EDL Protest Opposed by Unite Against Fascism – 2014

EDL Protest Opposed by Unite Against Fascism: Eleven years ago on Saturday 20th September 2014 Unite Against Fascism held a protest against a march and rally by the English Defence League in Whitehall. The whole event was on a very much smaller scale than last Saturday and I was able to move fairly freely between the two groups and photograph both groups.

EDL Protest Opposed by Unite Against Fascism - 2014

In 2014 there were only a few hundred people in each of the two groups, with probably twice as many EDL as UAF, and more police who kept them apart, although the two protest pens on Richmond Terrace opposite Downing Street where they gathered were less than a hundred yards apart.

EDL Protest Opposed by Unite Against Fascism - 2014

The EDL were protesting “against government inaction on child sexual exploitation, immigration, returning jihadis, FGM, Halal food, Imams, Islamic Schools, Shariah courts, the burkha etc” and in my account on My London Diary I gave more detail on their complaints.

EDL Protest Opposed by Unite Against Fascism - 2014
Weyman Bennett

The EDL then marched to to Trafalgar Square for a rally. As I commented, “The atmosphere here was rather friendlier than at some previous EDL protests, and the press were able to walk freely among the gathering crowd, many of whom posed for photographs.”

EDL Protest Opposed by Unite Against Fascism - 2014
Taking a selfie with the man in the pig’s head

I also reported accurately on the behaviour of the protesters – including a chant of “Allah, Allah, who the f*** is Allah”. As often at EDL protests some did point and shout at me, mistaking me for ‘Searchlight’ photographer David Hoffman – and I was able to correct some of them and we had a polite conversation.

EDL Protest Opposed by Unite Against Fascism - 2014

After waiting for a couple of coaches that had been stopped by police on their way into London the EDL lined up for a march down Whitehall back the the pen opposite Downing Street where they held a rally.

Taking photographs at the rally became much more difficult, with people objecting to being photographed – and some complaining to the police, who told them we had a right to take photographs on the public street. There was a lot of angry shouting of insults at photographers and people trying to block our view, turning their backs and moving in our way, though police prevented any actual violence. But some clearly posed for the photographers.

The organisers then made our job more difficult, moving large banners to try and block our view of the speakers. After a while I got fed up and returned to photograph at the counter-protest. Here, although people were shouting angrily at the EDL, there was a very different atmosphere, with none of the hate towards photographers of the EDL, people welcoming being photographed showing their opposition.

Probably last Saturday there were probably not that many more hardcore Nazis, racists and Islamophobes among the many thousands marching in the ‘Defend The Kingdom’ march. Unfortunately many more have been mobilised by years of anti-immigrant propaganda by both major parties as well as by the incessant publicity given to Farage by our mass media, particularly the BBC, as well as the social media lies of Tommy Robinson and others.

We’ve seen the consistent abuse of language – there are no ‘illegal immigrants’ arriving our beaches, they are asylum seekers, refugees and migrants – some of whom may later become illegal, but the great majority are found to have a legal claim.

An EDL steward holds his hands up in front of a camera lens

There is no ‘flood’ of migrants – Britain takes far fewer than many other European countries – and certainly a very small number compared to countries closer to the conflicts which are driving migration.

I went back to photographing the UAF counter-protest

And so on. Both Tory and Labour governments have stirred up hatred with hostile policies trying to outflank the right, while neither has provided humane and efficient systems for dealing with migration. Labour does at least say they are trying to shake up the Home Office, though so far with little apparent effect.

And Labour doesn’t look good. In the recent legal case a temporary injunction was granted against extradition of a man to France, when Home Office officials admitted his case had not been sufficiently considered. Presumably the decision to try and deport him immediately was simply taken on political grounds by the new Home Secretary.

More about the 2014 protest and counter-protest with many more pictures on My London Diary at EDL London March & Rally.


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LD50, Picturehouse, Guinness, Khojaly & Dubs Now

Saturday 25th February saw me travelling around London to photograph unrelated protests in Dalston, Leicester Square, Brixton and Westminster.


Shut race-hate LD50 gallery – Dalston

LD50, Picturehouse, Guinness, Khojaly & Dubs Now

People protested outside the small LD50 gallery in Dalston just off the Kingsland Road which they say has promoted fascists, neo-Nazis, misogynists, racists and Islamophobes in one of London’s more diverse areas.

LD50, Picturehouse, Guinness, Khojaly & Dubs Now

The gallery gets its name from the does of any substance which kills 50% of those taking it, and the protesters said it “has been responsible for one of the most extensive neo-Nazi cultural programmes to appear in London in the last decade.”

LD50, Picturehouse, Guinness, Khojaly & Dubs Now

One man, “dc miller“, came to argue that it was a matter of free speech and the right to freely discuss ideas, even repulsive ones, should be defended. He got considerable verbal abuse from the protesters and eventually police came and advised him firmly to leave, and later wrote a number of articles about the gallery and the protest.

LD50, Picturehouse, Guinness, Khojaly & Dubs Now

The protest didn’t immediately close down LD50 despite the claims of the protesters and a couple of months later it put on a show of defiance called ‘Corporeality’, though it is now permanently closed.

Perhaps an article in the Baffler by Megan Nolan, Useful Idiots of the Art World best expresses the position in this quote:

LD50 is a real place, in a real neighborhood, filled with people who are directly threatened by the vile speech of the very real racists who were invited into it. Repeatedly, the defense mounted by the gallery has been that it was attempting to have an open discussion about reactionary ideologies. The implication is that LD50 were engaging in some sort of completely neutral anthropological consideration of current events, rather than extending a fawning welcome to alt-right lynchpins.

More pictures at Shut race-hate LD50 gallery


Picturehouse recognition & living wage – Leicester Square

I rushed down to Leicester Square where workers from four Picturehouse cinemas at Brixton, Hackney, Wood Green and Picturehouse Central were holding a rally outside the Empire Cinema in Leicester Square to campaign for recognition of their union BECTU and to be paid the London Living Wage.

The Empire was recenetly acquired by Cineworld the owners of Picturehouse who have refused to recognise trade unions, but instead set up a company run staff forum.

They are not paying staff in London a living wage and offer poor conditions of service despite making large profits from cinema-goers paying £13 or more to see a film in central London. I’d arrived late and had to leave before the speeches to get the tube to Brixton.

More pictures Picturehouse recognition & living wage


Stop Unfair Eviction by Guinness – Brixton

The Guinness Trust was set up in 1890 by Sir Edward Cecil Guinness, then head of the family brewing business, to provide better housing for working class Londoners. One of the estates they built was the Loughborough Park Estate in Brixton.

Betiel Mahari had lived on that estate and moved into a new Guinness Trust flat, but the rent on this was more than doubled, increasing from £109 to £256 a week, although some of her neighbours are paying around a weekly rent of £100 less.

Beti has problems paying the new rent and because she works on a zero hours contract here housing benefit claim is constantly being reassessed leading to delays and errors in payment, leaving her in arrears. Guinness are not taking her to court to evict her and her two young sons. Supporters of the ‘Save Beti Campaign’ including Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and Architects for Social Housing were campaigning outside Brixton Station collecting signatures for a petition to oppose the eviction of Beti and other tenants threatened by estate demolition.

I had time in Brixton to take a little walk around, particularly going to look at the railway arches where many long-standing local businesses are being evicted, though some are still trading.

More at Stop Unfair Eviction by Guinness.


25th anniversary of Khojaly Massacre – Westminster,

Back in Westminster the Justice for Khojaly Campaign were marching, calling for justice 25 years after the Khojaly Massacre in Azerbaijan where on the night of 25-26 February 1992, Armenian forces brutally killed 613 civilians, including 106 women and 83 children.

The call for an official apology from the Armenian govenment with full reparations and those responsible for this war crime to be brought to justice. The massacre was the larges in the war that folloed the secession of the majority Armenian population of the Nagorno-Karabakh region to form the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic which ended in 1994 with an uneasy truce.

More at 25th anniversary of Khojaly Massacre.


Dubs Now – let the children in – Downing St

My final event of the day was at Downing Street, where Help4Refugee Children was calling on the Government to honour its promise to let unaccompanied Syrian children into the UK after it reneged on its pledge earlier this month.

Theresa May’s high heels tread on a child

When Parliament had passed the Dubs amendment it had been very clear that this should happen and the government’s shameful and heartless decision overturned this, leaving many vulnerable young children forced to continue living in intolerable conditions. Many local councils say that they had made offers to take the children but these have been ignored by government.

Dubs Now – let the children in.