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Waiters Day, Monsanto, White Pride & The Line – 2015

Waiters Day, Monsanto, White Pride & The Line: Saturday 23rd May 2015 was a busy day, beginning with Unite Hotel Worker, moving on to the global March Against Monsanto, then an extreme right White Pride protest and finally going to the opening of the world-class sculpture walk roughly along the Greenwich Meridian, The Line.

Waiters Day call for fair contracts and union rights

Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane

*Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union President Ian Hodson*

The Hotel Workers branch of Unite protested outside the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane, the birthplace of Zero Hours Contracts, on National Waiters Day, calling for an end to poor conditions, poverty wages, zero hours contracts and management stealing of tips.

Some of the protesters wore masks and placards with names of leading company bosses using zero hours contracts and exploiting workers and took part in a short ‘waiters race’ along the pavement in front of the hotel. The race was of course fixed

Back in 1979 waiters at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane were sacked when they tried to organise a trade union branch there. The case eventually went to court where it was decided their sacking was legal. It was this case, O’Kelly v Trusthouse Forte plc, that opened to door to Zero Hours Contracts in the UK. Previously employment law had been based on “mutuality of obligation” with employers obliged to offer hours of work, and employees to work those hours.

Until 2012 less than 1% of employees were on zero hours contracts, but their use then rocketed, and by 2015 had increased to 2.5%. By 2021, roughly half of the organisations in hospitality and entertainment were using them.

National Waiters Day seems to have been invented in the USA in the early years of this century and is generally observed on May 21st. A UK Waiters Day was begun by restaurant manager Fred Sirieix in 2013 and is on October 20th.

Waiters Day – fair contracts and union rights

March Against Monsanto

Downing St

In London the annual Global March Against Monsanto by over 3.5 million people across 600 cities was marked by a small static protest opposite Downing St.

Monsanto and other companies which profit from GMOs claim they are playing an important part in feeding the world, but are actually attempting to monopolise food production for their own profit, patenting existing species, trying to prevent farmers from saving and using their own seed, encouraging the use of highly toxic chemicals and practices that degrade the soil.

As the protesters say, we need to plant our own seed, to grow local and to eat sustainable food, and to do so in our own ways in countries across the world.

March Against Monsanto

White pride protest for David Lane

US Embassy

*The end of the banner reading Töten für Wotan (Kill for Wotan) was rolled up as I moved to photograph it*

A group of around 30 ultra-right neo-Nazi protesters at the US Embassy remembered David Eden Lane, a convicted criminal and author of the ‘14 words’ statement used by extreme right groups about securing a future for white children. A small group of anti-fascists had come to oppose them.

*One of the right-wing protesters makes a Nazi salute for my camera*

Lane was a co-foounder of ‘The Order‘ a rabidly antisemitic group which bombed theatres and synagogues and he was convicted as the getaway driver after they murdered liberal Jewish Denver radio talk show host Alan Berg in 1984 when he was the second on their long death list. The group also carried out violent robberies to finance their activities. He died in prison in 2007.

His 14 words, a close quotation from Mein Kampf, is often referred to in extreme right circles as ’14/88′, where 88 stands for the repeated 8th letter of the alphabet, HH, shorthand for ‘Heil Hitler’.

*Peter Rushton of the England First Party waits to speak*

Inside jail, Lane, a former Ku Klux Klan and the ‘White Christian Separatist’ group ‘Aryan Nation’ member, was one of the founders of a new pagan religion, ‘Wotanism‘, named after the Germanic god Odin, also know as Wotan, which serves as an acronym for ‘Will Of The Aryan Nation’.

White pride protest for David Lane

Cody Dock Opening for ‘The Line’

Bow Creek, West Ham

It was good to get away to something much more pleasant, the official opening of the world-class sculpture walk, ‘The Line‘ with works by distinguished sculptors going north from Greenwich across the Thames and on to the Olympic Park.

I’d visited the festivities at Cody Dock in the morning when few people were around to photograph the site and walk a short stretch of the trail.

One piece I found particularly interesting was DNA SL90 (2003) made by Abigail Fallis from 22 shopping trolleys for a supermarket chain to mark the 50th anniversary of Crick & Watson’s discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA. It’s location on the edge of Bow Creek next to a major distribution centre, seemed particularly appropriate, and it is an impressive piece.

*A Cody Dock volunteer snips the ribbon and ‘The Line’ is open*

I returned from central London just in time for the opening ceremony when a fair sized crowd had gathered.

Since 2015 new stairs down from the bridge at have removed the awkward detour alongside the busy Blackwall Tunnel Approach, but I think we are still waiting for the opening of the riverside path along Bow Creek south of Cody Dock.

Cody Dock Opening f or ‘The Line’

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Darfur – International Day of Action – 2007

Whitehall, Sunday 29 April, 2007

Darfur – International Day of Action: There have been protests in London against the continuing bloodshed in Sudan in recent months and the situation there is increasingly desperate. But as Wikipedia points out, there have been civil wars in Sudan “intermittently ongoing for more than 70 years“.

The War in Darfur began in 2003 with two groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) fighting against the Sudanese government of Omar-al-Bashir. They accused him of ethnic cleansing against non-Arabs in Darfur, and his response was to ramp up a campaign of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

International Day of Action for Darfur: London © 2007, Peter Marshall

One of the major forces on the government’s side was a militia group, the Janjaweed and this has since developed into a coalition, the Rapid Support Forces, which is now fighting the Sudanese Army. The Holocaust Encylcopedia states “Between 2003 and 2008, armed conflict and targeted killings in Darfur caused about 300,000 civilian deaths and displaced about 2.7 million civilians.”

The Sudanese government and the JEM signed a ceasefire agreement in 2010, although this was soon violated by government forces and the fighting continued. After the Sudanese Revolution of 2018 which led to the removal of al-Bashir from power in April 2019 there was a peace process that lead to a peace agreement in 2020.

Unfortunately conflicts continued in Sudan and in 2023 resulted in a still continuing civil war between the RSF and the Sudanese Army. By February 2026 more than 40,000 people had been killed, with aid agencies suggesting a much higher figure. Again according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia “The violence has led to the displacement of more than 12 million people, or one in three Sudanese. Nearly half of the population lacks access to adequate food, and famine has been declared in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.”

In 2007 I wrote:

“Sunday was the International Day Of Action For Darfur, and although the demonstration in London was a relatively small one – perhaps a thousand people – the organisers had really managed to capture media attention. While anti-war or other marches of this size or even 50 times larger don’t usually even rate a mention, this was a lead item on the morning’s radio news – and listeners were even perhaps uniquely told when and where it was happening.

I don’t begrudge the publicity in any way. The situation is a world scandal and disaster and one that the nations are avoiding effective action on. As the posters, and the hour-glasses large and many small insist, time is running out, the blood is running out and time is up for Darfur.

“It’s just a shame that the media in general choose to turn their backs on other events. But today you could hardly move for TV cameras and photographers from what used to be Fleet Street. those freelances who cover the other demonstrations, small and large, that the papers and TV don’t want to know about were also there of course.

“For me the most interesting aspect of this actual event was the arrival of the group of students and others who had marched from Oakington detention centre near Cambridge to raise awareness about Darfur (and about refugees held there who are from Darfur.) By the time they arrived, most of the media had left. Perhaps they were too much like ordinary demonstrators (and too much like those cyclists who came from Faslane earlier in the month to publicise the treatment of Mordechai Vanunu.)”

More pictures on My London Diary.

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National Gallery, Trayvon Martin & Dykes – 2012

National Gallery, Trayvon Martin & Dykes: Saturday 31 March 2012 I began outside the National Gallery were the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) were demanding that the gallery stopped hosting events for the arms trade. From there I went to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square for a protest about the US failure to prosecute the killer of black teenager Trayvon Martin. Finally I went to London’s first Dyke March since the 1980s.

Disarm The National Gallery

Trafalgar Square

Around 20 protesters had come to Trafalgar square as ‘artists’, dressed in blue paint-stained smocks and equipped with moustaches, berets, paint brushes, palettes and easels with large sheets of paper and a smattering of Franglais.

They erected their easels in a line on the North Terrace in front of the National Gallery and painted the letters D, I, S, A, R, M, T, H, E, G, A, L, L, E, R and Y anbefore standing with them in front of the gallery.

There also brought other anti-war artworks to display and handed out postcards for onlookers to sign calling on Nicholas Penny, Director of the National Gallery, to end his support of the arms trade.

The main entrances of the gallery were closed during the protest and a long queue built up at the lower entrance. Many in that line were amazed to find that an art gallery was supporting arms sales. As the postcard says – and people overwhelmingly agreed – Art and arms don’t mix.

The Disarm the Gallery protest was organised by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) as the during the DSEi arms fair the previous September, weapons manufacturer Finmeccanica had paid the gallery £30,000 to hold events there.

DSEi is the worlds largest arms fair with buyers and sellers from around the world including many corrupt and tyrannical regimes, selling the equipment used by dictators around the world to equip armies and police to keep order and fuelling conflicts which kill thousands if not millions.

Disarm The National Gallery

Protest for Trayvon Martin

US Embassy, Grosvenor Square

*Marcia, sister of Sean Rigg, killed by police in Brixton police station speaks at the US embassy protest*

Black teenager Trayvon Martin was walking back from a local convenience store to the house in Florida where he was staying with this father when he was stopped and then shot dead by George Zimmerman, a self appointed neighbourhood watchman who claimed he had felt threatened by a black teenager wearing a hoodie.

He had gone to the shop to buy a soft drink and some Skittle sweets and many at the protest wore hoodies and carried packets of Skittles and soft drinks.

*Lee Jasper and Zita Holbourne of BARAC*

Florida police backed Zimmerman’s story that he had acted in self-defence and refused to arrest or charge him. Later the pressure from protests like this across America and around the world led to him being brought to trial, but a Florida jury acquitted him.

*People stressed that the killing of Trayvon Martin very much reflects the treatment of black people not just in the USA but elsewhere including the UK*

The embassy protest was was chaired by Merlin Emmanuel, brother of Smiley Culture, killed by police in his own kitchen, and speakers included Marcia, the brother of Sean Rigg, murdered in Brixton Police Station. Other speakers also brought up cases of deaths and discriminaton by police in the UK.

More pictures at Protest for Trayvon Martin.

London Dyke March 2012

Soho Square – South Bank

*Stella and Lucy of DIVA magazine in Soho Square for the London Dyke March*

After a rally in Soho Square over 600 women marched through Soho and Trafalgar Square to the National Theatre.

The march was the first dyke march since the 1980s and set out to support dyke visibility and welcomed “dykes, queers, bisexuals, transwomen, genderqueers and allies” and “all folk who want to support dykes to march with us” in “a grassroots, non-commercial, anti-racist, community-centred, accessible, inclusive event.”

Speakers at the rally “were Kirstean Hearn, the chair of Inclusion London and someone who as a member of Equality 2005 gives disability equality advice to government, Lady Phyll Opoku, co-founder and Managing Director of UK Black Pride, journalist and founding editor of METQ magazine Paris Lees, Shi tou, an artist and film-maker who was the first lesbian to come out on Chinese TV and one of China’s most prominent lesbian activists, and Clare B Dimyon, awarded a MBE in 2010 for her work supporting LGBT people in Central and Eastern Europe.”

You can view many more pictures of the march and rally on My London Diary, including pictures of most or all of the speakers at London Dyke March 2012.

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Democracy, Greece & Pakistan – 2015

Democracy, Greece & Pakistan: Events I covered on Sunday 15th February 2015.

Occupy Democracy Return

Parliament Square

I hadn’t been at Parliament Square the previous evening when Occupy Democracy had returned to take up residence and hold a protest and workshops there, but had heard about the arrests. Police following instructions from Boris Johnson’s Greater London Authority private security wardens arrested five of the protesters including Donnachadh McCarthy, along with the white cardboard coffin he was holding with the message ‘UK Democracy R.I.P. Killed by Corporate Billionaires‘ which was returned in a rather damaged condition.

On Sunday morning my first call was to the square where Occupy Democracy talks and workshops were continuing on the pavement area around Churchill’s statue.

While I was there George Barda spoke introducing the ‘Love Activists’ and Danny talked about their plans for future activities.

Another event in the square was led by Frances Scott of the 50:50 Parliament campaign to get equal numbers of men and women in Parliament, arguing that this would lead to much better government.

Although I agree there should be better representation of women, I feel that it’s more important that we have politicians who better represent the needs of the people and the country. More Thatchers, Trusses and Badenochs would hardly be an advance on Kinnochs, Blairs and Mandelsons. We need a far more radical system change.

I left to cover the other events, but returned on my way home in the afternoon when the workshops were continuing. Police and GLA security watched but did not interfere. As I commented, “They prefer to take action when fewer press are around and it is dark.”

More at Occupy Democracy return.

Let Greece Breathe!

Trafalgar Square

A large crowd had come to the North Terrace of Trafalgar Square for a rally to celebrate the victory of the anti-austerity Syriza party in the Greek General Election in January and to support them in resisting the imposed austerity programme.

Greek voters had decisively rejected the the EU’s austerity plans, largely pushed by Germany and backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank (ECB) but the new government was having to revise its plans, facing stiff opposition and was having to compromise on many of its promises.

Speakers at the rally, including Jeremy Corby, Owen Jones, CWU’s Billy Hayes, Paul Mackney, Green Party’s Romayne Phoenix and John Sinha from Occupy Democracy, praised the Greek struggle against austerity, but their pleas for the country to be let to breathe fell on deaf ears in Germany and the financial institutions.

Many in Syriza felt betrayed by its actions and some left the party, but in a snap election in September 2015 the party polled well enough to remain as the leading party in the coalition. They did badly in the 2019 election, becoming a part of the opposition.

More pictures at Let Greece Breathe!

Deport Altaf Hussain

Downing St

Pakistanis from Imran Khan’s PTI party called on the UK government to arrest and deport Altaf Hussain, the founder of the rival rival MQM party who fled to the UK in 1991 following an attack on his life in advance of a police crackdown of his party and was granted asylum here in 1992.

The protesters say Hussain and his party have an armed mafia wing in Karachi which indulges in extortion, blackmail and murder and were behind the Baldia Town factory fire in which at least 258 workers died, the Karachi Massacre of May 2007, as well as the murder of PTI leader Zahra Shahid in her driveway in Karachi in 2013 and many other crimes.

Since 2015 he has been a wanted man in Pakistan on charges of ‘murder, targeted killing, treason, inciting violence and hate speech‘. In the UK he was tried in 2022 charged with ‘promoting terrorism and unrest through hate speech in Pakistan‘ but was acquitted.

More at Deport Altaf Hussain.

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The Gambia & No Fracking – 2015

The Gambia & No Fracking: Two protests on Monday 26th January 2015 were both taking place at lunchtime in Old Palace Yard opposite the Houses of Parliament. One was by Gambians against the brutal repression in The Gambia and the other a protest against government support for fracking.

Gambians protest brutal repression

Old Palace Yard

The Gambia is the smallest country in mainland Africa, a long strip around 10 miles on each bank of the Gambia River for around 200 miles inland from its Atlantic mouth, surrounded on land by Senegal. Originally colonised by the Portuguese traders it later became a part of the British Empire, while inland from the river was under French control. After the UK 1807 act to abolish the slave trade, ships from the Royal Navy brought slaves from ships they intercepted to settle on the river. The Gambia became independent in 1965.

A military coup in 1994 led to Lieutenant Yahya Jammeh becoming President, and under his dictatorship any opposition “faced exile, harassment, arbitrary imprisonment, murder, and forced disappearance.”

The protest in January 2015 took place after the arbitrary arrests, detentions, tortures and summary executions of those who took part in the 30th Dec uprising against dictator Yahya Jammeh – and their innocent family and friends.

Despite the severe repression in the country in the following year Jammeh lost the December 2016 presidential election; his reluctance to leave the post led to military intervention which resulted in the victor Adama Barrow assuming power.

Gambians protest brutal repression

No Fracking Anywhere!

Old Palace Yard

Hundreds of campaigners from across the country protested as MPs were due to vote on a proposal to ban fracking and also on a controversial proposal to allow fracking under people’s homes without permission in the Government’s Infrastructure Bill.

*Tina-Louise Rothery with a Frack Free Lancashire poster*

The protest was two days before Lancashire County Council were due to decide on whether to give the go ahead for Cuadrilla to frack in Lancashire which would set a precedent for the rest of the UK. Tina-Louise Rothery from Frack Free Lancashire was one of those who had come to speak at the protest.

There were many other speakers too, including Bianca Jagger, Vivienne Westwood and Caroline Lucas MP, Vanessa Vine, the Founder of Frack Free Sussex and BIFF! (Britain & Ireland Frack Free), John Ashton, the Former UK Government Special Representative for Climate Change, Hannah Martin of Reclaim the Power, Norman Baker MP amd Labour MP Joan Walley, chair of parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee which that morning had come out against fracking .

*Norman Baker, Bianca Jagger, Caroline Lucas and John Ashton with the ‘Frack-free Home’*

Greenpeace had come with their model ‘Frack-free Home’ and a petition with 361,736 signatures to Parliament.

*Puppet monster Mr Frackhead in front of Parliament*

Despite the widespread opposition t it took several more years of campaigning before the UK government finally announced a moratorium on fracking in November 2019.

More at No Fracking Anywhere!

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Anti-fascist Solidarity Against Golden Dawn – 2013

Anti-fascist Solidarity Against Golden Dawn: Saturday 19th January 2013 was an international day of action against the fascist Golden Dawn Party in Greece, and around 500 people had come to the Greek Embassy in Holland Park in solidarity with the demonstration against the party in Athens.

Golden Dawn, now described in Wikipedia as “a far-right neo-Nazi ultranationalist criminal organisation and former political party” had its origins in 1980 but only became prominent following the 2008 Greek debt crisis which resulted from the global financial crash and crippling austerity measures imposed on Greece by the EU and IMF.

The founder of the group, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, who called himself ‘Fuhrer’, is an ardent support of Adolf Hitler and a holocaust denier, and the group adopted similar symbolism, slogans, salutes and policies to the Nazis. They wanted to return Greece to a military dictatorship such as that which had ruled the country from 1967-74.

Golden Dawn seized on the existing racism and Islamophobia against immigrants and refugees by forming attack squads against them in the parts of Athens where they had most support, their actions covered by the support of the police who also launched their own operation conducting large numbers of strip searches and detentions – much like the current ICE in the USA.

In the Greek May and June 2012 elections Golden Dawn had got 6.9% of the vote and 18 MPs, with similar results in the 2015 elections. But by 2019 their vote had fallen below the 3% needed for them to have any representation in parliament, largely due to resistance by the working class through strikes and demonstrations and with the rise of the left-wing Syriza party.

In 2020 Michaloliakos and other prominent part members were found guilty of murder, attempted murder, and violent attacks on immigrants and left-wing political opponents and were sent to prison.

The London protest was organised by Unite Against Fascism (UAF) and “similar solidarity protests were taking place around the world, including in New York, Sydney, Barcelona, Lyons, Toronto, Dublin, Vienna, Moscow, Canberra, Warsaw, Chicago, Copenhagen, Montreal, Bilbao, Milan, Finland, Slovenia, Derry, Cork, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds and Bristol.”

There were speeches at the protest by some leading members of the British left, including Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn, as well as those from various Greek organisations, and I list some of the speakers in My London Diary. Among the speakers was Gerry Gable, the editor of Searchlight, long a powerful force against racist and fascist groups, who died recently.

*Police stop protesters going down the street to confront the small group of Golden Dawn supporters*

Elizabeth Mantzari of Solidarity with the Greek resistance “had just begun to speak hen there was an uproar down the road, as some of the crowd rushed to protest against a small group of right-wing supporters of Golden Dawn.”

Police quickly formed a line to stop others following them, and then began moving the anti-fascists back behind it away from the 15 ‘British Friends Of Golden Dawn’, some of whom I recognised from former EDL protests. I tried to talk to some of them but was insulted and accused of working for Searchlight – which unfortunately I had never done.

*Anarchist solidarity with the squats banner in front of the Greek Embassy*

The rally opposite the Greek Embassy continued, though I had missed some of the speeches. Clearly as I ended my account, “The protest was a success for the UAF, and yet another humiliation for the extreme right.”

More about the rally and many more pictures on My London Diary at Anti-fascist Solidarity Against Golden Dawn.

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Black Lives Matter London – 2016

Black Lives Matter London: Although there is a long history of Black struggles against racism in Britain the Black Lives Matter movement with its hashtag #BlackLivesMatter only really became established here in 2016, three years after it was first formed in the US in 2013.

This protest, on Friday 5th August 2016, five years and a day after the killing of Mark Duggan by police in 2011, along with those at Heathrow and in Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham were part of a ‘National Shutdown‘ which marked the emergence of Black Lives Matter UK.

The rally took place in Altab Ali Park on Whitechapel Road. Altab Ali, a Bangladeshi textile worker was stabbed to death in a racist attack by three teenagers in the adjoining street on 4th May 1978. In 1998 the park, formerly St Mary’s Park, was renamed in his memory.

"The event was called by BLMUK, a community movement of activists from across the UK who believe deeply that #BlackLivesMatter but are not affiliated with any political party. They called for justice and an end to racialised sexism, classism and homophobia and a new politics based on community defence and resilience."

Among those taking part in the rally were activists from Stand Up to Racism, from families of Sheik Bayou and Sean Rigg who had been killed by the police as well as Stephanie Lightfoot-Bennett whose twin brother Leon Patterson was battered to death by police in a Stockport cell in 1992, Movement for Justice and Sisters Uncut.

There were speeches from the various groups including BLMUK and from NUS President Malia Bouattia before the rally split into large groups from North, South, East and West London to discuss further actions.

Sisters Uncut set up flowers and candles in Altab Ali Park in East London to commemorate the many UK victims of state violence, including Duggan, Sarah Reed, Mzee Mohammed, Jermaine Baker, Sean Rigg, Leon Patterson, Kingsley Burrell and over 1500 others, disproportionately black, since 1990.

I left the rally before the end, when protesters blocked Whitechapel Road outside the park and some went on to block other roads in East London

More pictures on My London Diary at Black Lives Matter London.

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Broadwater Farm & Mark Duggan – 2017

Broadwater Farm & Mark Duggan: On Sunday 4th August 2017 I went to Tottenham to cover the march on the 6th anniversary of Mark Duggan being killed by police, and arriving early I took a walk around the Broadwater Farm Estate.

Broadwater Farm Estate – Tottenham

You can read the real story of the Broadwater Farm Estate on the excellent Municipal Dreams web site. In 1961 Haringey Council had a shortfall of 14,000 homes with many families living in squalid conditions in rented accommodation in overcrowded and run down Victorian back to back slums.

The estate was built on former allotments next to the Lordship Recreation Ground and above the River Moselle which was culverted. Its design was strongly influenced by the work of Le Corbusier and used ‘piloti’ to raise the homes above ground level both to combat the perceived flood risk from the river and to segregate pedestrians from traffic on walkways with the the ground level providing extensive parking for residents’ cars.

Construction began in 1967 and ended in the early 1970’s. The 1063 new homes were built to high standards, spacious and with all the ‘mod cons‘ expected in that era and with ‘constant hot water for heating and domestic use…supplied to all homes from the central oil-fired boiler’.

Things didn’t work out quite as expected, and although people were delighted at first, problems soon emerged. Flat roofs leaked, the heating system proved inefficient and noisy and there were cockroach infestations, lift breakdowns and fires of rubbish.

The huge parking spaces under the buildings were underlit and hidden from sight and “physically created a concrete ‘underworld’ for crime to thrive” and the many pedestrian walkways proved ‘impossible to police‘.” There were racial tensions too – the Tenants’ Association initially excluded black members and “its president was forced to resign in 1974 after a TV appearance speaking on behalf of the National Front.”

It became harder for the council to find tenants for the flats and the estate became a ‘dumping ground’ for difficult and disadvantaged tenants. In 1979 it became part of the government’s Priority Estates Project and Haringey council and the estate residents had mobilised to improve things. By 1984 homes were no longer hard to let and crime had been much lowered.

But policing was increasingly a problem, with many residents experiencing “heavy-handed and oppressive policing“. Things – as a second post on Muncipal Dreams details – came to a head after police raided the home of Cynthia Jarrett close to the estate looking for her son Floyd, a leading member of the Broadwater Farm Youth Association (BFYFA). She died of heart failure during the raid, and the following day, Sunday 6th August 1985, protesters set out from the estate to march for a peaceful protest outside Tottenham Police Station.

They were met and stopped by police in full riot gear, who sealed off all routes from the estate and a seven-hour riot began. As I wrote in 2017 “more and more police came into the estate with firefighters who put out a small fire. Faced by increasing attacks from residents the police withdrew, but two officers failed to escape. PC Richard Coombes was seriously injured and PC Keith Blakelock was beaten and hacked to death.”

*After the disturbances shops were moved down to Willan Rd*

Municipal Dreams continues: “A full-scale state of siege followed. Four hundred police officers occupied the Estate over the following weeks and some 270 police raids took place over the next six months. Some 159 arrests were made.” The inquiry into the disturbances at Broadwater Farm concluded that it “was essentially about policing – police activity and police attitudes.“

Work to improve the estate continued, helped in 1986 by a £33m grant from the Government’s Estate Action programme which enabled huge changes to the structures, eventually removing the walkways and bringing life to the ground level and with the BYFA leading improvements in the environment. By 2003 dit had become “a stable and safe community.”

The shooting of Mark Duggan, raised on the estate, by police on 4th August 2011 led to another march from Broadwater Farm to Tottenham Police Station three days later which sparked riots on Tottenham High Road and other areas of London and other towns and cities. Broadwater Farm was not the cause of these disturbances, which again were largely provoked by “a widespread resentment of police behaviour.“

Improvements to the estate continued after this but it is now under threat from further so-called regeneration which would see it “as ‘improved’ by importing middle-class owner-occupiers and private renters.“

Broadwater Farm Estate

Tottenham remembers Mark Duggan

People met on Willan Road in the centre of the Broadwater Farm Estate for a peaceful march to a rally at Tottenham Police Station on the sixth anniversary of the shooting of Mark Duggan by police. The marchers included members of his family and the family of Jermaine Baker, shot dead by police on 11th December 2015 in Wood Green.

Baker was unarmed and although a public inquiry found there had been a failings in the police operation that his killing was lawful and no criminal charges would be brought against any police officers although one would face gross misconduct proceedings.

Mark Duggan’s shooting had been accompanied by various false reports from the police and officers gave contradictory evidence at the inquest, where finally after weeks of deliberation the jury in January 2014 returned an 8–2 majority verdict that his death was a lawful killing. Legal challenges to the verdict were later rejected but in 2019 Duggan’s family accepted a settlement of their civil claim from the Met.

*Mark Duggan’s mother Pamela Duggan (centre) with family and friends*

Speakers outside Tottenham Police station remembered the police killing of other members of the Tottenham community apart from Duggan and Baker – Cynthia Jarrett, Joy Gardner, Roger Sylvester, and the recent murders of Rashan Charles, Darren Cumberbatch and Edson Da Costa.

As well as a minute of silence, speakers from the two families and local activists including Stafford Scott there were also speeches from Becky Shah of the Hillsborough campaign and from the Justice for Grenfell campaign.

*The crowd spread out into the street with a large group of mainly young men on the opposite side of the street*

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Tottenham remembers Mark Duggan.

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Marine A, Mandela, CPS Failures, Cops off Campus – 2013

Marine A, Mandela, CPS Failures, Cops off Campus: On Friday 6th Decemeber 2013 some very varied events were taking place in Central London. Here they are in the order I photographed them.

EDL Protest Supports Marine A – Downing St

Marine A, Mandela, CPS Failures, Cops off Campus - 2013

The EDL had called for a major protest at Downing Street on the day that ‘Marine A’, Sergeant Alexander Blackman, was to be sentenced, but only around 50 supporters were there when I arrived.

Blackman was being tried for the murder of a wounded Taliban insurgent in Afghanistan in contravention of the Armed Forces Act 2006, and became the “first British soldier to be convicted of a battlefield murder whilst serving abroad since the Second World War.“

I commented “I doubt if there are many serving soldiers who would wish to see the Geneva conventions disregarded, and wonder what support if any this protest would have from serving soldiers, many of whom have condemned strongly the cold-blooded killing of a prisoner by Marine A and called for an appropriate sentence.“

However many did feel when later that day he was sentenced to “life imprisonment with a minimum term of ten years and dismissed with disgrace from the Royal Marines” he had been treated harshly, and in 2014 the sentence was reduced to eight years, then after a public campaign overturned on appeal and reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Given the time he had served he was released in April 2017.

EDL Protest Supports Marine A

Tributes to Mandela – Parliament Square & South Africa House

Nelson Mandela, the “Father of the Nation” who had become the first president of a new post-apartheid South Africa from 1994-1999, having previously spent 27 years in prison before his release in 1990, had died the previous day, 5th December 2013.

People brought flowers to the Nelson Mandela statue in Parliament Square and to South Africa House in Trafalgar Square, where a long queue waited patiently for several hours to sign a book of remembrance in the High Commission.

Tributes to Mandela

Bereaved protest at CPS Failure – Southwark Bridge

*Marcia Rigg holds a picture of Mandela as she addresses the protest against the PCS*

Since 1990 there had been 1433 deaths of people in custody, many under highly suspicious circumstances and not a single conviction of any police, prison officers or security guards who have either failed in their duty of care or more actively caused their deaths.

Relatives and friends of those who dies had come to protest outside Rose Court, the home of the Crown Prosecution Service. The last successful prosecution brought against a police officer was for involvement in a black death in custody was in 1972, after the death of David Oluwale in 1969. Police officers have been prosecuted for several other black deaths in custody – Joy Gardner, Christopher Alder and Mikey Powell – but none was successful.

The standard response from the CPS – led by Keir Starmer from 2008-2013 – is that there is ‘not enough evidence to prosecute’, largely because the cases have not been properly investigated. Often the police involved are simply not questioned, and in some other cases they simply refuse to answer questions.

Bereaved protest at CPS Failures

‘Cops Off Campus’ Protest Police Brutality – Bloomsbury

Following protests by students and others against student fees and cuts, the closure of the student union and calling for acceptable pay and conditions for low paid largely migrant cleaners, catering staff, security staff and others, the University management had tried to ban protests on campus and had brought in numbers of police to enforce that ban.

This protest was called after the previous day police had brutally assaulted a group of students who had briefly occupied a part of Senate House, arresting a number of students including the Editor of the student newspaper and a legal observer.

The organisers had intended this to be an entirely peaceful march around the various s sites of the university in the area to the west and north of Russell Square, but it was clear that the police had other ideas. There seemed to be police vans down every side-street in the area as students assembled on the pavement outside the University of London Union in Malet St.

There were a few short speeches before the march set off to walk around the block but were stopped by a line of police across the street, with those who tried to walk through it thrown roughly backwards.

They turned around only to find police blocking both the other end of the street and a side street leading to Gower Street and their only way open was to go onto the campus, walking past SOAS and out onto Thornhaugh Street. There they turned up into Woburn Square and then turned to make their way into UCL, only to find the gates from Torrington Place were locked and guarded by security.

They then turned into Gower Street where they saw another group of police rushing towards them and they then rushed through the gates into the Main Quad. Here there was a lot of discussion about what to do next and they eventually decided to take a back street route to Torrington Square, and set off at a rapid pace. I took a more direct route to meet them there. But by now it was dark and I was tired of walking around London and decided to go home.

The police operation seemed to me “an incredible and pointless waste of public money, and it resulted in more inconvenience to the public than if the event had not been policed at all.” Perhaps more importantly this kind of policing alienates a large proportion of young people, acting strongly to destroy the ‘policing by consent’ which has always been the the basis of our police system.

More at ‘Cops Off Campus’ Protest Police Brutality.

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Fracking, Congo & Caste 2013

Fracking, Congo & Caste: On Saturday 19th October 2013 I began work at a protest calling on the former boss of BP to resign from the House of Lords because of his vested interest in fracking, then photographed a protest against the atrocities being committed in the battles for mineral wealth in the DRC, Uganda and Rwanda before covering a march bringing a petition to Downing Street against the continuing delays in making caste discrimination illegal in the UK.

Global Frackdown: Lord Browne resign! Mayfair

Campaigners went to the offices of private equity firm Riverstone Holdings to call on its managing director Lord Brown of Madingley, a former boss of BP, to resign his seat in the House of Lords because of his vested interests in fracking.

John Browne joined BP in 1966 and worked his way up the company to become CEO in 1995. Knighted in 1998, he joined the House of Lords as Baron Browne of Madingley. in 2001 while still being BP CEO. In 2007 he resigned from BP when accused of perjury in atempting to stop newspapers publishing details of a former homosexual relationship and of alleged misuse of company funds.

In his time at BP he was responsible for a ruthless programme of cost-cutting that many feel compromised safety and contributed to the 2005 Texas City Refinery explosion and in 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

In 2013, Browne was Managing Director and Managing Partner (Europe) of Riverstone Holdings LLC, and more significantly for today’s protest the chairman of Britain’s only shale gas driller Cuadrilla Resources.

The protest outside Riverstone was a part of a day of a ‘Global Frackdown’ with protests against fracking in 26 countries and in other cities in the UK.

Friends of the Earth activists met on Oxford Street and walked to the office in Burlington Gardens, where after a brief speech about Lord Browne’s involvement in fracking people were invited to write messages and put them in a small brown rubbish bin which would be left at the offices for him.

People wrote messages and posed with them calling for an end to fracking at Balombe and elsewhere in the UK as well as showing support for the Elsipogtog First Nation who had a few days earlier been attacked by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with live ammunition and tear gas while protesting against fracking in New Brunswick, Canada.

Fortunately police in London merely came to ask the protesters what they intended to do before saying ‘Fine, no problem’ though they did later ask them to ensure there was a free path along the pavement and remind them and photographers of the danger from the slow moving traffic.

The activists point out that fracking contaminates huge volumes of water with sand and toxic chemicals and also that any fossil fuel production should be avoided as using fossil fuels increases the climate crisis.

Global Frackdown: Lord Browne resign!

Don’t Be Blind to DR Congo Murders – Piccadilly Circus

Continuing battles over the mineral wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Rwanda have led to the murder of more than 8 million people and over 500,000 men, women and children have been raped by the various armies funded by various European and African multinational companies.

Gold, diamonds, coltan, tungsten, tin and other ores should make these countries rich, but have led to huge devastation. Coltan, containing both niobium and tantalum is vital for the mobile phones, computers, missiles and other modern technology on which we rely. The fight for it has been the main incentive behind the genocidal wars that have waged in the area.

Despite various protests over the years by Congolese in London there has been little publicity to the atrocities and no action by our government. The ‘Don’t be Blind This Time’ campaigners came to Piccadilly Circus to raise public awareness, some posing in blindfolds and others handing out a thousand free flowers, with the message that that we need to demand justice and an end to the impunity and cover up around this conflict.

The wars continue in 2024 and have recently intensified. China now also being increasing involved as US companies have since 2013 sold their mines to Chinese companies who now own most of the mines in the DRC.

I don’t remember seeing any mention of this protest in the media, and we see few reports of the terrible situation continuing in the area. British editors seldom seem to regard this or conflicts in other areas of Africa such as Sudan as news.

Don’t Be Blind to DR Congo Murders

Make Caste Discrimination Illegal Now – Hyde Park to Whitehall

Negative discrimination on the basis of caste, long a traditional part of Indian society, was banned by law there in 1948 and is a part of the 1950 constitution, though it still continues. In the UK The Equality Act 2010 passed under New Labour in 2010 gave our government the power to make caste discrimination illegal but they lost the election before doing so.

The incoming coalition government was reluctant to action, but pressure continued and in 2013 the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 mandated this to be done; instead the government set up a two year consultation, apparently as a result of lobbying by the Alliance of Hindu Organisations, (AHO) a body set up to oppose what they call “the threat posed by this proposed amendment to the Equality Act 2010.”

The consultation appears also to be only with established groups dominated by upper caste interests, and its length entirely unnecessary. It isn’t clear why a simple elimination of a clearly discriminatory practice should be regarded as a threat.

A report on the consultation was finally published in 2018. In it the government rejected the idea of a law against caste discrimination and instead concluded:

Having given careful and detailed consideration to the findings of the consultation, Government believes that the best way to provide the necessary protection against unlawful discrimination because of caste is by relying on emerging case-law as developed by courts and tribunals. In particular, we feel this is the more proportionate approach given the extremely low numbers of cases involved and the clearly controversial nature of introducing “caste”, as a self-standing element, into British domestic law.

They also state that any law would “as divisive as legislating for “class” to become a protected characteristic would be across British society more widely.” I don’t think this comparison has any merit. Not to act seems to me to be accepting a foreign practice, illegal in its country of origin, into British society, and the low number of cases they comment on surely means that case-law will only emerge at a snail’s pace. Our new Labour government should follow the example begun by New Labour in 2010 and make caste discrimination illegal in the UK.

Make Caste Discrimination Illegal Now

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