Hunger Strikers & Sotheby’s: Ten years ago today this protest over Palestine was about Palestinians on hunger strike in Israeli jails against the use of indefinite illegal administration. Later I went to Mayfair where cleaners and their supporters were protesting for the reinstatement of two cleaners sacked and victimised because of their trade union activities.
BBC protest over Palestinian Hunger Strikes – Broadcasting House
The hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners Muhammad Allan and Uday Isteiti held in Israeli jails under administrative detention was in its sixth week, but the BBC had failed to report this and other hunger strikes.
So Innovative Minds in cooperation with The Prisoner’s Centre for Studies in Jerusalem had come to the BBC to protest against the continuing pro-Israel bias among management and some reporters. It’s a bias that has often been confirmed by academic studies and is continuing, though the recent use of starvation in Gaza and its appalling consequences we have all seen has resulting in some toughening of the BBC reporting on Israel’s war crimes.
Administrative detention allows people to be held without any real evidence and without trial and although in Palestine it is supposedly time-limited, in practice many are immediately re-arrested when their sentence ends to begin another term and so is in practice indefinite.
As I concluded in 2015: “Many who used to regard the BBC as a great institution and praised its high standards are now disillusioned and feel that they need to listen and watch other broadcasters to get an impartial and more complete view of both overseas and UK news.”
The BBC has some fine reporters but they often come under pressure from their managers – who themselves are under pressure from powerful lobbying groups and politicians with strong sympathies for the Zionist cause, including leading figures in our government. But they also misinterpret their ideas of impartiality, often ignoring the facts of the situation in a misguided attempt to show both sides. As it has been said “there are no two sides to genocide.”
Early in 2015 the United Voices of the World union had come to an agreement with the company who then employed the outsourced cleaners at auction house Sotheby’s which had guaranteed the workers non-toxic products, reinstatements, fairer schedules and the London Living Wage (backdated.)
Sotheby’s, who make huge profits by selling art works and other items, decided to sabotage that deal by ending the contract with that company and starting a new contract with Servest, who decided not to honour the agreement that had been reached earlier.
This led the UVW to organise a series of protests, including a large and noisy one outside a “blockbuster £130m art sale” on July 1st. Sotheby’s responded by sacking four of the most active trade union members who had taken part in the protest, though later were forced by threats of legal action to reinstate two of them.
The protest on 31 July outside another auction demanded the reinstatement of the ‘Sotheby’s 2‘, as well as repeating the cleaners demands for proper sick pay, paid holidays and pensions and the London Living Wage.
The UVW continued with protests in Autumn 2015 and were able to announce in early 2016 that “ALL outsourced workers at Sotheby’s, including cleaners, caterers, porters and security guards would receive both the London Living Wage and contractual (much improved) sick pay.”
Punch, Morris, Nakba & London May Queen: Saturday 12th May 2012 was an unusually busy day for me, rushing from Covent Garden to Westminster and then out to Hayes Common. There were two very different events I was determined not to miss, the Nakba Day protest at Downing Street remembering the anniversary of the eviction of around 750,000 Palestinians from their homes by Israeli forces in 1948 and the crowning of London’s 100th May Queen taking place on Hayes Common on the edge of London, around a hour’s travel away. And a couple of other events I could fit in too.
I wrote all of these up on My London Diary and you can read those accounts there on the links in this post – as well as finding many more pictures, so I won’t repeat myself too much here.
Punch Celebrates 350th Birthday – Covent Garden
‘Professors’ had come from around the world including Uncle Shiro the only Japanese Punch
Punch and Judy professors from around the country and around the world brought their booths to Covent Garden this weekend to celebrate 350 years since Samuel Pepys first recorded a performance there in his diary.
His was the first recorded performance of the “Italian puppet play” and though Punch was then called Pulcinella and has obvious earlier roots in Italy it is regarded as the start of Punch and Judy in England.
The fun was only just starting when I left for more serious matters in Westminster. More about the day and many more pictures at Punch Celebrates 350th Birthday
Morris Men Occupy Westminster
A Morris dancer dressed as a woman, who plays the fool, blows me a kiss
Pavements across Westminster were filled with gaily dressed men with bells on them leaping and dancing as twelve Morris sides performed in around twenty sets over the day in Central London on the Westminster Day of Dance.
The performances were taking place at various locations in the City of Westminster, including the Victoria Embankment, St Margarets Westminster, Westminster Cathedral and Tate Britain, with the various Morris sides rotating between them throughout the day.
I left as the morning sessions ended and the Morris Men had a break for a doubtless mainly liquid lunch (dancing really is thirsty work) before the afternoon sessions which, after a euphemistically named ‘Tea Break’ were to conclude with a mass performance south of the river in Lambeth by the National Theatre.
Nakba Day Protest at Downing St
This was a family protest – young protesters hold a Palestinian flag and placards
Nakba Day is generally commemorated on 15 May and remembers the eviction of around 750,000 Palestinians from their homes by Israel forces in 1948. This London protest opposite Downing St was on the nearest Saturday.
At the time of the protest around 2000 Palestinians were on hunger strike in Israeli jails in protest against ‘administrative detention’ which allows them to be detained for consequtive periods of up to six months without any charge or trial.
Israel was still displacing Palestinians from their homes – and is currently in 2025 planning to clear them entirely from Gaza, either killing them through starvation, bombing or military eviction. Back in 2012 they were planning to forcibly displace around 40,000 Palestinian Bedouin from the Naqab desert, threatening to demolish the homes of around 85,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem and to forcibly evict 2,000 from the West Bank.
Unfortunately I had to rush away while people were still arriving for the protest as I had promised to photograph the crowning of London’s 100th May Queen and was only able to take very few pictures to accompany the text.
The Merrie England Children Dance around the maypole with the newly crowned Queen at its centre
The 100th London May Queen was crowned at the Merrie England and London May Queen Festival on Hayes Common, Kent, part of an unbroken tradition stretching back to 1913. 20 other Queens and their realms took part.
The ceremonies at Hayes Common, now a part of the London Borough of Bromley, continued even during both World Wars, though they were then carried out inside the local church as it was feared the procession around the village might attract unwanted attention from the German air force.
I’ve written often here and elsewhere about the London May Queen organisation and events, including a long account in my book London’s May Queens. [You can read a little more about this book – also available much more cheaply as an e-book – on >Re:PHOTO and can read the text and see many of the pictures at the book link.]
But there is one section of my post in 2012 which adds something to the story, so I’ll repeat it here.
“Whitelands College in London started its May Queen festival rather earlier in 1881 at the prompting of John Ruskin, and this still continues at the college (now part of the University of Roehampton) although since the college now admits men, some years they have a May King in place of a queen. Talking to one of the organisers of the event yesterday I learnt that Deedy had worked at Whitelands – contrary to the published information on him.”
Fortunately I arrived at Hayes Common just in time – though rather out of breath having run from Hayes Station – for the start of the procession around the village before the crowning.
UEFA gets a Red Card for Israel – On Friday 24th May 2013 UK campaigners met those who had arrived by Eurostar at St Pancras to march to the Mayfair hotel where UEFA was holding its annual congress. They demanded it to kick out Israel and protested against the UEFA under-21 men’s football final being held in Israel in June 2013.
The event was organised by the London-based Red Card Israeli Racism Campaign founded by members of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Friends of al-Aqsa and Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods and followed protests at UEFA’s Swiss offices following a letter signed by 52 leading players deploring Israel ’s attacks on Gaza.
Previously the Red Card campaign had led protests over the detention of Palestinian footballer Mahmoud Sarsak detained without charge in 2009 while travelling from Gaza to a new club on the West Bank. He lost almost half his body mass in a 3 month hunger strike and was only finally released in July 2012 after appeals from the international professional footballers association FIFPro, Eric Cantona, Frédéric Kanouté and the presidents of EUFA and FIFA, as well as others from outside football.
Israel’s participation in international football has long been controversial, and in 1974 they were expelled from the Asian Football Confederation of which they had been a founder member when several nations refused to play against them. They became a full member of UEFA in 1994. In February 2024 UEFA turned down demands from 12 Middle East Nations to suspend Israel from international competitions.
International football is clearly a political football. And Israel’s team have clearly demonstrated their intention to use it as such when captain Eli Dasa held up a small sports shoe of a missing child hostage and talked about it ahead of a Euro 2024 qualifier against Switzerland.
The Palestinian Football Association called in April on FIFA/UEFA to suspend Israel from international competition and are asking other FAs to join them. FIFA is carrying out a legal assessment before it makes a decision on whether to agree to Palestine’s call to suspend the Israeli federation over the war in Gaza was repeated a few days ago at FIFA’s congress in Bangkok.
PFA president Jibril Rajoub was quoted by the BBC as saying “How much more must the Palestine football family suffer for FIFA to act with the same severity and urgency as it did in other cases?” and others have also accused FIFA and UEFA of double standards.
As a petition by some football fans calling on the English FA to support the suspension of Israel states: “It took FIFA/UEFA less than one week to ban Russia from international competition following the invasion of Ukraine. Apartheid South Africa was suspended from FIFA for ten years before being expelled in 1976 and was only permitted to re-join in 1992 as the apartheid regime was dismantling. In that same year, the Yugoslavia national team was suspended by FIFA from international competition as a part of UN-led sanctions against the former state during the Balkans war.“
Palestinian footballer and former hunger striker Mahmoud Sarsak
You can read an account of the May 2013 march and the static protest outside the hotel in Park Lane on My London Diary with many more pictures. One of the speakers at this was former hunger striker Mahmoud Sarsak and he received a huge welcome and “the couple of hundred people present really sounded like a rather larger football crowd.”
Also on Friday 24th May 2013 I photographed a protest by Sikhs at the Indian High Commission against the intended hanging of Professor Devender Pal Singh Bhullar who had then served 18 years on death row following his conviction for involvement in a car bomb in Delhi. His conviction was based on a confession based on torture in police custody. The Indian Supreme Court commuted his sentence to life imprisonment in March 2014. More on My London Dairy at Don’t hang Prof Bhullar!.
Obama, UoL, Ethiopia, Israel & Ukraine – Another disparate set of protests ten years ago on Friday 23rd May 2014 had me rushing around London to document them.
Obama keep your promises – Trafalgar Square
My working day began in Trafalgar Square where the London Guantánamo Campaign and others had come as a part of an international day of action coordinated by the US organisation Witness Against Torture, with protests in 40 cities in three continents calling on President Obama to make good the promise he had again made a year earlier to close Guantánamo.
The campaigners many dressed in black hoods and orange jumpsuits stood in a long line on the North Terrace holding posters. Some had brought a giant inflatable figure of Shaker Aamer, a London resident, still there, held without charge for 12 years despite having twice been cleared for release.
As spokesperson for he London Guantánamo Campaign Aisha Maniar stated: “In over five years as US president, Barack Obama has failed to deliver a change we can believe in on Guantánamo Bay. Twelve years of indefinite detention almost wholly without charge or trial for 154 prisoners has made the world an infinitely more insecure, dangerous, and lawless place… Obama’s words remain purely rhetorical. There is little intention to close Guantánamo Bay and the legal black hole it has created.”
Defend University of London Garden Halls workers – Senate House
At 1pm I was Senate House with members of the Independent Workers of Great Britain, the grass roots trade union to which many low paid workers at the University belong, as well as supporters from the Joint Shop Stewards Network and university students and staff. Both the UoL and the contractors Cofely and Aramark who they have outsourced the workers to refuse to recognise the IWGB, preferring the more compliant traditional unions. But most of the cleaners and others had left these after finding they were unwilling to stand up to the employers on their behalf and joined the IWGB.
London University announced the closure of three of its Central London halls of residence – the Garden Halls – without consultation with the IWGB and intended to make over 80 workers redundant at the end of June.
The IWGB had asked supporters to send letters to London University Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Adrian Smith listing their demands that there should be no compulsory redunddancies and the the length of service of the workers be respected, as well as calling for meaningful consultation withe the IWGB and that workers transferred to other contracts should retain their pay, terms and conditions. They stated “the University bears responsibility for the treatment of these workers, regardless of the fact that their roles are contracted to private companies.”
Around 30 protesters were outside the main entrance to Senate House when I arrived and were drumming a very noisy demonstration while handing out leaflets and displaying banners.
Soon after they were joined by IWGB organiser Alberto Durango they left to walk around the outside of the building. Security had rushed to close the door on Montague Place but when the protesters reached Russell Square the doors to Stewart House, part of the University estate joined to Senate House they found an open door and around half of them walked in to protest noisily inside the building for a few minutes, still beating their drums before finding another exit into the Senate House car park.
Here the protest came to to an end with the IWGB’s usual message, ‘We’ll be back!’. The IWGB was balloting its members for strikes against both Cofely and Aramark.
I rushed to Parliament to meet Ethiopians protesting outside Parliament over the Ethiopian government’s killing of Oromo university students peacefully protesting the grabbing of Oromo land. The protest was coming to an end as I arrived but I was able to quickly take a few pictures
The protest was by supporters of the Oromo and Ogaden National Liberation Fronts founded shortly before the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie. Since then the military government, the Derg regime and the new Ethiopian state has continued the suppression of the Oromo, and initiated mass resettlements from Northern Ethiopia onto Oromo lands and moved millions of Oromo into camps run by the military.
The USA was found by BBC Newsnight and and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism exposed in 2011 to have worked with the the Ethiopian government in an alliance “using billions of dollars of development aid as a tool for political oppression” with programmes of deliberate starvation of communities, and “of mass detentions, (and) the widespread use of torture and extra-judicial killings” against what they describe as terrorism.
In early May there had been mass killing by the authourites of Oroam University students and civiliams protesting peacefully against illegal forcible evictions of Oromo farmers from their ancestral lands around Addis Ababa under the governments Addis Ababa Integrated Master Plan which will give their land to government supporters or sell it to foreign investors.
Support Hunger Strike in Israeli Jails – G4S Victoria Street
It was a short walk to the London HQ of G4S where campaigners supported by the Islamic Human Rights Commission were protesting in solidarity with the mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails demanding an end to Israels’s illegal policy of rolling Administrative Detention which can jail them for years without charge or trial.
The put up a stall and banners on the wide pavement outside the building and spoke to people passing, handing out leaflets. Some stopped to talk and mostly expressed surprise at what was happening in Israel, although one man stopped to argue, telling the protesters that no one was held unjustly in prison in Israel and there was no torture in Israel. He was clearly deluded.
The world’s largest security firm G4S provided security services for Israel’s prisons until December 2016 when pressure from this and many other protests led it to sell is Israeli subsidiary divesting from Israel’s military checkpoints and illegal settlements. After further protests the company to sell its decided to sell its remaining business in apartheid Israel in June 2023.
Finally I joined Ukrainian Socialist Solidarity and IWGB trade unionists who protested outside the registered offices of London mining company Evraz who own mines in the city of Kryviy Rih in south-east Ukraine.
Kryviy Rih is the centre of the largest steel industry in Eastern Europe an has a population of around three-quarters of a million people. Miners there have protested as the unrest and devaluation in Ukraine has caused a rapid rise in the cost of living with a fall in real wages of around 30-50% and a rise of 20% they had been promised in April was not paid. In its place they were given an small “insulting” one-off handout.
The Independent Union of Miners of Ukraine has demanded an immediate doubling of the real wage “in the interests of preserving social peace in this country.” They say the main cause of the economic problems in Ukraine “is the greed of Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs, who pay a beggar’s wage to workers, send all their profits off-shore and don’t pay taxes in Ukraine. In fact the oligarchs are almost completely exempt from taxes on their profits.” Evraz is owned by Russian Oligarchs Roman Abramov and Alexander Abramovitch who are based in the UK.
The protest took place after the Ukrainian union called upon the British public to picket the offices of EVRAZ plc and the offices of other Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs’ corporations in London and other cities in Europe.
But police attending the protest told the protesters these offices are cimply those of a firm providing accounting, tax, Human Resources and payroll services to various businesses and are not really a part of Evraz. Further protests were planned outside the Chelsea Football ground, also owned by Roman Abramovitch and for an EVRAZ Investor Day the following month which company chair Alexander Abramov is due to attend.
Nakba, NHS, Guantánamo, Sri Lanka: On Saturday 18th May 2013 I began work outside Parliament at a protest against Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, then went across the Thames to the Festival Hall for the start of a march to defend the NHS before going the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square for a ‘murder scene’ in solidarity with hunger strikers at Guantánamo. There I also photographed a woman protesting for the release of her husband arrested 9 years ago by US forces in Iraq. Finally I met a march by several thousands of Tamils calling for and end to the continuing genocide in Sri Lanka. You will find much more detail (and many more pictures) on each of these protests at links below to My London Diary.
End Israeli Ethnic Cleansing – Old Palace Yard, Westminster
65 years after 700,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homes as refugees in the ‘Nakba’ (catastrophe) when Israel was created, Palestinians call for an end to the continuing ethnic cleansing and a boycott and sanctions until Israel complies with international law.
Several hundred people came to the protest, including a group of extreme orthodox Neturei Karta Jews who see themselves as guardians of the true Jewish faith, and reject Zionism, as well as many of Jewish or Palestinian origin. As well as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign the protest was also supported by many other groups – a long list on My London Diary – and speeches were continuing when I left for another event.
London Marches to Defend NHS – South Bank to Whitehall
Thousands had gathered by the Festival Hall to march against cuts, closures and privatisation of the NHS, including many groups opposed to hospital closures around London, trade unionists and others concerned the the government is ending the NHS.
An unprecedented coalition of Londoners, including medical staff, trade unions, health campaigners, patients and others have been alarmed at what they see as an attack by the government on the principles that underlie our National Health Service and the threats of closure of Accident and Emergency facilities, maternity units and hospital wards which seem certain to lead to our health system being unable to cope with demand – and many lives put at risk.
You can read more about the crisis in the NHS in 2013 in the post on My London Diary, but of course this has continued and is still making the news. Despite their protestations it seems clear that the Tories are trying hard to run down the NHS so that the population lose its trust and love for our universal free public – and would allow them to eventually replace it with US-style insurance based healthcare which would greatly increase costs and generate huge profits for private health companies.
I went with the march across Waterloo Bridge and down Strand to Charing Cross, leaving it as it was waiting to enter Whitehall for a rally there.
Guantánamo Murder Scene – US Embassy, Grosvenor Square
London Guantánamo Campaign staged a ‘murder scene’ at the US Embassy on the 101st day of the Guantánamo Hunger Strike in which over 100 of the 166 still held there are taking part, with many including Shaker Aamer now being forcibly fed.
As I arrived there were 8 black-hooded ‘prisoners’ in orange suits lying on the pavement, the number of prisoners who have died there in suspicious circumstances who had previously taken part in sustained hunger strikes. At least seven of them had the cause of death reported as ‘suicide’.
Other protesters drew lines around the bodies on the ground and surrounded the area with ‘Crime Scene – Do Not Enter‘ incident tape. The bodies then stood up and there was a short enactment of forced feeding by a man wearing an Obama mask.
Others held placards and posters, some including quotations from Thomas Jefferson and other historic and prominent Americans, and there were speeches about the events in Guantanamo, where British resident Shaker Aamer was still held despite having been cleared for release. You can read more, including a statement by one of the organisers, on My London Diary.
As I left some of the poems written in Guantánamo by Shaker Aamer were being read.
More US Embassy Protests – US Embassy, Grosvenor Square
Also protesting outside the embassy as she has for a number of weekends was Narmeen Saleh Al Rubaye, born in the US and currently living in Birmingham, whose husband Shawki Ahmed Omar, an American citizen, was arrested in Iraq by American forces in 2004 and turned over to Iraqi custody in 2011. He was tortured by the Americans when held by them, and his now being tortured by the Iraqis. He is also on hunger strike. His young daughter Zeinab came and spoke briefly to the Guantanamo protesters, telling them that she wanted her daddy to be released.
Later she was joined by a small group of Muslim men and boys who stood with her.
It was a busy day for protests at at the US Embassy were a small group of supporters of Syrian President Assad, including some from the minor Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) who had come to protest against western intervention in Syria.
Tamils protest Sri Lankan Genocide – Hyde Park to Waterloo Place
Finally I rushed away to join thousands of British Tamils and dignitaries and politicians from India, Sri Lanka and the UK who were marching through London on the 4th anniversary of the Mullivaikkal Massacre. Many were dressed in black in memory of the continuing genocide in Sri Lanka and some wore the tiger emblem and called for a Tamil homeland – Tamil Eelam.
Tamils are disgusted at the lack of response by the UK, the Commonwealth and the world to the organised genocide that took place and is still continuing in Sri Lanka, of which the massacre at Mullivaikkal four years ago was a climax. I noted on My London Diary that I could see no other non-Tamil photographers covering the event.
On My London Diary you can read a statement by the British Tamil Forum who had organised the march. I left as the rally in Waterloo Place was about to start, partly because I was tired but also because I thought few of the speeches would be in English.
Workers, Cyclists & Palestine – Saturday 28th April 2012 I began by covering the Workers Memorial Day protest at the statue of the Building Worker on Tower Hill before going on to The Big Ride, London’s largest ever cycle protest. My final assignment was opposite Downing Street where people were showing their support for the more than 1200 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails.
Workers Memorial Day – Tower Hill
Around a hundred trade unionists and pensioners met at the statue of the Building Worker at Tower Hill on Workers Memorial Day to remember those killed and maimed at work, laying wreaths and releasing black balloons.
According to official figures 20,000 people in the UK die every year as a result of their work though campaigners believe the true figure is at least double this. At least 1.9 million people of working age are living with injuries caused or made worse by their jobs and many of these are in the numbers Rishi Sunak complains about as being economically inactive and the Tories want to force back into work.
The UK has a poor safety record for workers, 20th out of 34 in the OECD industrialised countries and governments have contributed to this by cutting workplace safety inspections dramatically. They respond to lobbying by employers to “cut red tape” which has meant a lowering of safety for workers – and for others including those killed by the Grenfell fire where the local authority was allowed to avoid proper fire safety inspections.
Workers Memorial Day began in Canada in 1988 and was recognised by the TUC in 1999 and the Health and Safety Executive in 2000. The UN adopted it as the World Day for Safety and Health at Work in 2002. Its message is “Remember the dead – Fight for the living.”
This year, 2024, the theme for International Workers Memorial Day is the Climate Crisis and Workers’ Health, exploring the impacts of climate change on occupational safety and health. Events are taking place across the world, and in London in Waltham Forest, Barking and Stratford today, Sunday 28th April and tomorrow, Monday 29th April in Old Palace Yard, Westminster at 1-2pm.
This was a huge family-friendly ride for cyclists, with and estimated 10,000 riders taking part, calling on the next London mayor to show their commitment to making London’s streets safer and healthier by encouraging walking and cycling.
All three main candidates have signed up to select three high-profile locations for Dutch-style cycling infrastructure, which encourages cycling and walking although I only saw one of them, the Green Party’s Jenny Jones, actually taking part in the ride.
Many of those taking part dressed up for the event and there were some weird and wonderful machines taking part. For many it was a family day out and there were some very young participants both in trailers and on various small bicycles among the crowd.
Support For Palestinian Hunger Strike – Downing St
This was an emergency protest called at the last minute to support the over 1200 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails on hunger strike against administrative detention and other issues.
Among those held in Israeli jails in 2012 were 27 Palestinian MPs, 8 women and 138 children. Around 320 of them are in administrative detention, held without any charge or trial, and their numbers had risen considerably in the previous 18 months.
Hunger strikers are being punished by the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) who have confiscated personal belongings, transferred some to other prisons, put some in solitary confinement and denied them visits from family members and lawyers.
Blizzard, Education and Hunger Strike – London hasn’t had a great deal of snow for some years, but when I got off the bus on Wednesday 28th February 2018 close to London University I found myself walking into a blizzard. There was a couple of inches of snow underfoot and the biting wind was driving dense snowflakes into my face making it both difficult to walk and hard to see where I was going.
I slipped a few times and almost fell as I walked through Byng Place, only just managing to stop myself and my camera bag falling into the snow, and for the first 15 or 20 minutes after I reached the meeting point for the march it was difficult to take pictures, with snowflakes landing on the lens surface as soon as I took away the cloth I had stuffed against it inside the lens hood and raised the camera to my eye.
Most of the pictures from the start of the protest were ruined by snow on the lens making some areas soft and diffuse. It might sometimes have been an arty effect but wasn’t what I wanted. Fortunately after a while the snow died down and I was able to work more normally, though the occasional flake kept coming and there were a few thick flurries later on the march.
HE and FE march for pensions and jobs
The UCU was on the fifth day of a strike to try and get the universities to talk with them about pay and pensions. On this march to a rally in Methodist Central Hall in Westminster, close to the Houses of Parliament, they were joined by staff from London FE colleges on the first day of a two-day strike over pay and conditions. And plenty of their students had come along to show their support.
Although students are now paying high fees for their university courses, the pay of university teachers has not benefited from this, and has not kept up with inflation. Much more teaching at universities is also being done by graduate students and others on part-time or often zero hours contracts.
What particularly inflamed the situation was the intention of the universities to end the long-established pension scheme, replacing it with one that would greatly reduce pensions, and their refusal to discuss this with their union, the UCU.
The 5 day strike was supported overwhelmingly by UCU members and had shut down 61 UK universities, despite draconian threats by the management at some of them such as Royal Holloway (RHUL). Pickets had stood in the freezing weather and few people had crossed the picket line.
The move away from the pension scheme was largely driven by a small number of universities, particularly the Oxbridge colleges. Many of these are extremely wealthy, some owning huge areas of land including large parts of London and having vast reserves, not least in their wine cellars. A number of college principals had given their support to the union.
The dispute between the employers and the UCU continued for five years and was only ended in October 2023 when the employer body UUK made an offer of full restoration. This came after 69 days of strikes by the UCU and was a historic victory for UCU members and reversed further cuts made in 2022.
University teachers continue to fight for better pay, more appropriate workloads and job security. FE teachers, marching because of the loss of 15,000 jobs in the sector particularly as adult education has been savaged by austerity, and whose wages had been cut by 21% since 2009, continue to be treated unfairly.
I went into the rally in Central Hall largely to try to get warm after the freezing march, and was fortunate to arrive early enough to get inside – many of the marchers were left outside the the cold where the speakers went outside to speak after making their contributions in the hall.
The event was running late because of the larger than expected number of people on the march, and by the time the main speakers, John McDonnell and Frances O’Grady had performed I’d missed the time for another event I’d planned to cover, the handing in of some NHS petitions at the Department of Health. I But I was pleased to be able to stay longer in the warm.
Solidarity with Yarl’s Wood hunger strikers – Home Office
I left the Methodist Central Hall and walked down to the Home Office where an emergency protest was taking place to support the hunger strike and refusal to work by the 120 women and a few men in immigration detention at Yarl’s Wood.
They had begun their action a week earlier to demand the Home Office respect the European Convention of Human Rights and end the separation of families, end indefinite detention with a 28 day maximum detention period, end charter flights which deport people without notice, and end the re-detention of those released from detention.
Their statement also called for an amnesty for those who have been in the UK for more than ten years and for the Home Office to stop deporting people before cases and appeals have been completed, as well as making full disclosure of all evidence to immigration tribunals.
They called for those in detention centres to be treated with dignity and respect and be given proper health care and an end to the detention of highly vulnerable people. They also want an end to employment in detention centres at ‘prison wages’ of £1 an hour.
Among the groups supporting the protest were the Movement for Justice, All African Women’s Group, Queer Strike and No Borders. Some of those taking part in the protest had previously served time in detention centres and knew first hand about the shameful way the UK treats them and some spoke at the event and several of those taking part in the hunger strike were able to speak to the protest from inside Yarls Wood by mobile phone.
Red Cross, School Cuts and Dead Cyclists: Six years ago on Friday 26th May 2017 I phototographed a vigil outside the Red Cross HQ, the Fair Funding for All Schools’ ‘School Assembly Day’ in Walthamstow and a protest against the hege toll of deaths due to air pollution and lack of proper cycling infrastructure.
Red Cross act for Palestinian Hunger Strikers – Moorgate
Human rights group Inminds were holding a vigil at UK Mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Moorgate, London, demanding the organisation end its complicity with Israel’s violation of the rights of Palestinian prisoners.
The vigil with flags, banners and some live music came as a hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails were on the 40th day of a hunger strike and Israel was making preparations to force-feed them.
Inminds also called on the ICRC to restore the twice-monthly family visits and uphold the Geneva Conventions relating to the treatment of prisoners. They chalked the outline on the pavement of one of the underground cells in which some Palestinian child prisoners have been held for many days in solitary confinement, adding a soft toy to the chalked outline of a child.
Although quite a large proportion of those who saw the vigil read the display and came to sign the petition, the ICRC headquarters building is on a back street and not widely visible.
E17 Protest Against School Cuts – Walthamstow Town Square
Students, parents and teachers from 17 schools in London E17 marched to a rally in Walthamstow Town Square in protest against the cuts in school funding on Fair Funding for All Schools’ ‘School Assembly Day’.
City areas like Walthamstow will be disproportionately affected by the cuts and schools in the borough will lose over £25m from their annual budgets with the loss of around 672 teachers. On average schools will lose £672 per pupil, with some expecting cuts of over a thousand pounds per pupil.
I left the crowded square as people were listening to a long series of speeches from teachers, parents, educationalists, local politicians and education experts.
Cyclists Tory HQ die-in against traffic pollution – Westminster
Stop Killing Cyclists were holding a protest vigil and die in outside the Tory Party HQ a short distance from Parliament against the huge number of avoidable deaths from air pollution and the failure to encourage cycling since the Tories came to power in 2010. They had carried out a similar protest outside the Labour party HQ the previous week over their failure to take action when in power.
Statistics suggest that over the seven years of Tory government around 280,000 people have died prematurely due to the effects of air pollution, largely due to traffic on our streets. The campaigners called for a ban on diesel vehicles in city centres within 5 years, and on all fossil-fuel powered vehicles within 10 years, for all non-zero emission private cars to be banned from cities on days where pollution levels are predicted to rise above EU safety levels, and for regular car-free days in major cities following the example of Paris.
Cyclists particularly suffer from the effects of traffic pollution as they are exercising on city roads, breathing in the dust and fumes. As well as illegally high levels of gaseous pollution from exhausts, including nitrogen oxides, there are also dangerous levels of particulates from tyres and brakes. The carbon emissions from petrol and diesel vehicles also contribute massively to the global rise in temperature.
People also die early from a lack of exercise, and estimates suggest that proper provision for cycling in cities and elsewhere could have cut these deaths by 168,000 over the period of Tory rule. As well as deaths, more people cycling and cleaner air would also greatly reduce the stress on the NHS from respiratory and related illnesses. A report by the Royal College of Physicians in 2016 estimated that currently treatment for transport pollution related conditions costs the NHS £20 billion a year, around a sixth of the total NHS budget.
Many people are put off from cycling as they do not feel safe in the heavy traffic on many city roads and the protest called for an increase in providing safe routes including separate protected cycle routes. The point out that Holland spend £24 per head on cycling, twelve times as much as the UK. The UN has called for an increase to spend 20% of the transport budget by 2025, which would be roughly £3 billion per year.
Spending on cycling infrastructure benefits everyone across the country whether or not they cycle, and would reduce pollution on city streets to greatly improve life for all who live and work here. It would particularly be of benefit for child health, giving them more exercise but also in reducing the dangerous effects of pollution. Children are less tall and pollution levels are higher the closer you are to road level.
Protest against fast track deportations: On 5th May 2014, the early May bank holiday, protesters went to Harmondsworth Immigration Detention Centre close to Heathrow in solidarity with the prisoners inside who had gone on mass hunger strike against the unfair ‘fast track’ system which denies many a proper hearing. The were also protesting against other problems in the private-run prison.
The hunger strike by over 300 men held at the centre was sparked off by the failure of the only fax machine at the centre, an essential service for those trying to prepare their case to gain asylum in the UK.
The strike was suspended over the weekend after Home Office officials met delegates from the hunger strikers and promised to give answers to their demands on Tuesday, 6 May.
Detained Fast Track (DFT) was first introduced by New Labour, but its use had expanded under the coalition government. As I noted, it “is inherently unfair, giving asylum seekers little or no time to prepare their cases and has resulted in many unfair decisions. It disadvantages those in most need of asylum who are unlikely to have prepared essential documents in advance and to be in a condition to represent themselves effectively. And as they are held in detention it is very difficult or impossible for them to prepare a case, particularly when communication with the outside world is limited and difficult.“
As well as being unfair, DFT is also expensive, thought to at least double the costs to the country for every asylum seeker held in detention, though the government does not release the exact figures. But despite the cost, the quality of accommodation and services in the detention centres is extremely poor. Many of those held have medical problems, often linked to the reasons why they fled their countries and there has been a desperate lack of proper healthcare at this and other immigration detention centres.
It’s hard to escape the feeling that many in the Home Office – including those in charge – have lost any feeling of compassion for the desperate people who seek asylum, seeing them as a threat to our country, best locked away and as far as possible out of mind. In my post on the protest I mentioned the case reported by HM Inspectorate of Prisons of an 84 year old man suffering from dementia who died after being held for almost 3 weeks without and proper medical attention before being taken to hospital in handcuffs.
Hard too not to see the incompetence often displayed as deliberate, as in the case of those held sometimes for over a year after having agreed to voluntary repatriation or those transferred to here for interviews in London and then abandoned here rather than being returned to other detention centres to continue to consult with their lawyers and have family visits.
We could vaguely see a lot of hands and very dim faces in the windows. As well as the grid of the fence there is a layer of dirty glass and another of plexiglass between them and us
Difficult to understand the lack of legal help and advice at this and other centres enabling the detainees to prepare their cases, and the many holdups that they encounter in doing this – even when the fax machine is working.
Probably the main changes that have taken place at Harmondsworth since this protest nine years ago is that the prison, together with its neighbour Colnbrook are under a new private management and that security and police presence has been considerably tightened. In 2014 the protesters were able to walk down the private road leading to a BT site between the two prisons and continue around the outside of the 20ft high prison fence. Since then protests have been restricted to the front of the building, out of sight of the prisoners. Back in 2014 the police told them that so longs as they behaved sensibly and caused no trouble they would be allowed to protest – and they were.
Later in 2014 the High Court ruled that the Detained Fast Track procedure was was unlawful, though the Home Office appealed and eventually only minor changes have been made. The process is clearly in breach of international law, as is the wholesale detention of asylum seekers.
As recently as 2018 the UK again committed to a declaration that it would “ensure that any detention in the context of international migration follows due process, is non-arbitrary, is based on law, necessity, proportionality and individual assessments.” Current and proposed UK policies break every aspect of this commitment and other aspects of international law, much of which was driven by the UK and to which successive governments have at least paid lip-service. Our current government has declared it will ignore those aspects it finds inconvenient.
I’d not been well for a few days in March 2019 and was still feeling rather weak and tired on Friday 29th March, but decided to go up to London and cover some events happening in and around Parliament Square. But I found I wasn’t really well enough, and had to leave and come home much earlier than I had intended, before things were expected to get rather livelier later in the day when extreme right protesters were expected to march join those already in the square.
Brexiteers protest Betrayal – Parliament Square
‘Clean out the Augean Stables’ was doubtless the kind of snappy slogan that would appeal to Rees-Mogg
Friday 29th March had been the original deadline for the UK to leave the EU established when Theresa May triggered Article 50 and this was approved by the House of Commons, officially notifying the European Council of its intention to leave.
But things had not gone to plan, Parliament had dithered and there had been no real attempt to make the necessary negotiations for our departure – and indeed these have only really been completed with the Windsor Framework more or less agreed a month ago. Boris Johnson won an election on his promise of an ‘oven-ready agreement’ but this turned out as might have been expected to be half-baked.
Even with the agreement over the Irish border – if it proves workable, much still need to be agreed to really sort out our relationship with the EU and get things back to normal, though even that will be rather unsatisfactory compared with EU membership.
Brexiteers came to Parliament Square to protest against this failure to leave by the deadline, holding posters and banners. Later a ‘Leave Means Leave’ march arrived with two Orange marching bands.
There was a lot of noisy shouting and some MPs who walked through the crowd were subjected to angry abuse, while a few who were ardent supporters of Brexit stopped riedly to talk with the protesters.
There were also a few Remain supporters, and while I was present they were largely ignored by the Brexiteers and the atmosphere remained generally calm. Among them was #EUsupergirl Madeleina Kay dressed as Britannia.
But after a couple of hours I was feeling very out of breath and weak and decided I was in no state to continue working, particularly as things were expected to get rather more heated as the extreme right Tommy Robinson and the Democratic Football Lads Alliance were expected to arrive shortly.
Fridays for Future climate protest – Parliament Square
Although the Brexiteers were the largest and noisiest group in Parliament Square, others were also protesting and I photographed them too.
The school strike for climate was one of many weekly #FridaysForFuture events taking place in many cities and towns across the world. These protests were inspired by the action of 15-year old Greta Thunberg who instead of going back to school at the end of the Summer break in August broke the law by protesting outside the Swedish Parliament.
Kurds support hunger strikers – Houses of Parliament
On the pavement in front of Parliament as I was getting ready to leave I photographed a group of Kurds who were protesting in solidarity with hunger strikers in Turkey, some of whom had been on hunger strike since November.
The strikes began on November 7th and were against the imprisonment of members of the HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) and the Free Women’s Congress, as well as many journalists, socialists and LGBTI+ campaigners. A number of Kurds in the UK have also gone on hunger strike in sympathy, including two of those taking part in this protest.
Leading the hunger strike in Turkey was HDP MP Leyla Güven, on indefinite hunger strike for over 110 days, vowing to continue until death unless the isolation of Kurdish Leader Abudullah Ocalan in prison was ended – and called an end to her hunger strike in May when this happened, having kept alive by consuming only Vitamin B and salty and sugary liquids.
The UK government continues to support Turkey as a fellow member of NATO despite the continuing human rights abuses there. Ocalan and many other Kurds remain in jail and many Kurds have been killed.
