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EDL Outnumbered in Chelmsford – 2012

EDL Outnumbered in Chelmsford: On Saturday 18th August I made my first (and quite possibly my last) trip to Chelmsford, Essex where the extreme right English Defence League were marching against plans to build a large mosque in the city. Chelmsford, the County Town of Essex, had in the previous month been given City status to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Until 1979 Muslims living in Chelmsford, Essex had to travel to London or Southend to attend Friday prayers. That year a house was rented for prayers and the following year the first floor of a restaurant became a mosque. As congregations grew other premises were found for worship. Permission to build a mosque was granted in 1992 but it was only fully completed in 1997.

Soon that mosque was becoming overcrowded and by 2012 plans were being made for a new larger building but there were a number of set-backs, including some strange and possibly racially motivated behaviour by the council, as well as financial problems and it was not built. In 2020 the Chelmsford Muslim Society were able to buy the Hamptons Sports & Leisure Centre which is now in use for both worship and leisure. The older Central Mosque in Moulsham Street is also still in use.

Over two hundred people had come to the centre of Chelmsford for a rally called by Unite Against Fascism to oppose the EDL march. I went to photograph them first and then went along to the pub where the EDL were meeting. There were far fewer EDL, perhaps 80 in all, and most were in the garden of the pub.

I went close to the fence around the beer garden in Cottage Place and took a few pictures of the EDL inside. I was met with abuse and one man complained to the police – who told him I was acting within the law. Others made V’ signs and other gestures for the camera, and I was pleased there was a fence between us.

After I had taken a few more pictures the officer politely requested I move away to avoid further upsetting the marchers and I complied as I felt I had already done all I could. Across the road in New Street EDL Essex Division spokesman Paul Pitt was being interviewed for TV, claiming the EDL were not racist and not generally opposed to mosques being built. He said that the size and location of the proposed building was unsuitable and that local people had invited them to come to Chelmsford and protest against it.

A few minutes later the EDL came out of the pub and formed up behind several banners for the march. I kept close to the banners at the front and to the police who were watching the marchers. They began singing racist EDL songs and as I stood on the corner photographing the march going past one man came menacingly right up to me and said “I hope all your family die of cancer.”

I was shocked, but followed the march as they were escorted by police for a short march around largely empty streets city and into a pen for their rally. Once they were inside police, sealed the street and allowed the UAF to sstart their much larger and more public march, far louder and with many more people, placards and banners than the EDL.

There was a single small incident where two EDL supporters came to the roadside and began to loudly shout ‘EDL!, EDL!‘ Police dragged them to a bench some distance away and held them until the march had passed and made clear they would be arrested if they interfered with it again.

*There were several people in clerical dress, including this local hospital chaplain*

The EDL were behind a couple of police lines perhaps 200 yards away as the march came to an end, but they will have been clearly able to hear the strength of the opposition.

I concluded my account on My London Diary: “Although the EDL managed to hold their march, it was a small event and went around the outskirts of the centre, seen by very few. The UAF and others held a long meeting right in the centre of the shopping area with much greater support, and clearly were far more successful and widely supported.”

Many more pictures at EDL Outnumbered in Chelmsford.

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Turkish Spring, Badgers & BNP – 2013

Turkish Spring, Badgers & BNP: My day was particularly full on Saturday 1st June 2013 as I attended a memorial service for a close friend held at Southwark Cathedral in the early afternoon as well as as the protests in this post.

London Supports Turkish Spring – Marble Arch

Turkish Spring, Badgers & BNP - 2013 — *Supporters of Turkish football team Garsi support the Gezi protests*

I began at 11am at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, next to Marble Arch, where Turks were massing to march to the Turkish Embassy in Belgrave Square in solidarity with the ‘Turkish Spring’ protests against the Erdogan regime in Istanbul’s Gezi Park and across Turkey.

It was a high-octane event with a great deal of high-spirited chanting and more and more people were arriving for the march.

I had to leave as the event was getting underway, with most of the protesters sitting on the ground to listen to speeches. Later I heard that around 4,000 had marched to protest at the embassy,

More about the protest and more pictures on My London Diary at London Supports Turkish Spring.

Cull Politicians, Not Badgers – Westminster

This was the day on which it became legal to cull badgers in two pilot areas and over a thousand, many dressed in black and white and with badger masks or face paint met at Tate Britain on Millbank for a rally and march to Parliament against the cull.

Campaigners argue that the cull is not supported by most scientific evidence and that it will result in many badgers suffering cruel lingering deaths after being wounded by largely untrained marksmen.

*Among the speakers was Queen Guitarist Brian May, a leading campaigner for badgers*

I had to leave before they marched to go to Southwark Cathedral for the memorial service, but when I returned after attending this I met some of protesters who were still in Parliament Square, where they danced on the road in front of Parliament until they were cleared by police.

More about the cull and the protest – and many more pictures at Cull Politicians, Not Badgers.

BNP Stopped From Exploiting Woolwich Killing – Old Palace Yard

*Nick Griffin answers questions from the press under a placard ‘Hate Preachers Out’ and fails to appreciate the irony*

Fortunately police had stopped the BNP from holding a mass protest in Woolwich capitalising on the killing there of soldier Lee Rigby and had also banned their proposed march from Woolwich to Lewisham on grounds of public safety. Both would have been inflammatory and Lee Rigby’s father had also made clear that he and his family did not want his son’s death to be used to stir up hatred against Muslims.

Instead Nick Griffin and a small group of BNP supporters had come to Old Palace Yard intending to march from there to the Cenotaph to lay wreaths in Rigby’s memory, but their gesture to exploit the killing was opposed by a thousands of anti-fascists. It was a confrontation that stirred up memories from the anti-fascist mobilisation at Cable Street against Oswald Mosley’s blackshirts, and as on that occasion the police attempted to force a way through for the fascists, arresting large numbers of protesters, but eventually the BNP had to abandon the attempt to march.

*Across the heads of police they could see the counter-protest – and could clearly hear the chanting*

There were only a small group of supporters with Griffin, who blamed the low attendance on police turning back his supporters and making Westminster a “a virtual exclusion zone”. But I’d walked there with no problems from Westminster Station; there were large numbers of police and parked police vans as well as thousands of protesters, but I was not challenged or stopped.

Griffin and his group waited for around for several hours while police attempted to clear the route for him, arresting and driving away two double-deck buses full of protesters, but there were still enough to block the route. Eventually they walked in the opposite direction to their coaches.

BNP Exploiting Woolwich Killing Stopped

Anti-Fascists Stop BNP Wreath Laying – Parliament Square,

*Anonymous were there along with Antifa, trade unionists and the UAF to oppose the BNP hate*

I walked back from Old Palace Yard where Nick Griffin was being photographed and questioned by the press the short distance to Parliament Square where I saw a steady stream of protesters being arrested and taken onto two double-deck buses.

I photographed a number of those arrested, mainly walking calmly with police who were rather more violent with some others, and saw them threatening legal observers, then walked through the lines of police to the protesters who were still blocking the route. I imagine few of those arrested were charged with any offence, but probably detained for a dozen or more hours before being released – probably in the middle of the night. It’s a short period of arbitrary punishment that avoids the police having to do much paperwork.

There were some in wheelchairs who had come to block the fascists – and some were at the front of the protest.

Others were in ‘Anonymous’ masks.

Many linked arms to make it harder for police snatch squads to grab individuals

And there were some of the ‘badgers’ who had stayed on for this protest too.

The stand-off between protesters and police continued – and it was clear that it would not be possible for the police to clear the route without a clearly excessive use of force – and that they were not going to drift away as police had hoped.

There was much celebration When they heard that the BNP had abandoned their march and left the area, and the protesters marched up Parliament St to the Cenotaph, where there was a short speech and people began to leave.

Many marched up to Trafalgar Square but I went back the other way on my way home.

More on My London Diary at Anti-Fascists Stop BNP Wreath Laying.

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Stand Up to Racism & Kites Not Drones – 2014

Stand Up to Racism & Kites Not Drones: On Saturday 22 March 2014, the day following UN Anti-Racism Day (chosen to remember the 69 people killed by police in the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa on 21 March 1960), the TUC and Unite Against Fascism organised a march and rally as a part of a European day of action against racism.

Thousands – perhaps as many as 20,000 – turned up to march the short distance from Old Palace Yard opposite parliament to a long rally in Trafalgar Square – on My London Diary I list 19 speakers, though I think there were a few more on the day, but I didn’t stop to listen to all of them, going instead to Hyde Park where a smaller protest by peace activists tried without much success to fly kites in in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan.

Stand Up to Racism – Westminster

This protest stood out for the wide range of people and organisations who had come to join it, “many of whom are sickened by the anti-immigrant policies of successive governments and opposition parties who have long been engaged in trying to outdo each other in the ‘toughness’ of their immigration policies, and have recently moved even further to the right in an effort to neutralise the political threat of UKIP and Nigel Farage.”

And since 2014 the main parties have kept moving to the right. We continue to see this scapegoating of immigrants in the policies both of the current government and its recent Tory predecessors, particularly in the campaigns and legislation against those who cross the channel in small boats, but also in restrictions on those who claim asylum here and the harassment being suffered by many who have made their lives here and contributed to our society but are now threatened by deportation, dragging them away from families and friends. Still we have not set up safe routes for asylum seekers to come to Britain, still we have not offered amnesties to those who have worked here and made useful and essential contribution here for years.

I photographed many of the marchers in Parliament Square, where the march had been planned to start close to the statue of Nelson Mandela who had celebrated “the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and equal opportunities” as the aim of the fight for freedom and equality in South Africa.

*A man taking part in unusual dress for a protest*

Some posed in front on the grass with ‘Big Ben’ in the background, a name I like to use as it annoys pedants, but is what everyone except them still calls the clock tower which Wikipedia describes as “one of the most prominent symbols of the United Kingdom and parliamentary democracy.”

Among those taking part were people from our Roma and Muslim communities who bear no responsibilities for our country’s current problems and suffer more than most from them while at the same time being blamed by the racist right for them.

“In particular we have seen many promoting fear and hate of Muslims associating the whole community with the acts of a tiny few. Islamophobia is rife and has led to more attacks on the Muslim population, including murder and violent attacks on mosques. “

More from 2014 on My London Diary at Stand Up to Racism.

Kites Not Drones Solidarity with Afghanistan – Hyde Park

This protest by peace activists was part of a weekend of solidarity with the Afghan people who traditionally celebrate their New Year (Now Ruz) on the Spring Equinox by flying kites. (Until 1752 the New Year began at around the same time in Britain and its colonies on Lady Day March 25th.)

*Peace activist Maya Evans ties up the Drones on Trial banner ‘EVERY AFGHAN HAS A NAME, WAR IS NOT A VIDEO GAME’*

In 2014 I quoted the organisers statement:

‘Kite flying has become synonymous with Afghanistan as a well loved pursuit which was banned under the Taliban, now Afghans are more used to the presence of UK armed and surveillance drones flying overhead.’

‘We are encouraging peace groups, Afghans in the UK and the Muslim community to fly kites in solidarity with Afghans who now have to live under the mental pressure and physical destruction which British drones (currently operated from RAF Waddington, Lincoln) now reap upon Afghanistan.’

None of those taking part appeared to have had any previous experience in actually flying kites, and although the photographers present helped, the gusty conditions only allowed some short and erratic flights, with one kite getting stuck up a tree. For once a police officer was sympathetic, and having come across to tell the protesters that flying kites was not allowed in this or the other Royal Parks told them that so long as they stayed in this empty area of the park and were not a nuisance to others he would not stop them.

More at Kites Not Drones Solidarity with Afghanistan.

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Anti-Fascists Oppose the Far Right – 1 Feb 2025

Anti-Fascists Oppose the Far Right: Last Saturday, 1st February 2025, I photographed one of two marches taking place in London, kept well separate by a large force of police who had restricted the protests to widely separated routes though ending close to each other.

Supporters of “Tommy Robinson” (Stephen Yaxley Lennon) currently in jail after pleading guilty to contempt of court had called a protest to demand his release, in a march they described as ‘Unite The Kingdom’ and ‘Stop the Isolation’. Robinson is apparently in solitary confinement in HMP Woodhill for his own safety, and has refused to remove the video he was sentenced for sharing which is pinned to the top of his ‘X’ account. They began their march at Waterloo Station, marching across Westminster Bridge to Parliament Square.

In response Stand Up to Racism had called a counter-demonstration to oppose this march and more generally the rise of the far-right in Britain. This met in St James’s Street just off Piccadilly and marched to a rally in Whitehall.

According to press reports both marches were of a similar size, perhaps between five and ten thousand marchers, though some at the extreme right event claimed a hundred thousand had marched.

During the Covid lockdown there were no protests for me to photograph and I began to post here on >Re:PHOTO much more frequently about my older work, both protests I had covered in earlier years and also my walks in and around London photographing buildings and urban landscape in the previous century.

So for some months there was nothing for me to add to my posts in My London Diary web site. Which was just as well as I was getting uncomfortably close to the limit of the number of files and folders I could host on the web space I have – which hosts this blog and a number of other small web sites. That limit is 262,144 and currently My London Diary has 194,257 Files and 2,938 Folders, with >Re:PHOTO taking up most of the rest. So even when I was able to cover protests again I had to change my ways, posting the images in Facebook albums with just a link and one or two pictures on my own web space. Finally I gave up new postings on My London Diary in January 2022, though the site remains in place and I think is an important archive.

Time moves on and although I’m still photographing protests I am attending rather fewer than in earlier years and taking things easier. While ten years ago I might sometimes work on my feet for five or six hours, now after around three I’m often feeling too tired to continue, pack up and go home. And while back then I might go our five days a week, now its generally one or two, mainly on Saturdays. And while in past years I would certainly have tried to cover both marches, this year I chose just one, the counter-protest by Stand Up To Racism.

Over the years I have covered quite a few extreme right events, but I decided to leave this one to younger photographers. At many previous events I’ve been threatened, pointed out as someone who should be attacked, spat at and more, despite trying to cover them and report them fairly even though I disagree with their views. People have tried to stop me photographing and have tried to grab my equipment and police haven’t always been ready to help.

At the Stand Up To Racism event there was a far more positive atmosphere. Generally people were happy, sometimes even eager, to be photographed and I was able to walk freely through a packed crowd before the march began making pictures, as well as inside the march itself.

Of course the people at the protest were angry at the way the country (and the world) seems to be drifting towards the right, with more draconian legislation restricting our right to protest, long sentences for peaceful protesters and the kind of political policing we have seen over demonstrations calling for an end to the killing in Palestine. And some at least would be ready to fight the fascists on the streets as people did in the 1930s at Cable Street and elsewhere – and Jewish groups did after the end of the war.

*Anti-fascists from the IWW – Industrial Workers of the World were being watched closely by a squad of police*

But while being determined to stop the drift to the right in Britain – which appears to have been accelerated by the coming to power of Labour with a large majority – this was a march of the reasonable, the kind of people who will look at evidence rather than believe the lies and manipulations of the right wing media, people who embody the kind of values which I feel are important and which gave Britain hope after defeating the Nazis and led to the setting up of the welfare state, with the NHS and an Education Act that tried to provide a free and fair education. The kind of British values which I think the majority of us still believe in although they have been seriously eroded by successive governments for the benefit of that small minority – the 1% in what is becoming an increasingly unequal society.

*Police arrest a man after several flares were set off.*

My pictures tell something of the story of the march. It was entirely peaceful. I missed seeing the handful of the extreme right who had come to try to disrupt it and were arrested for breaching the restrictions that police had laid down. I saw only one person arrested, for setting off a smoke flare. I saw the smoke from several flares around a hundred yards away and rushed towards it, but the crowd of marchers across the whole of Piccadilly made this difficult and by the time I arrived a young man was being held by police surrounded by a crowd yelling for them to release him.

*NEU marchers. Many trade unions supported the march*

I stayed with the march until the end of it went into Whitehall where there was to be a longer rally than that before the start. Suddenly I felt rather tired it decided it was time to go home.

There are two albums on Facebook with my pictures from the Stand Up to Racism march:
Stop The Far Right National Anti-Racist Protest. London
More from the Stop The Far Right National Anti-Racist Protest

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EDL March in Barking – 2012

EDL March in Barking: On Saturday 14 January 2012 around 200 EDL supporters gathered outside the ‘The Barking Dog’ Wetherspoons and marched from Barking Station to a rally outside the town hall, calling for an end to Islamic influence in England. Their protest was opposed by a smaller group of Unite Against Fascism supporters.

This pub had remained open while another nearby pub had closed, refusing to serve them. There was a large police presence watching them as well as journalists and photographers coming to record the EDL’s first march of 2012, organised by the Essex and Dagenham Divisions of the English Defence League.

Most of the marchers were keen to be photographed and posed for photographers, including one man who later pulled down his trousers to show the tattoos on his rear, while others joked and played up to the cameras.

The march organisers had been clear to stress that this was to be an entirely peaceful protest, and they made some attempts to curb the activities of their supporters, with stewards and others quickly stopping a small group who began an offensive chant about Allah. But there were plenty of other chants many of us find offensive.

Among those taking part were some who I recognised from earlier protests by racist organisations such as the National Front or BNP. Although the EDL claimed not to be racist it was hard to fine their claims in the slightest credible.

Police kept the marchers apart from a smaller group of counter-protesters, mainly from the local area, organised at short notice by UAF (Unite Against Fascism) who had only become aware of the EDL march two days earlier. They describe the EDL as “an organisation of racist and fascist thugs, who particularly target Muslims” and described the march through Barking as “as part of its attempts to stir up racism and division in the area.“

The EDL marched to a pen outside Barking Town Hall with another pen for the counter-protest some distance away, though the two groups were within shouting distance – and kept that up for most of the next hour and a half, with the UAF waving placards and the EDL making V signs and other gestures towards them.

A large crowd of perhaps a hundred police ensured that the two groups were kept apart. Police led away a couple of EDL supporters who made their way close to the UAF pen.

EDL leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) was present but it was announced that he was not sufficiently recovered from the attack by “islamofascist thugs” to speak at the rally. The attackers were actually widely thought to be Luton Town football hooligans with whom he is associated. He talked with police for some minutes and then apparently asked them to escort him to his car.

At the end of the rally police escorted the remaining EDL supporters back to Barking station. Reports said that a group of them went on to Whitechapel where they had to be escorted out of the area by police for their own safety.

More about the event and many more pictures on My London Diary at EDL March in Barking.

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March Against Far Right Hate, London, 26 Oct 2024

March Against Far Right Hate: Last Saturday, 26th October 2024 I joined thousands of others marching ine London in response to a far-right march called by ‘Tommy Robinson’ under the title ‘Unite the Kingdom’.

Police had imposed conditions on both marches, ensuring that they kept a long way apart and there was very little trouble, with only four arrests at the Robinson march and two at the Stand Up to Racism event.

Organisers of the counter-protest say that 20,000 came to march and the Robinson march was reported to be a little smaller. But certainly the large turnout for the Stand Up to Racism event showed that the kingdom was not united behind the far-right racists.

One person significantly not present at the racist march was the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, generally known as ‘Tommy Robinson’, who was remanded in custody the previous day to attend Woolwich crown court on Monday for his alleged breach of a 2021 high court order barring him from repeating libellous allegations against a Syrian refugee. He was also separately charged for a mobile phone offence under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Police restricted Stand Up to Racism for meeting on Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus, while Robinson’s protest had to muster at Victoria around a mile and a quarter to the south though rather more on the ground.

The far right were marching to a rally in Parliament Square, while Stand Up to Racism’s rally was at the north end of Whitehall, with around 400 metres of blocked off road between the two.

I spent around 45 minutes photographing at Piccadilly Circus before walking down to Trafalgar Square for another event, catching up with the march later on Cockspur Street roughly halfway on its short march to the rally.

As the band of logos along the bottom of the main banner indicate the the Stand Up to Racism protest was supported by a huge range of organisation is including almost every trade union as well as groups who work with refugees and asylum seekers and there were many trade union banners carried on the march.

As well as the mass-produced placards from the organisers, many on the march had come with their own, and my photographs include some of those I fondud more interesting.

Some of the banners including those from the Latin-American and Jewish Bloc also indicated their support for Palestine, and there were quite a few others on the march with Palestinian flags. Tommy Robinson has also made clear his support for the genocidal actions of the Israeli State as a part of his anti-Muslim stance.

I stayed in Trafalgar Square as the march went by, mainly to see all of the marchers, or at least a good proportion of them in the crowds going past so I could pick out those who seemed more interesting to photograph, either from the side or by rushing into the crowd. But also because this seemed the most likely place where some might try to divert from the approved route and try to reach the racist rally.

And at the very end of the march a large group behind a black banner ‘NO TO TOMMY ROBINSON – NO TO FASCISM’ paused and then made what seemed to be a rather half-hearted attempt to do just that, but were easily held by a thin line of police at the entrance to The Mall. Only a small group at the centre of the banner seemed to be making any real effort to push through the police and those at the end where I was standing just stood holding the banner – and the crowd behind was standing watching and not joining in.

A stand-off ensued, but after some minutes a small police snatch squad came and pushed one of the protesters past or rather through where I was standing, pushing me forcefully to the side. I managed to recover and take a few pictures as he was thrown to the ground and handcuffed. But I don’t know why they had decided to arrest this man.

I took a few pictures after this, but decided not to go through the packed crowds towards the stage and photograph the rally now taking place but took the tube from Charing Cross to begin my journey home.

These pictures are some of those I filed with Alamy and you can see my set of over 40 pictures their or at Stand Up To Racism March Against Far Right Hate on Facebook.

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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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Garden Bridge, Housing, Domestic Violence, Migrants & Police Killings

Garden Bridge, Housing, Domestic Violence, Migrants & Police Killings; Saturday 9th July 2016 began for me in Waterloo, where right wing Labour party members were attending a conference. Then I travelled to Hackney for a Sisters Uncut protest over domestic violence and housing, back to Downing Street for a rally against the scapegoating of immigrants and went briefly to a Brexit debate in Green Park and then south of the river again to a protest against police murders in the UK and US.

Garden Bridge protest at ‘Progress’ conference – Coin St

Lambeth Council were supporting the ‘Garden Bridge‘, a private green space to bridge the River Thames close to Waterloo Bridge, an expensive vanity project with a costing over £200 million with little public gain.

Lambeth residents came to protest as Lambeth councillors and council leader Liz Peck were attending the Labour Party ‘Progress’ movement ‘Governing for Britain’ conference.

The Garden Bridge project was finally abandoned in August 2017, by which time it had cost £53m, including £43m of public money.

Garden Bridge ‘Progress’ protest

Housing Protest at ‘Progress’ conference – Coin St

Also protesting outside the Progress conference were housing protesters against the demolition of council estates and their replacement by luxury flats under ‘regeneration’ schemes by London Labour councils including Southwark, Newham and Lambeth.

The protesters were from the Revolutionary Communist Group, Focus E15 ‘Homes for All’ campaign and Architects for Social Housing who had been involved in various campaigns to stop the demolition of social housing in these boroughs.

They say that New Labour policies, now accelerated by the Tory Housing and Planning Act, makes London too expensive for ordinary workers leading to social cleansing, while making excessive profits for developers, including housing associations and estate agents Savills.

Housing Protest at ‘Progress’ conference

East End Sisters Uncut on Domestic Violence – Hackney Town Hall

Sisters Uncut came to Hackney Town Hall to demand the council abolish all plans to demolish council homes, refuse to implement the Housing Act and invest money into council housing and refuges for victims of domestic violence.

They quoted a Women’s Aid report for 2013-5 which found that over 60% of applications to women’s refuges in Hackney are refused as no room is available.

East End Sisters Uncut-Domestic Violence

Europe, Free Movement and Migrants – Downing St

The Brexit vote had been followed by a rise in the scapegoating of immigrants and Islamophobia, and ‘Another Europe Is Possible’ organised a rally at Downing Street to keep Britain open to migrants, and for policies and media which recognise the positive contribution that migration makes to the UK.

Speakers came from a wide range of groups including Movement for Justice, Left Unity, Friends of the Earth, Newham Monitoring Project, Stand Up To Racism and Syrian activists.

Many from the rally were going to the Brexit picnic and discussion in Green Park afterwards, and I did too.

Europe, Free Movement and Migrants

Green Park Brexit Picnic

Most of those who came to the picnic felt cheated by a vote that was based on lies and false promises, but they came wanting to find ways to make it into something positive for the country.

There were also some who had come to counter the protest with their own picnic for democracy organised by Spiked magazine, and when the people from the Downing Street rally arrived with their placards some of them came over to pick an argument.

Things got a little heated when a woman from the ‘Spiked’ group accused those holding the placards of being unwashed, and there was some vigorous speaking in response. But people from both sides stepped in to cool things down.

Green Park Brexit Picnic

Brixton stands with Black victims

Local black organisers in Brixton called a rally and march in memory of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and to show solidarity with those murdered by police brutality, both in the US and here in the UK.

Alton Sterling was murdered by police officers on July 5, 2016, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, shot at close range after police had pinned him to the ground where he was selling CDs outside a grocery store. In May 2017 the US Justice department announced there was insufficient evidence to support federal criminal charges against the officers concerned – despite the many videos of the incident and other sources.

Philando Castile was fatally shot at close range after has car was stopped by police in he Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. There was video of the incident and the officer was charged with second-degree manslaughter and two counts of dangerous discharge of a firearm. A jury acquitted him of all charges in June 2017.

There were many speeches both about these and other US cases and those in the UK, where Sean Rigg, Wayne Douglas and Ricky Bishop died after being held in nearby Brixton Police Station. One of the organisers spoke wearing a t-shirt listing just a few of those who have been killed by police in the UK. An annual protest is held every year in Whitehall against the many custody deaths in the UK, and in 2015 while this was taking place police took advantage of this to strip the tree in front of the police station of its deaths in custody memorials

Some time after I left the protesters marched around Brixton, bringing traffic to a halt for several hours.

Brixton stands with Black victims

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EDL Saved by Police in Slough – 2014

EDL Saved by Police in Slough: Ten years ago today around two hundred EDL supporters had come from around the country to march to a rally in the centre of Slough on Saturday 1st February 2014, sparked by plans to convert a failed social club on the outskirts of Slough to be used as a mosque and Islamic centre.

Their protest was opposed by a much larger counter-protests by black clad anti-fascist groups, the UAF and trade unionists, a large group of local mainly Asian youths and other local residents. Police had to clear a route for the EDL march with charges by police horses and with riot police with raised batons, and also protect them from having to run for their lives from angry counter-protesters to allow their rally to proceed. A large police presence seperated them from a rally by the UAF and trade unionists a short distance away.

Langley Village Club on Cheviot Road, Langley ceased trading in 2013 and was bought by Dawat-e-Islami who gained planning permission to convert it into an Islamic community and teaching centre and place of worship, Faizon-E-Madina.

Langley is on the eastern outskirts of Slough just north of the M4 and A4 and the small medieval village became a major manufacturing ventre, at first for building the Hawker Hurricane and other fighters during and after the war including the Hawker Hunter. When Hawker Siddeley left in 1959 the entire site was taken over by the Ford Motor Company who had been making parts for commercial vehicles there since 1949. The club was a part of the large estates that grew up here in the 1960s and 70s to house the workers in these and other factories around Slough and at Heathrow.

Some local residents had objected to the change of use, in particular fearing it might generate large volumes of traffic, although it is a relatively small building and the planning permission imposed a limit of 300 people at events there. The area now has a fairly high number of Muslims living within walking distance of the centre and the charity argued that the 35 parking places on site were sufficient, though the planning committee was not convinced.

The opposition to the plans by the EDL were not largely about parking but Islamophobia. EDL leaflets talked about “the disturbing proliferation of poorly regulated mosques” and linked the protest with its actions to highlight the activities of “vile grooming gangs“; they alleged that residents living around other mosques have been “driven to anger, tears and despair” because of the mosques, and suggested that the centre will “antagonise, perhaps even terrorise, local residents.”

They also claimed that Dawat-e-Islami “overtly supported the assassination of Pakistani politician Salmaan Taseer by Mumtaz Qadri, a member of the organisation who disagreed with Taseer’s opposition to Pakistan’s blasphemy law.”

They raised other local issues too, including the setting up of a Muslim faith-based school under the Free Schools programme which opened in September 2015 as Eden Girl’s School. Many others -including probably most of those who came to protest against the EDl would agree with there opposition to this, some opposed to all faith-based schools and those who oppose the whole divisive approach of ‘Free Schools’, agreeing as I do with the teacher’s union NUT (now NEU) that “We believe it is wrong that state funding should be given to small groups of individuals to run schools that are unaccountable to their local communities.”

I don’t visit Slough often, although I live only a few miles away – though it takes a while on the bus. I arrived a couple of hours before the EDL rally was due to start and was able to photograph and talk with the EDL about their protest for some time before a few of them objected to my presence.

The pictures on My London Dairy at EDL Saved by Police in Slough and my account there give a very full account of what happened and I won’t repeat it here. Slough is one of the UK’s most ethnically diverse towns and its industries have brought people to it from across the country and around the world since the 1920s. The population of the borough is now over 150,000 and the various communities seem largely to live together with few problems.

According to Wikipedia, “the 2011 census showed that 41.2% of Slough’s population identified as Christian, 23.3% as Muslim, 10.6% as Sikh, 6.2% as Hindu, 0.5% as Buddhist, 0.1% as Jewish, 0.3% as having other religions” and Slough has the highest proportion of Sikh residents of any town in the country and “the highest percentage of Muslim and Hindu residents in the South East region.”

Much more about what happened along with many more pictures at EDL Saved by Police in Slough.

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Goodbye and Good Riddance – March 2023

Goodbye and Good Riddance – March 2023: Continuing from yesterday’s post some more pictures from 2013, from my albums on Facebook from March 2003.