3 things), University of London Union (ULU) and the IWGB (Independent Workers of Great Britain) which represents many of the cleaners in the university, and was supported by others including members of Unison and the UCU.

They began with a noisy protest outside the gates on the east of the site, before going around to continue their protest at the south entrance to Senate House, opposite the queues waiting to enter the north entrance of the British Museum before going on the the locked West Gates.

From outside we could see a few protesters already being ejected from the lobby under Senate House. Some people climbed over the gates to join them, but most of us found an easier way through an open gate and across a lawn, and soon the protest was taking place outside the now locked gates to the lobby at the bottom of Senate House.

After a while the protesters moved out to the area in front of SOAS and I thought the protest was over. But a group with the IWGB banner had other ideas, rushing down the narrow path into the Senate House East car park, and the rest of us followed.

At Senate House they were met by two police and management representatives who told them they were not allowed to protest. The only result of this was to add the slogan ‘Cops Off Campus!‘ to that of ‘Sick Pay, Holidays, Pensions, Now!’ and the protest continued, getting rather louder as more police arrived.

ULU Vice President Daniel Cooper used a megaphone to question why the protest was being filmed from a first floor window and then talked about the shame that the University was bringing on itself by its refusal to insist on decent conditions of employment for all workers in the university, for attempting a ban on freedom of speech and assembly in the university and for bringing police onto the campus against staff and students of the university.

More police arrived and made an ineffectual attempt to kettle the protesters, who simply walked through gaps in the police line. The police regrouped and tried to stop them leaving in a narrower area, but by now some officers were trying to stop them while others were shouting to their colleagues to let them leave. At last realising that their presence was only inflaming the situation and prolonging the protest and marched away. The protesters held a short rally in front of the SOAS building before dispersing.

More at 3 Cosas Defy London Uni Protest Ban.

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Sack Parliament 2006 and the End of Freedom

Sack Parliament on Monday 9 October 2006 was more a demonstration by police of their determination to protect the status quo following protests earlier in the year and the continuing saga of the Parliament Square peace protest which had led to their performance being criticised by politicians and our largely right-wing press than any real protest by the few who had come to protest against the increasing restrictions on our freedom to protest.

It was Brian Haw’s permanent peace protest in Parliament Square which led to the Labour Government including in the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 severe restrictions on the right to protest in a large area around Parliament and giving police new powers to control protests.

Sack Parliament 2006 and the End of Freedom

Media frenzy about this protest was whipped up in the days before at least in part by police briefings, and the police clearly saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate that they could control events such as this. I wrote and published an unusually long piece on My London Diary about the event – reproduced here with some minor corrections.

Sack Parliament on Monday 9, and event to mark the return of MPs to Westminster, was of course only ever an amusing idea rather than a serious chance of a Ukrainian-style Orange Revolution. As the large press turnout showed, it was one that had caught the attention of the media (Mondays perhaps tend to be slack) but unfortunately not that of the demonstrating classes.

It got off to a bad start with the planned ‘Critical Mass’, which failed to gather more than a handful of cyclists. Heavily outnumbered by the police bike posse, they faded away, a couple cycling down the side of the National Theatre and the other 3 or 4 carrying their bikes up the steps to Waterloo Bridge.

At Parliament Square, things were little better. At the advertised start time, apart from the normal Parliament Square Permanent Protest there were perhaps 25 demonstrators and rather more press, along with what must have been around a thousand police, counting those sitting in vans around the area as well as the impressive number standing around.

Twenty minutes later the numbers had been more than doubled, mainly by the arrival of a group dressed largely in black. And soon after they made a charge at the police line into the road towards the Houses of Parliament.

From the start it seemed a pointless gesture. The line held, and pushed them back, and soon the two sides were standing a few feet apart and glaring at each other. After a few more attempts to push through the police, the demonstrators ran back onto the grassed area of the square where they were surrounded by a cordon of police.

One of the photographers, an NUJ member I’d been talking to a few minutes earlier, was apparently pushed by police as they rushed the demonstrators. He fell and received a neck injury which left him with no feeling from the waist down. Police medics were on hand to give him first aid and to call an ambulance. Later I was pleased to hear he had been allowed home from hospital, and the injuries were apparently less serious than we feared.

I was inside the cordon to start with, but the police made no attempt to stop me as I decided to walk out, not even asking to see my press card (they had checked it earlier.) Around the square, small teams of police were rounding up anyone looking vaguely like a punk or a hippy and dragging them inside the cordon. Some of those they picked on seemed genuinely to have no connection with the protest. Eventually there were perhaps around 150 in there, including quite a few press, along with a few who clearly had little idea what the whole thing was about.

Apparently others who looked like possible demonstrators were stopped and arrested in Whitehall, or turned back on other roads approaching the square.

Outside the cordon, the normal demonstrations in the square went on, with the occasional interruptions by the police, nit-picking about where the demonstrators are allowed to stand and being largely ignored or abused.

Occasionally there were scuffles inside the cordon as demonstrators made an attempt to breach the police line, or police teams moved in to grab individuals. There were also occasional arrests around the square, including some of those who protested loudly they were simply bystanders.

At 14.13, roughly 40 minutes after the protesters had been imprisoned in the cordon, Police Superintendent Peter Terry (responsible for the taking away and destruction of most of Brian Haw’s property from the square and alleged by demonstrators to have lied in court) read from a handwritten statement telling the protesters that they were being detained in the square because he believed that their continued presence in the area would lead to a serious breach of the peace!

Around 15.00, police began to distribute notices to those outside the cordon warning them “we believe that you may be, or are about to be, involved in a demonstration located within an area subject to the provisions of the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005” and moving press and spectators well back from the cordon. There seemed to be little chance of getting further photographs, so I went to get on with work elsewhere.

According to a press report later in the evening, there were 38 arrests made. Those caught in the cordon who were not arrested at the event were apparently required to provide evidence of identity and address before being allowed to leave. SOCPA continues to be a blot on human rights in this country, and this protest, despite its apparent pointlessness and lack of support has underlined this point.

I’m one of a generation who grew up believing in British justice and a sense of fair play. We were rightly appalled at those countries where protest was banned, and demonstrators could be arrested. It sickens me to see this happening in front of what used to be a powerful symbol of freedom, the Houses of Parliament.

In 2007 the Labour Government, then led by Gordon Brown began a consultation about managing protest around Parliament which looked at different ways of imposing restrictions and those in SOCPA were repealed in the coalition’s by the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. But they were replaced by giving police new powers to control a wide range of activities in the area.

Even more draconian powers allowing police to restrict protests across the UK cane into force under the Tory Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 which seriously impact free expression, freedom of speech and the right to protest in the United Kingdom, and further powers and increased sentences for protesters were enacted by the Public Order Act 2023. We now have non-violent protesters serving lengthy jail sentences, with a Labour government which appears to be in no hurry to repeal these repressive police state laws.

More pictures on My London Dairy.

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Save Hospitals & Secular Europe – 2012

Save Hospitals & Secular Europe: On Saturday 15th September 2012 almost two thousand people marched from Southall to meet others at a rally in Ealing to save Accident & Emergency Services at their local hospitals. Later I photographed humanists, atheists and others marching in Westminster.

Thousands March to Save Hospitals – Southall

A large crowd had come to Southall Park for the start of a march against the the closure of A&E and other departments at Ealing, Central Middlesex, Charing Cross and Hammersmith hospitals. Another march was going from Acton to the rally in Ealing.

A few days ago Keir Starmer talked about the crisis facing the NHS, and how it will take perhaps eight years to put it on a firmer footing for the future. He and Health Secretary Wes Streeting blamed its current parlous position on the reforms criticised by Lord Darzi as “disastrous” introduced by the coalition government in 2012 and the lack of investment in infrastructure under the Tory-led years of cuts since 2010.

Of course both these things are true, but not the whole picture and they say little that was not said by those working in the NHS and almost every commentator at the time about Andrew Lansley’s controversial Health and Social Care Act which came into force under his successor Jeremy Hunt, as well as lack of proper funding.

But they also leave out the disastrous effects of the many PFI schemes introduced under New Labour which landed the NHS with huge debts and continue to impose severe costs on many hospitals with excessive maintenance and other charges. PFI did provide much needed new hospitals, but did so at the expense of the NHS, transferring the costs away to make government finance look better; avoiding short-term public financing but creating much higher long-term costs.

New Labour also accelerated the privatisation of NHS services, which has of course increased greatly since the Tories came to power. Both parties became enamoured of a move away from the original NHS model to an insurance based system modelled on US Healthcare, a system that leaves many poorer US citizens with inadequate access to healthcare and is responsible for around 62% of the two million annual bankruptcies in the USA when for various reasons people’s insurance does not cover their treatment costs.

We in the UK spend almost a fifth less on health than the EU average, and only around a third of the per person spending in the USA – according to a 2010 article in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine comparing the two systems.

We all now have complaints about the level of service provided currently by our overloaded and cash-strapped NHS. Waiting times are sometimes ridiculously long and appointments hard to get. We need a better NHS, and to pay more for a better NHS, one that is better integrated rather than divided by Lansley’s competitive marketing-based model. But I have little confidence that our current government will make the right changes for either the NHS staff or the people.

We also need much better industrial relations, and the efforts by the new Labour government to sort out the disputes with healthcare workers deliberately engineered by the Tories which led to the strikes are encouraging. But many more changes to improve staff morale and retention are necessary. To remove the reliance on agency staff there needs to be an improvement in the treatment of NHS employed staff – and a number of simple measures including the removal of staff parking charges would help. And of course we also need to train more healthcare staff at all levels and in all specialities.

The rally on 15th September 2012 was supported by local councils and local MPs and there were many speakers with years of experience in the NHS who gave short speeches about the effects the closures would have – and the inevitable deaths that would result, particularly from the longer journey times through often highly congested streets to the remaining A&E services. Fortunately most of the politicians were told they would have to wait for the rally at the end of the march to speak. So I missed them as I walked a few hundred yards with the marchers along the main road towards Ealing and the rally, but then left them and walked to the station to take a train into central London.

More about the rally and march on My London Diary at Thousands March to Save Hospitals.

March & Rally for a Secular Europe – Westminster

Around 250 humanists, atheists and others marched from Storey’s Gate, next to Methodist Central Hall and across the road from Westminster Abbey, both in their different ways reminders of the links between the state and states and religion. And I presume the rally venue in Temple Place was chosen for the same reason.

They had come protest against the privileged status of religion and call for a truly secular society with freedom of religion, conscience and speech with equal rights for all in countries across the world, but particularly in Europe.

They demanded a secular Europe with complete separation between church and state and with no special status on grounds of religion, one law for all without execeptions.

The main banner read ‘For Universal Human Rights‘ and marchers chanted slogans including ‘2,4,6,8, Separate church and state‘ and of course ‘What do we want? A Secular Europe. When do we want it? Now‘, as well as stating that Women’s rights (and Gay Rights, Children’s Rights etc) are Human Rights.

But perhaps the most popular chant was one directed in particular against the Catholic Church, ‘Keep your rosaries Off my ovaries.” And at the rally in Temple Place Sue Cox of Survivors Voice, reminded us not just of sexual abuse of children by priests, but also of the continuing failure of the Catholic Church to deal with this, as well as the sinister power that that church still wields in countries including Italy.

As the march arrived at the rally there the London Humanist Choir performed some Monty Python songs before a number of speeches from Peter Tatchell and others. As he said, many people of faith also support both equality and the separation of religion and state, and that “for every bigot there are also people of faith who are with us.”

More at March & Rally for a Secular Europe.

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‘Tommy Robinson’ & Poland

‘Tommy Robinson’ & Poland: Five years ago today, Saturday 24th August 2019 I covered two protests in London against the extreme right. Anti-fascists opposed a protest outside the BBC after far-right activist Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson was jailed for violating a court order, and there was a protest at the Polish Embassy in solidarity with LGBTQ+ people in Poland whose lives are under threat from the right-wing Law & Justice Party and the Catholic Church.

Anti-fascists outnumber ‘Free Tommy’ Protest

Robinson was sentenced to 9 months for 3 offences outside Leeds Crown Court which could have led to the collapse of a grooming gang trial, and has previous convictions for violence, financial and immigration frauds, drug possession and public order offences.

The claim by his supporters that he was imprisoned for ‘journalism’ and in some way is a defender of free speech is simply ludicrous. He knew he was breaking the law and pleaded guilty.

All journalists know that they have both rights and responsibilities and we are governed by the laws of the country, particularly with respect to the publication of material. Good journalists often publish material that some people would not want published, citing the public interest in doing so, but in this case Robinson’s actions were clearly against any public interest and could have led to a serious criminal prosecution having to be abandoned.

Two groups of protesters came to oppose the protest outside the BBC by Robinson supporters. I met the London Anti-Fascist Assembly and others at Oxford Circus and accompanied them as they marched up Regent Street towards the BBC.

Police marched with them too, and stopped them a few yards from the Robinson protest. When we arrived there were only a handful of ‘Free Tommy’ supporters waiting on the steps of All Souls Langham Place. They shouted back as the Anti-Fascists shoted at them and a police officer warned one of the women about her language as the police moved the Anti-Fascists back to the other side of the road

After some considerably shouting at the extreme right they were pushed by police into a pen on the opposite side of the road. Here they continued to shout at the extreme right protesters and a long list of EDL and Far Right convicted sex offenders was handed out.

Shortly after a large group of Stand Up to Racism supporters arrived to stand beside the Antifa protesters. A couple of police horses came as well as a few more Free Tommy supporters who had marched from Trafalgar Square protected by a police escort.

But theirs was still a small protest, greatly outnumbered by those opposed to them.

The stand-off shouting match continued, with police largely keeping the two groups apart. I left for 45 minutes to cover another protest, and returned to find little had changed, but saw one anti-fascist being led away to a police van after being arrested for refusing to get off the road when ordered by police.

More pictures on My London Diary at Anti-fascists outnumber Protest for ‘Tommy’.

Solidarity with Polish LGBTQ+ community – Polish Embassy

Conveniently the Polish Embassy where protesters had gathered to show solidarity the LGBTQ+ community in Poland is only a few minutes walk from the BBC

LGBTQ+ people in Poland are currently living in fear, their lives threatened under the rule of the right-wing Law & Justice Party which together with the Catholic Church have accused them of being a threat to children and to Poland itself.

Some local authorities have declared ‘LGBT Free Zones’ and nationalists groups have actively attacked members of the LGBTQ+ community and Pride events.

Among those who came to speak at the rally alongside Polish gay rights activists were Nicola Field of Lesbians and Gays Support The Miners, Peter Tatchell and Weyman Bennett of Stand Up to Racism

Solidarity with Polish LGBTQ+ community

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Free Speech & PFI Debt – 2013

Free Speech & PFI Debt – Ten years ago on Tuesday 8th October 2013 I photographed two protests in London, the first against a controversial law which prevents some campaigning by organisations in the year before a general election and the second over the effect of huge repayments of PFI debts that are severely affecting the ability to provide proper hospital services – a result of misguided policy decisions by previous governments and poor agreements made by civil servants.

Don’t Gag Free Speech – Parliament Square

Campaigners in Parliament Square opposed the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill which was being debated that day in Parliament in what was somewhere between a staged photo-opportunity and a protest.

The name of the Bill (and the Act which came into force in 2014) is something of a mouthful as it combined three quite different things. Establishing a register of consultant lobbyists seemed long overdue, although it seemed unlikely to reduce the scandalous effect of lobbying by groups such as fossil fuel companies on government policies – and clearly has not as recent decisions on Rosebank and other environmental issues has shown.

But the restrictions on the campaigning activities by charities and other “third party organisations” in the year before a general election was extremely controversial. So controversial that it was opposed by an incredibly wide range of voluntary organisations, “including Action for Blind People, Action for Children, the British Heart Foundation, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Countryside Alliance, Guide Dogs, Islamic Relief UK, Hope not Hate, the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, the Royal British Legion, the RSPB and the Salvation Army.” All saw that their legitimate activities in pursuing their charitable and other aims could be limited by the new legislation at least one year in four.

The third section of the bill would effect the ability of trade unions to play a full role in informing and advising members in ways that might influence how they should vote.

Many saw the bill as an attack on free speech and something that could be used to silence critics of the government in the run-up to general elections, while failing to address the problems of lobbying by vested interests which could continue so long as the lobbyists were registered.

Rather than the mouthful of its full name, the Bill was widely referred to as the “lobbying bill”, or by its many critics as the “gagging bill” and this was reflected in some of those protesting having tape across their mouths, as well as in posters and placards. Although the bill became law it has perhaps had less effect than many of the campaigners feared, probably because of its lack of clarity. But it remains in law as a failure to deal with lobbying and a threat to free speech.

More pictures at Don’t Gag Free Speech.

Scrap Royal London NHS PFI Debt – Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel

The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) was a disastrous system which enabled essential government expenditure to be taken off the books. Essentially it involved in disguising borrowing by the government to build schools and hospitals etc by getting money from the private sector for these works and then paying these back over long periods of time.

But rather than the government paying back the loans for new hospitals, these would be paid back by the NHS through the various health trusts. It made no real sense, but made the figures for government borrowing look better.

Things were made worse, firstly by the private sector negotiators of the agreements running rings around those from the public sector inexperienced in such things meaning the contracts are far too favourable to them. Then we had the financial crash and the Tory-imposed austerity. Health trusts found themselves in an impossible situation, which required some radical government action. Even the Tories were eventually forced to do something, and in 2020, over £13 billion of NHS debt was scrapped; this good news came together with a wider package of NHS reforms in part intended to allow them to cope with Covid, and I’m unclear of what the overall effect will be in the longer term.

The Barts Health Trust which covers much of East London, including Barts, The Royal London, Newham General, Whipps Cross and London Chest Hospital, as well as many smaller community facilities has been particularly badly hit, with PFI payments of £129m a year to a private consortium who financed the new (and much needed) Royal London Hospital.

Barts Health Trust needs to cut £78m from the services it provides and planned to do so by downgrading the posts of many of its staff, paying them less for doing the same work, or rather doing more work, as there will be increasing staff shortages with vacancies being deliberately left unfilled. In any case new staff will be unwilling to come and work for a trust that wants to pay them less than their experience and qualifications merit.

Barts were also proposing to close departments such as A&E at Whipps Cross or Newham and for the population of East London things are made worse by proposed closures in neighbouring health trusts.

The rally began on a narrow pavement on the busy Whitechapel Road outside the hospital but after police told the organisers it was too dangerous moved onto the access road in front of the new PFI financed hospital where they had previously been denied permission to protest.

Although the hospital has a new building, financial problems have prevented them from making use of the top two floors – and for two days recently had been unable to admit any new patients as no beds were available.

More at Scrap Royal London NHS PFI Debt.

Carnaval, Protest For Protest & A Tea Party

Carnaval, Protest For Protest & A Tea Party: On Sunday 7th August, 2005 my working day began with a Latin carnival and ended with a not quite Boston tea party. Sandwiched between the two was a very varied protest against new laws passed by the New Labour government to restrict the right to protest under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.

Carnaval del Pueblo – Southwark

The Carnaval Del Pueblo procession by London’s Latin American communities was this year starting from Potters Fields, an empty cleared site between the GLA headquarters then in More London and Tower Bridge. I photographed a number of those taking part in their varied costumes but found it hard to get more interesting pictures as the groups were more spread out.

The pictures, thanks to the various different traditions across South and Central America are very colourful but it was impossible for me to identify the different countries and groups they represented. Most of these countries became colonies of Spain and Portugal and influences from there blended with more traditional indigenous costumes and practices.

Spain was of course traditionally a major enemy of Britain, and this country supported many of the movements to gain independence from Spain in the 19th century as a number of memorials across London testify. Though much of that support was more aimed at getting some of the riches of the continent than freeing the people and was for middle-class movements by people of largely European orgin rather than for the indigenous people – and remains so in UK foreign policy today.

Eventually the procession moved off, on its way to a Latin American Festival in Burgess Park, but I had to leave them as they passed London Bridge station to catch the Jubilee line to Westminster.

It’s hard to choose just a few pictures from so many – so please click on the link to the August page of My London Diary and scroll down to see more.

The Right to Protest – Parliament Square, Westminster

Under New Labour a number of restrictions were introduced which curtailed free speech and the rights of citizens, including a number of measures that they had opposed before they came to power. Some were just been a part of the general trend to central control begun under Thatcher, but others were brought on by the threat of terrorism and even more by the growth of opposition to some government policies, in particular the huge opposition to the invasion of Iran.

This protest followed the passage of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 which prohibited “unauthorised demonstrations within a one kilometre radius of Parliament Square” and was one of several in early August 2005 in which protesters were arrested.

Most people believe that this law had been brought in largely to end the ongoing protest by Brian Haw who had the been protesting in Parliament Square since 2nd June 2001, and whose presence embarrassed Tony Blair and other government ministers. Careless drafting meant the law did not apply to him, though on appeal the court decided it had been meant to and that was good enough, but by then Haw had got permission for a smaller area of protest on the pavement. Despite continuing and often illegal harassment by police and others the protest continued even after Haw died in 2011, continued by Barbara Tucker until May 2013.

At the protezt Brian held up a large poster with a quotation from a speech by US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in January 2005, when she said “If a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. We cannot rest until every person living in a ”fear society” has finally won their freedom.“

The protests in Parliament Square while I was there took various forms. People held up posters, placards and banners; Pax Christi held a service; clowns clowned – all were warned by police they were committing an offence – and five or six were arrested, rather at random from the hundreds present, probably because they argued with police. I got warned for just being there, despite showing the officer my UK Press Card.

Eventually there was some discussion among those taking part and people agreed they would lie down for a short protest together on the grass in Parliament Square.

More pictures on the the link on the August page of My London Diary

The Westminster Tea Party – Time for Tobin Tax, Westminster Bridge

At the end of the Parliament Square protest everyone had been invited to join another short protest about to take place on Westminster Bridge. People gathered there and held tea bags, used here as a political statement against corporate power and in favour of elected governments calling for the introduction of a ‘Tobin Tax’.

Nobel Prize economist James Tobin had in 1972 proposed a small tax on currency transactions to cushion exchange rate volatility by ending speculation, increasingly now carried out by ‘high frequency’ computer algorithms and now relying in AI. It was a development of earlier ideas proposed in the 1930s by John Maynard Keynes.

The idea of a Tobin Tax was taken up by global justice organisations at the start of this century as a way to finance projects to aid the global South such as the Millennium Development goals. In part this came from the Fair Trade movement which gives growers and other producers a fair return for their work. One of its most successful areas has been in promoting fairly traded tea. Once only available from specialist agencies such as the sadly now defunct Traidcraft this is now stocked on many supermarket shelves – as too are Fair Trade certified coffee and chocolate.

More pictures on the the link on the August page of My London Diary

Racist UKBA & 3 Cosas

Southall Black Sisters Protest Racist UKBA – Eaton House, Hounslow – Thu 24th Oct 2013

*Pragna Patel of Southall Black Sisters speaking in front of the Hounslow Reporting Centre*

Although I grew up in Hounslow, ten miles west of the centre of London, I’ve not often returned there in recent years, and the protest organised by Southall Black Sisters outside the Hounslow Reporting Centre on Thursday 24th October 2013 was the only one I’ve so far photographed in the town.

The UK Borders Agency reporting centre is at the western edge of the town, opposite Hounslow Heath where highwaymen once roamed and was the aerodrome from where the British Empire’s first scheduled daily international commercial flights took off in 1919. The large brick block once housed the UK laboratory and factory of US chemical manufacture Parke-Davis, once the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, now a subsidiary of Pfizer, who had set up a dyestuffs factory here before the first world war, though the Research and Administration building in front of which the protest was held only dates from 1954.

Southall Black Sisters (SBS) say that after the Refugee & Migrant Forum East London (RAMFEL) succeeded in its legal challenge over Theresa May’s Home Office advertising vans (which were also criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority) “the UKBA has shifted the ’Go Home’ message to reporting centres in Glasgow, Croydon and Hounslow.”

Their protest against the Government’s anti-immigration campaigns outside the Hounslow reporting centre stated “We will not tolerate underhand tactics used to instil fear and divide us. Let us return to the streets and make our voices heard. We need to fight for our rights.”

I joined the group of around 30 people, mainly SBS members, most wearing t-shirts with the message ‘Do I look illegal?’, but they were joined by others from Sol-Fed and other groups who had brought a large banner with the message ‘F**K ALL RACISM – NO ONE IS ILLEGAL’.

And no person is illegal, but those called it lack permission to be here, though many will in time be granted it. In France, such people are said to be ‘without papers’, but none of us in the UK needs papers to live here, so an appropriate but less biased term might be ‘without status’. The term ‘illegal immigrants’, a deliberately biased description of people who do not currently have a legal right to live in this country.

The protesters blew plastic horns and whistles and generally made a lot of noise, as well as shouting a number of chants including ‘Theresa May, drop the pretence, Go home vans cause offence’, ‘We are humans not illegal, We want justice for our people’ and ‘Money for jobs and education, Not for racist deportation.’

The protest was still continuing when I had to leave. You can see more about it on My London Diary at Southall Black Sisters Protest Racist UKBA.

3 Cosas Defy London University Protest Ban – Senate House, Thu 24th Oct 2013

The ‘3 Cosas’ campaign is for sickpay, holidays and pensions for all workers at the University of London, where many low paid workers are outsourced to companies who employ them often in the legal minimum wage and conditions of service, and also often employ bullying managers to overwork staff. They often fail to provide proper safety equipment to do the job.

The workers, many of whom are Spanish speaking, have for some years been demanding they should be directly employed by the university where they work rather than these contracting companies, and there have by now been many long and successful campaigns to achieve this.

The University management in 2013 had responded to their campaign with a ban of protests in and around Senate House, and threatened to bring police onto campus to prevent further protests and to bring charges of trespass against any protesters. This was seen by workers and staff and students as an attempt to prevent free speech and freedom of assembly at the university similar to that of of authoritarian regimes overseas, rightly condemned across academia and the rest of society.

On Thursday 24th October, staff students, the IWGB (Independent Workers of Great Britain) trade union which represents many cleaners and other trade unionists defied University management ban of protests by holding a noisy protest in and around Senate House.

After protesting on the streets around the Senate House, some of the protesters walked in around another building while others scaled the gates to protest at the bottom of Senate House. Eventually police came and tried to stop them walking out. But there were too few of them to be effective. The protesters walked out and ended their protest in front of SOAS.

More on My London Diary at 3 Cosas Defy London Uni Protest Ban.