March For Our Flag

March For Our Flag & Chinese New Year: Sunday 18th February 2007 was very much a day of two halves for me, photographing ‘football supporters‘ on an extreme right march and then going to Chinatown for a brief visit to the New Year celebrations. Here’s what I wrote back in 2007 about the day (with the usual minor corrections) and some of the pictures – with links to a few more on My London Diary.

March For Our Flag – United British Alliance

March For Our Flag & Chinese New Year - 2007 — *There were around 200 football supporters in the right-wing march.*

There were perhaps just over 200 marchers in the ‘March For Our Flag’ which made its way from Westminster to Marble Arch on Sunday. Organised by football supporters, it was billed as “a peaceful march consisting of Whites, Blacks, Asians” and the invitation was clearly made for people to attend “regardless of colour or creed or firm or team.” However it was also an event that members of the National Front Youth ‘Bulldogs’ were urged to support in one of their forums with the hope of attracting new members.

Englishness has been officially relegated to a fringe activity, and to a great extent politically appropriated by the ultra-right. So it isn’t surprising that we get populist outbreaks such as this, under the banner of the ‘United British Alliance’. This seems to be largely an anti-Islamic movement of football supporters, many of whom seem to take a pride in their membership of noted hooligan groups (the ‘firms‘.) On its web page, UBA describes itself as “a multi-ethnic, multi-faith organisation with a passionate interest in reclaiming our once proud nation from the grip of international terror and political correctness gone-mad, with a view to re-installing some pride in our communities and way of life.”

So I was hardly surprised to find the march almost solidly white and male; I noted only one Black and one Asian face – and only three women. What was overwhelming was the drab surliness of it all, with rather few English flags in evidence – probably fewer on hats and shirts than in the average crowd, now that many England soccer and rugby fans regularly appear covered with St George symbols.

At its front was a large St George’s flag with the message ‘Tunbridge Wells Yids On Tour.’ Although generally a term of racist abuse, here it is a name Spurs fans use with pride, having christened themselves ‘Yids’ in response to the anti-Semitic chants from fans of other clubs.

Events such as this, organised by a fringe extreme right group, do represent a widespread feeling among many people that we need to do more to promote English culture and a pride in being English. Nothing prevents us celebrating St George’s Day, [but] such celebrations have never attracted the official support and funding that attend the other national saints days in the UK.

In the arts, there has been a reluctance or even a refusal to finance traditional English folk arts, while those from many other ethnic groups have often received generous support. In part this comes from the elitist snobbishness of an establishment that massively funds opera while being unable to stomach grants to Morris dancing, brass bands, folk singers and English choirs and other elements of a genuinely popular and largely working class English culture.

Even, if not especially, on the left, we have generally left official culture and the patronage it gives to be run by the champagne socialists in Islington and Hampstead rather than supporting the kind of activities that came with our roots in the co-operative movement, the Methodist and other [non-conformist] churches and the Working Mens Clubs and unions.

The police took a very obvious interest in the event, and in the few of us trying to photograph it. I was twice questioned by them, and my press card details were noted down both times, while I was photographed [by police.] There were probably more police than marchers covering the event, both at Liverpool Street, where many of the marchers had met, and also on the march itself.

The police were polite and made sure I was aware that some of the marchers resented being photographed and suggested it would not be sensible for me to attend the rally at the end of the march. I hadn’t intended to do so, although this almost made me change my mind.

[More specifically I was told that they “would not be able to guarantee my safety” if I went on to the rally.]

Just a few more pictures on My London Diary

Chinese New Year Celebrations

Chinatown, Westminster

I’m very much in favour of London celebrating the Chinese New Year (as well as St George’s Day) but it now seems hardly worth me photographing it. Partly because I’ve done it so often that there seems to be little more to say, and in part because it is just too crowded with far too many people trying to take pictures.

Controlling crowds such as this is a tricky affair, but there never seems to be much reason in it, with police lines often blocking off relatively quiet areas and thus creating jams elsewhere. I wandered round a little and took a few pictures before going home. There are better days to come to Chinatown.

*I’ve taken many pictures of the lions in previous years, so didn’t really bother this year*

A few more pictures begin here on My London Diary.

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Our Flag & Olympic Site – On Saturday 17th November 2007 I had a more varied day than usual, beginning with a march my football supporters, then a walk around the outside of the then fenced off Olympic site followed by an Olympic-related symposium. I can’t remember anything about the symposium, though I think it was almost certainly critical of what was being done to London, its future being sacrificed to a highly commercial sports festival.

March For Our Flag – Westminster

A few months earlier in February 2007 I’d photographed and written about a ‘March for Our Flag’ organised by football supporters, particularly Tottenham fans. The main group backing that – and the repeat march this month through Westminster – was the United British Alliance. There was a suggestion that, although a patriotic event, it was at least trying to detach itself from the racism of the far right.

The UBA web site described itself as “a multi-ethnic, multi-faith organisation with a passionate interest in reclaiming our once proud nation from the grip of international terror and political correctness gone-mad,with a view to re-installing some pride in our communities and way of life.”

As I commented in November 2007:

Although individuals may well be sincere in these attempts, it isn’t so easy to shake off this impression. Some of the links on the [UBA] web site are to people and groups who I would consider as having extreme views, and the discussion you can find on football forums and elsewhere seems clearly Islamophobic.

Although there were even fewer supporters this time – well under 200 – there did seem to be a slightly calmer attitude and a slightly wider range of people attending, although still only one or two black faces.

Curiously enough, on the UBA web site galleries, all the marchers have their faces – or at least their eyes – blacked out. The only people not given this treatment are the police escorting the event.

As I’ve often said, the only way to protect our freedom is by being free. That includes standing up for what you believe – and being seen to do so. So I’m totally opposed to this kind of censorship of the news. Freedom of expression is a part of the British heritage of which I’m proud. As too are Morris Dancing, Association and Rugby football along with the many other things, including the way we have successfully integrated elements from other cultures and religions into our way of life over the years – and continue to do so.

My London Diary

My pictures from the 17th November do show one or two families and their children took part and I can see just one darker face among the young men. In view of recent events and the behavior of Suella Braverman my final two sentences are very appropriate and very relevant: “We all need far more positive messages and actions from our politicians to lead us all – including Britain’s muslims to a new and united vision of our society. Islamophobia needs combating, not encouraging.”

More pictures on My London Diary

Stratford – Olympic Edge

I walked out of Stratford Station and across the footbridge leading to the Carpenters Estate and on to Bridgewater Road, a dead end with a bridge across the tidal Waterworks River.

The road to Hackney Wick is firmly closed and so too was the Greenway just a few yards from the entrance on Stratford High Street.

You could walk down it just a few yards, and I took another picture looking back along the Waterworks River towards Bridgewater Road where I had been standing earlier.

I took a few pictures around the edge of the area, then walked back along the High Street towards the centre of Stratford.

The Log Cabin pub had been here at 335-337 High Street, Stratford as a coaching inn since at least the mid-18th century, though it was known as The Yorkshire Gray before being renamed around 1997 when the hiddeous green excresenes were added. The building was Grade II listed in 2003, almost certainly saving it from demolition and is thought to date from around 1740, and though parts were rebuilt in the late nineteenth century much of the interior had survived more or less intact. It closed in 2001 and is now a hotel.

My final picture was at The Working Mens Hall and Club Rooms on Romford Road, founded in 1865 and rebuilt in 1905, with the motto Labor Omnia Vincit (Work Conquers All). Perhaps it was here that the symposium was held, and I have a very vague recollection of a talk by Iain Sinclair, although that could have been on quite a different occasion.

A few more pictures here.

Tag: March For Our Flag