Posts Tagged ‘Gik-der’

Unite The Kingdom & Rejoin Europe – 28 Sep 2024

Friday, October 4th, 2024

Unite The Kingdom & Rejoin Europe: Although I’m not covering as many protests as I used to I haven’t entirely given up covering them. But my priority at the moment is in digitising as much as possible of the photographs which I took on film before I moved to digital around 20 years ago.

Unite The Kingdom & Rejoin Europe

I think those images are a historical record of those times showing London in the latter years of the 20th century. You can see around 35,000 of them already on Flickr.

Unite The Kingdom & Rejoin Europe

But also I’m feeling my age, and get tired much more quickly; after spending two or three hours covering events I’m ready to go home. But still most weeks I try to get out at least one day covering protests, usually on Saturdays.

Unite The Kingdom & Rejoin Europe

Of course over the past year many of the protests I’ve photographed have been about the continuing events in Palestine. But last Saturday there were only a few small events related to this taking place – the next big protest comes this Saturday, 5th October, starting at 12 noon in Russell Square. Unfortunately I’ll miss that one as I’m away at a conference.

Unite The Kingdom & Rejoin Europe

I covered two events on Saturday 28th September, both unfortunately starting at noon, but one in Trafalgar Square and the other on Park Lane, around 2 kilometers to the west. Fortunately the journey by tube between the two is fairly fast.

I began taking pictures in Trafalgar Square, where Stand Up To Racism had called on its supporters to come to oppose a threatened far right racist protest which was to take place there.

The far right group was calling itself “Unite the Kingdom”, inspired by that phrase used by ‘Tommy Robinson’ at his protest in Trafalgar Square in July. He and his followers incite hate against migrants and asylum seekers, and their racist and Islamophobic rants were what led to the extreextreme right, right-wing, me right riots in Stockport, Birmingham, Hull and elsewhere – which tried to burn down buildings housing migrants.

There were a few short speeches and by the time I left Trafalgar Square half an hour or so later there were perhaps a little under two hundred people who had come to oppose the extreme right, with banners from various parts of London and a few from various organisations including GiK-DER Refugee Workers Cultural Association, and more were still arriving. But there was no sign of the extreme right protest.

The third annual grassroots National Rejoin March was a rather larger event, with several thousand people crowding around the area close to the Hilton Hotel, and I had time to take some pictures and talk to a few of the protesters before the march set off.

There is now a fairly large proportion – almost 50% of us – in the country who realise that leaving Europe was a huge mistake, while support for staying out is under 35%, and opinion polls in 2023 showed a hugely different result – around 70% to 15% – if a referendum was held then.Despite this there now seems very little chance that we would return into membership of the EU in the foreseeable future.

Singer Madeleina Kay, Young European Movement, with her guitar.

In England & Wales the Green Party, Plaid Cymru, and the Liberal Democrats want to rejoin, but the two major parties and Reform are committed to stay out. It may well have contributed to the success enjoyed by the Lib-Dems in the recent general election, and there seemed to be a strong presence at the protest from some of their stronger areas.

One of the main themes in the protest was that the question of rejoining Europe is the ‘elephant in the room’ of current British politics. Both Labour and Tories seem to believe that if the came out in favour of it would give the other party a huge boost.

This march seemed smaller than the previous two annual marches and it took less than ten minutes for the whole body of marchers to pass me as I stood on the street corner before rushing back to the tube to return to Trafalgar Square.

When I arrived there around a dozen ‘Unite The Kingdom’ protesters had arrived. Police had formed two lines on the North Terrace perhaps 50 yards apart separating them from the Stand Up to Racism supporters. Most of these had left with their banners leaving only a small fraction – still considerably outnumbering the racists. But police now seriously outnumbered both groups.

I took a few pictures, but couldn’t really be bothered – and it shows. But I think we are likely to see much larger numbers at future extreme right-wing protests than this disorganised damp squib.


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Democracy, Black Cabs, Murad & Zionists

Thursday, June 2nd, 2022

Democracy, Black Cabs, Murad & Zionists – My agenda for Wednesday 2nd June 2010 was a busy one, with protests about democracy in Parliament Square, London’s Black Taxis at Aldwych, a picket at BP’s St James’s Square HQ, trade unionists protesting at the Turkish Embassy and Zionists supporting the Israeli attack and killings on the Gaza aid flotilla.


Democracy Village Protest – Parliament Square

People had been camping in the Democracy Village in Parliament Square for just over a month and a few of them had come across the road with banners to protest. They held up banners, including a large one saying ‘We Respect The Soldiers We Do Not Support The War‘ and another ‘We Demand Peace In Afghanistan and No More War‘ and several made speeches with a megaphone. Another very artistically written notice on a large square of cloth on the pavement read ‘With Each Conscious Breath May You Know How Loved You Are in All Ways. You Are Divine. Let Your Light Shine’.

Democracy Village Protest


Brian Haw – Summons Marks 9 Years in Parliament Square

I went back to the other side of the road to talk with Brian Haw and Barbara Tucker who I had come to visit on the 9th anniversary of the start of Brian’s protest vigil opposite the Houses of Parliament in Parliament Square. A week ago they had been arrested and held for 30 hours on the day of the state opening of Parliament before the court released them on bail.

The arrest had come after Brian objected to police searching his tent in the early morning without a warrant – the 13th or 14th illegal search they have made, all part of a continual campaign of harassment. As we were talking we became aware of three police a few yards away standing and watching us. They then came over and served Barbara Ticker with a summons for using a megaphone in Parliament Square.

Brian and Barbara asked why she was being singled out for attention as there were at that time others In the Democracy Village actually using a megaphone and she was not at the time doing so. The officers made no attempt to answer this question.

BrianHaw – Summons Marks 9 Years


Black Cabs Protest – Aldwych

I don’t use taxis in London – or at least very seldom. I can only remember two occasions in the last thirty or so years, both when others insisted I go with them. It’s a wasteful, outdated and overpriced system which is responsible for much of the congestion in London, both by cabs carrying only small numbers of people compared to other public transport and also by ‘cruising for hire’ with no passengers on board.

My account on My London Diary gives some of their grievances, some of which I have some sympathy with, and I agree the police should be enforcing the law (rather than harassing protesters) but the whole system needs to be updated, taking into account the general availability of smart-phones and improvements in satellite navigation systems which increasingly make the ‘knowledge’ redundant and can provide real-time congestion information.

I didn’t find it an easy protest to photograph, which I think shows in the results. Lots of taxis are frankly rather boring, and not that unusual in London, where I commented that “While standing at a bus stop a couple of weeks ago I counted over 30 empty taxis going past before my bus arrived, and I couldn’t help but think we could have a better public transport system without taxis.”

Black Cabs Protest


BP Picket for Colombian Oil Workers – St James’s Square

BP have a long-running dispute with the workers on the Cusiana oilfield in the Casanare department of Colombia, and its one where they are playing dirty, with union members accusing BP of carrying out a campaign of misinformation about what is happening in the plant, and in particular of falsely claiming the support of government officials for their lies about the action.

More or less as this picket was taking place, armed commandos from the Colombian army leapt over a security grid at the plant and attacked the workers who were carrying out a peaceful occupation of the Cusiana CPF (Central Processing Facility) in Tauramena.

Previously BP had come to an out of court settlement on a UK High Court challenge over the pipeline from this oilfield to the coast, when farmers alleged that BP benefited from the actions of Colombian paramilitary forces who harassed and intimidated them in their protection of the pipeline. During the preparation of the case, of the lawyers for the farmers discovered she was on a death list and fled the country; she was granted political asylum in the UK.

The protest was organised by the Colombia Solidarity Campaign and was supported by the ICEM, the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Worker’s Unions, based in Switzerland which represents more than 20 million workers around the world, uniting trade unions in its sector around the world.

BP Picket for Colombian Oil Workers


Protest for Murad Akincilar Turkish Embassy, Belgrave Square

Trade unionist Murad Akincilar was arrested on a spurious charge of belonging to a terrorist organisation while on an extended holiday in Turkey last September and was in prison in Istanbul. His treatment in prison has resulted in serious eye damage and partial blindness. He was known personally to some of the protesters as he studied for a Masters Degree at the LSE, but since 2001 he has lived in Switzerland and worked for Swiss trade union Unia which was leading the campaign for his release.

The protest opposite the Turkish Embassy was organised by Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and Gik-der, an organisation founded in north London in 1991 by migrants fleeing political and racial persecution in their home countries of Turkey and Kurdistan.

Protest for Murad Akincilar


Zionist Federation Support Israeli Atrocity – Israeli Embassy, Kensington

The Zionist Federation together with members of the English Defence League demonstrated opposite the Israeli embassy in support of the Israeli Defence Force killings in the attack on the Gaza aid flotilla.

A smaller group of pro-Palestinian protesters had come to oppose them, although both the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Stop the War Coalition had decided not to support the counter-demonstration to avoid conflict.

Although official Zionist sources had expressed some regret at the violence and loss of life, the mood of the supporters here appeared to be one of a gloating triumphalism that seemed entirely inappropriate to the situation. I was “sickened when at one point a large group of the demonstrators began chanting ‘dead Palestinian scum’ ” and appalled to find this was “a demonstration jointly with the Zionist Federation and the English Defence League, some of whose members many of us have seen and heard chanting racist slogans on our streets. It seems unbelievable that a Jewish organisation should align itself – even if unofficially – with people like this.”

Attempts to justify the summary execution of one of the victims by shots to the head at close range by the existence of so-called weapons on the ships seemed insulting – almost all those shown in the photographs are “exactly the kind of tools that would be expected to be found on any ship in its galley and for general maintenance, as well as items being taken for building work in Gaza. The possible exceptions are a few canisters of pepper spray, some catapults and what looks like some kind of ceremonial knife.”

I’m very much in favour of peace in Palestine and Israel, but like many I feel “the actions of the state of Israel in their attacks on Gaza, their disruption of everyday life for the Palestinians and the blockade is making the possibility of peace much more distant… Like other conflicts, resolution depends on winning hearts and minds and this can’t be done with tanks and bulldozers.”

Police had to step in at the end of the protest when four press photographers were surrounded and chased by a an angry group of threatening Zionist demonstrators but all I suffered were a few threats and hostile gestures.

Zionist Federation Support Israeli Atrocity