Troops Home from Iraq; Don’t Invade Iran: Saturday March 18th 2006 I went to the large protest on the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, photographing as the march gathered in Parliament Square and then as the march went along Victoria Street on its rather indirect route to a rally in Trafalgar Square. As often with large marches, by the time the end of the march had passed me I was too late for it to be worth going on to the rally.
Marchers in Guantanamo fatigues and chains leaving Parliament Square, March 18, 2006
Here – with the usual tidying of capitalisation and a few minor clarifications is the post I made on My London Diary at the time. Of course things have become much worse in various ways but particularly so far as civil liberties in the UK are concerned, the situation in Iraq has been dire and there remains a real threat of military action against Iran, an odious regime but whose people would still suffer greatly from any any invasion.
The Troops Home From Iraq; Don’t Invade Iran march on the 18th was another large event organised by Stop The War, part of an international protest in cities around Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Asia and Africa – a total of around a couple of hundred places. In London there were roughly 20,000 who walked out of Parliament Square past where I was taking pictures, although many like me will not have made it to Trafalgar Square, and others will have joined in later on the route.
The event marked three years since the invasion of Iraq on 20 march 2003. At the front of the march were Theatre Of War representing both Tony Blair and George Bush along with two police and two judges holding placards declaring the two leaders guilty.
Put your head in a sack, Guantanamo style…
Behind them were the march leaders, including representatives of families of soldiers killed in Iraq. They had a long, long yellow ribbon with the names – no ranks – of soldiers who have died so far in this illegal war and occupation. Of course many more Iraqis killed – more than 100,000 have died so far.
The invasion, doubtful on legal grounds, was justified on the basis of false information, including information that was known to be incorrect when it was presented to parliament and the people.
Already it has led to deaths in Britain; only a small handful of people (that’s Tony Blair and some of his cabinet) doubt that the London bombings would not have happened if Britain had not joined in the invasion plans. Actually it is hard to believe even they doubt it, but rather they just can’t bring themselves to admit it.
A protester from Glasgow is warned for using a megaphone in Parliament Square
We’ve also seen the passage of draconian measures that attack civil liberties in this country (and attempts still being made to get more.) Muslims in particular have been targeted, with a rise in Islamophobia.
At last the march moved off, with stewards pushing photographers away from the front
The expenditure in Iraq has been vast. If you want to know why there isn’t the money to raise pensions (and a week of pension protests was ending today with a conference in London) there is a simple 4 letter answer. IRAQ.
Another four letter country, Iran, is currently under threat. Perhaps most chilling are the denials from Blair and Straw, who state that invasion is not on the table. For too many of us that just seems to make it more likely.
No Trident Lobby & Rally: On March 14th 2007 the House of Commons were debating the principle to replace the existing UK nuclear weapons and begin a process to design, build and commission submarines to replace the existing Vanguard-class submarines carrying Trident nuclear missiles with updated systems over the coming 17 years. The New Labour government, led by PM Tony Blair and the Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett were supported by the Conservatives and one DUP member and won the final division by 408 votes to 160.
Voting against were many Labour MPs and almost all the Liberal Democrats, SNP and other minority parties, although there were a few absentees.
Protestors at the front of Parliament Square included Christian ministers and Buddhists.
Around Parliament Square there was a day of protest by Greenpeace and others with the main CND rally called for 5pm and continuing into the evening. Here is the account I wrote of the day for My London Diary – with the usual minor corrections and a few of the pictures I posted – more are still on My London Diary
No Trident Lobby & Rally – Parliament Square, London
I missed Bianca and Annie and the others, but I didn’t miss them as there was plenty else going on. As I walked over Westminster bridge there was the banner flying on the crane in front of the houses of parliament, and there were quite a few people stopping to look at it.
Protestors from Block the Builders and Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp had earlier blocked the road. They were dragged rather roughly to the side. Police stood round as pneumatic drill and saws are used to remove the concrete filled bins
Later, Greenpeace activists got on their bikes and cycled across Westminster Bridge to Parliament Square, where they were stopped by police and threatened with arrest unless they left the roadway and moved onto the square. After a while they all did, many cycling away after a few minutes to cycle around London before joining the ‘fish on a bicycle‘ critical mass that arrived back at the square a few hours later, and got the same ‘off your bike‘ treatment from the police.
Cyclists are ordered off the road and onto the pavement of Parliament Square under threat of arrest
The square started to fill up rather more from around 5pm when a silent protest attended by a couple of hundred took place in the far corner of the square. By the time the speeches started at 6.15 there was a respectable crowd, perhaps around 500, but people were still arriving and with the addition of the cyclists there were perhaps closer to a thousand present.
A brief attempt by Greenpeace to protest on the pavement in front of the Houses Of Parliament took the police by surprise, but the group were soon escorted back across the road.
Greenpeace demonstrators on the pavement outside ParliamentVeteran peace campaigner Pat Arrowsmith was among those in the crowd
Throughout the day there had been plenty of signs of the personal vendetta between some Met officers and the regular protesters in the square. Two hapless officers appear to have been deployed just to stand in front of one fluorescent pink placard, and there were some incidents of minor harassment. The injunction thrown out by the judge at Southwark Court recently showed how the police are wasting our money in this respect.
Brian Haw: Find Your Courage; Share Your Vision; Change Your World. (T-shirt from Dan Wilkins, The Nth Degree.)
Apparently the latest approach to try and remove the protesters from the square comes from London Mayor Ken Livingstone who is worried about the grass being damaged by the tents there. As I remarked when this was mentioned, “grass regenerates, dead children don’t.” Perhaps we should start a ‘Brian [Haw] For Mayor‘ campaign.
We need Trident “like a fish needs a bicycle”
Several Labour MPs came out from the house to address the meeting, along with many activists. Bruce Kent started his speech by thanking Brian Haw for allowing the demo to use his back garden, and Brian later came from his protest at the front of the square to address the meeting.
This time the government got its vote, but there will be later occasions to oppose Trident, as well as the continuing actions at Faslane which those at the demo were urged to take part in.
Trident replacement is still continuing in 2025, with the government being committed to the building of four replacement submarines by the early 2030s and an extension to the life of the Trident missiles potentially to the early 2060s as well as work taking place now to produce replacement nuclear warheads in the 2030s. It is an important support to the UK arms industry but of little or no military consequence with its obscene cost threatening our ability to defend the country by conventional means and it remains – like all nuclear weapons – a definite threat to the peace and future of the world.
Ellen MacArthur, Brian Haw & Ashura. On 20th February 2005 I froze on the riverside in Bermondsey waiting for Ellen MacArthur’s catamaran to come up-river to Tower Bridge after her 71 day voyage had made her the fastest solo sailor to sail around the world. Five years later “she set up the Foundation in her name to accelerate the transition to a circular economy“. I didn’t get any very good pictures as I was far to far away as she raised here arm to acknowledge the crowd that had gathered to welcome her – I needed a much longer telephoto than I’ve ever had.
Afterwards I took a little walk around the Bermondsey riverside before making my way back to Parliament Square where I took a pictures of the display there by Brian Haw’s Peace Campaign, now joined by promotional flags for the 2012 Olympic bid. There was more of this in Trafalgar Square too, where I dropped in briefly to see some of our pictures and warm up.
Finally at Marble Arch I photographed the start of the Ashura procession by Shi’ite Muslims. I didn’t stay too long as I was still cold and I was keen to get home and warm.
Here – with the usual minor corrections – is the piece I wrote in 2005 to go with the pictures on My London Diary:
Sunday was another bitter day, and I froze on Butlers Wharf waiting to see Ellen MacArthur aboard her catamaran as it was driven up to Tower Bridge and back from Greenwich, disappointingly not a sail in sight.
Ellen MacArthur is just visible, arm upraised in the centre of the picture
The crowds were not huge, but respectable, but like me, few could be bothered to go to Greenwich. The various press boats buzzing round the catamaran added a little interest, but made me glad I wasn’t on one.
I was more interested in taking some pictures along the riverside, then took the tube to Westminster to call in on Brian Haw, still in Parliament Square since 1st June 2001, with the government now cooking up a personal law against him.
The signs on the square are no augmented by a line of mute London 2012 flags, and along in Trafalgar Square (on my route to the National Gallery) was a giant tent and Olympian figure. Nobody can accuse London 2012 of not spending money on promoting their cause. more pictures
Shi’ite Muslims in London were celebrating the stand of the grandson of the Prophet, Imam Hussain, who died a glorious martyr along with his small band of supporters at Karbala in Iraq, choosing death rather than dishonour, in the year 680. Ashura represents a key point of difference between Sunni and Shi’a traditions and Saddam Hussein rigidly prevented its observance in Iraq during his years in power.
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
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.
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.
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.
‘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.
HP, Poor Doors & Anonymous: On Wednesday 5th November 2014 Guy Fawkes was obviously on our minds, and from a protest against HP’s support of the Israeli army and prisons I went on to a protest where a guy with a Boris Johnson mask was burnt and then joined Anonymous with their march on Parliament.
Boycott Hewlett Packard – Sustainable Brands – Lancaster London Hotel
Hewlett Packard, now known as HP, though that’s still a name that makes me think of brown sauce in bottles with a picture of the Houses of Parliament, were the sponsors of the Sustainable Brands conference taking place at the Lancaster London Hotel at Lancaster Gate.
Protesters from Inminds came there to protest against the company’s role in IT support for Israeli forces who had killed 521 Palestinian children in the then recent attack on Gaza, as well as in running the Israeli prison system. They handed out fliers to those going in and out of the hotel and others spoke about the HP’s deep involvement in Israeli war crimes and persecution of Palestinians.
They point out that young Palestinian boys as well as other prisoners have been kept for long periods in solitary confinement and tortured in Israeli prisons supported by HP. Many older Palestinian men and women are also locked up in ‘administrative confinement’ without any proper charges or trial, often being released and then immediately being confined again in what amounts to infinite imprisonment.
[HP Sauce is definitely a long-lived brand, having got its name in 1895, five years after it was first produced in Nottingham as ‘The Banquet Sauce’, though in 1988 like most things British it was sold off to foreigners. Currently it is owned by Heinz and made in the Netherlands and still tastes much the same. ]
Poor Doors Guy Fawkes Burn Boris – One Commercial St, Aldgate
I met Class War in a nearby pub before they marched to yet another of their weekly protests against the ‘social apartheid’ in this large block with a plush foyer and concierge for the ‘luxury’ flats for the wealthy and a bleak side entrance down an alley for the poor in social housing in the same building.
They had with them two effigies of Boris Johnson, one a BJ placard, one hand holding a bottle of ‘Boris Bolly’ and the other fanning out a wad of notes, and a life-size ‘guy’ in a suit and tie with a Boris facemask and a mop as hair, who was dragged along the the protest holding one end of the Class War Womens Death Squad banner.
Class War had brought along sparklers for the protest, and at some point the inevitable happened and ‘Boris’ was set alight, eventually burning to a small heap of burning material in the middle of the wide pavement. As you can see in the picture there was plenty of space around so no-one was in any danger.
The police called the Fire Brigade, who when they arrived, looked, laughed and walked away. But police insisted they deal with the fire. It took one fireman and one bucket of water.
After the fire was put out, police grabbed Jane Nicholl and told her she was being arrested for having set light to the guy.
A large crowd surrounded her and the police, calling on them to release her, but eventually they managed to take her and put her in the back of a van, which was then surrounded by people.
More police arrived and there were flashing blue lights everywhere, as police tried to clear a path for the van. Eventually police managed to drive away.
They then grabbed another of the protesters, handcuffed him and carried him away, though I think he was later released without charge. The CPS had agreed that burning the effigy was legitimate freedom of expression but Jane was charged with lighting a fire on or over a highway so a person using the highway was injured or endangered. But the CPS were unable to produce any evidence that burning Boris ‘injured, interrupted or endangered’ any passerby – it clearly hadn’t – and the case was dismissed.
Guy Fawkes ‘Anonymous’ Million Mask March – Parliament Square
Hundreds had met in Trafalgar Square for the world wide Million Mask March against austerity, the corporate takeover of government and the abuse of power, but by the time I arrived from Aldgate had marched down to Parliament Square. Some were on the ground under a police van with another standing on its read bumper with a placard.
Here there were a mass of barriers and large groups of riot police threatening the protesters, who called on them to put their batons away and join their Guy Fawkes party without success.
Many of the protesters wore ‘Anonymous’ masks but there were relatively few with placards and nobody seemed to have much idea about what they should do. They stood around, then marched around the square a bit before some decided to march to Buckingham Palace where I learned later that things did get a bit more lively. But I’d had enough by then and had gone home.
Students March for Free Education. On Wednesday 4th November 2015 students, led by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) marched through central London against the abolition of maintenance grants calling for free education without fees and huge student debts and an end to turning higher education into a market system impoverishing staff and students.
Back in the distant past when I was a student, UK students paid no tuition fees at UK universities and I got a grant of around £300 a year which was then just about enough to pay my living expenses, at least for the three terms I was away from each year, paid by my local authority.
Because my family income was low, I got a full grant, while some of my friends from wealthier families got lower grants and had to rely on their parents to give them a ‘parental contribution’ – and not all did, though some others were more than generous.
More recently, my two sons also benefited from maintenance grants and no fees, my younger son just squeezing into the final year before student fees came in. By then my salary as a teacher – our sole household income at the time – meant we were assessed to make a small parental contribution to his maintenance.
Since then things have got a lot tougher for students, with loans for both tuition fees and their living expenses. New Labour brought in tuition fees in 1998, means-tested at £1000 per year, then tightened the screw in 2004 when they tripled to £3000 and poorer families now had to pay the full amount.
In 2012 the Tory-led coalition tripled the fee yet again, setting a maximum of £9000 – and I think all universities charged more or less that maximum. Currently they are frozen after being rasied to £9250 in 2017, but are expected to rise with inflation from 2025 if no further changes are made. For a few years in opposition Labour promised to remove tuition fees, but that promise seems to have been quickly forgotten after Starmer became leader.
It was Thatcher who first introduced student loans for maintenance but these were in addition to maintenance grants for those who did not get full grants. It was again New Labour in 1998 that abolished maintenance grants for all but the poorest students – and these went in 2016.
Student loans have operated under several systems since 1990, with the first major change taking place in 1998 and the next in 2012, when the first Income-Contingent Repayment Plan 1 was introduced. Students this year are on the 5th version of this, with a new version for those starting in 2023.
Martin Lewis summarises the 1923 changes in a clear graphic. Students who started in 2023 pay 9% of their income when they earn over £25,000 a year and keep paying for 40 years after they left university. Inflation-linked interest is added to the amount on loan, typically now around £60,000 for a three-year course.
Most students now also have to supplement their income with part time jobs, as estimates for the income needed to take a full part in three years of university life together with tuition fees come to more than £80,000. It’s a far cry from back when I was at university when students taking paid work during term-time was frowned upon or prohibited by the university authorities.
The 2015 protest formed up at Malet Street outside what had until 2013 been the University of London Union where there were speeched, then marched to Parliament Square . From there it went on the Home Office and Dept of Business, Innovation & Skills and became more chaotic, with a black bloc of students took over and police rather fragmented the march.
You can read about it and see many more pictures – and also of the celebration going on in Parliament Square following the release of the last British resident, Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo on My London Diary.
DPAC Court Vigil, a Poet Arrested, Musical Poor Doors & More: Wednesday 22nd October 2014, ten years ago today was a busy day for me. You can read my full accounts of the various events I photographed on the links to My London Diary, along with many more pictures, but here I’ve only space for a short outline. Below is my day more or less in order.
DPAC High Court Vigil for ILF – Royal Courts of Justice,
When disabled people won a court case over withdrawal of the Independent Living Fund the government simply put back the closure of the fund. Today’s protest by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) supported a second case against the closure. Speakers at the vigil included three MPs, John McDonnell, Andy Slaughter and Jeremy Corbyn, as well as many from various disability groups.
At the end of the protest, DPAC carried out their usual direct action, blocking Strand outside the court with their wheelchairs.
End UK shame over Shaker Aamer – Parliament Square, London
Protesters were continuing their regular vigils opposite Parliament for Shaker Aamer, imprisoned and tortured for over 12 years and cleared for release in 2007. They believe he was still being held because his testimony would embarrass MI6 as well as the US.
I took the tube from Westminster to Canary Wharf to visit the Bridges exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands, later returning to Westminster. I paused in Westminster Station to take some panoramic images of the interior, designed as Piranesian, though sometimes I get more of the feeling of Escher as you seem to walk endlessly up escalators and around the interior.
I found the show a little disappointing, but took advantage of my visit there to take a few more panoramic images.
I made a couple of visits to the Democracy Camp in Parliament Square both before and after going to Canary Wharf. Although the camp had been ejected from the main grass area workshops and rallies were still taking place throughout the day, and Danny, the ‘Plinth Guy‘ was still up there with Churchill since the previous day – and there were cheers when he completed 24 hours.
Earlier someone had been arrested for throwing him a bottle of water, and when performance poet and activist Martin Powell arrived with a plastic tub of food he was warned he would be arrested if he tried to give it to Danny.
He replied it could not possibly be a crime to feed a hungry person and threw it extremely accurately over police heads and into Danny’s waiting hands. Arrested and marched away he loudly recited his poem ‘The Missing Peace’.
Danny was still in place when I returned at 5pm but the police had called in their climbing team. I listened while its leader talked with him, and Danny told him he would not resist arrest if they came to take him down peacefully. But I had to leave before they started to do so.
This was Class War’s 14th weekly protest at the ‘rich door’ of Redrow’s One Commercial St flats and it was a lively affair with the banners dancing to the music of Rhythms of Resistance, a poetic performance and some rousing speeches against social apartheid.
There ws strong police presence but there was no trouble, with a carnival atmosphere and banners dancing up and down the wide pavement in front of the rich door. Most of the police appeared to be enjoying the event too.
As usual after an hour of protesting people dispersed and I went into Aldgate East station to begin my journey home.
Climate Rush – Deeds Not Words: In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst and other women who believed that more direct action was needed to get votes for women founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) with the motto ‘Deeds not words‘.
In September 1908 together with Christabel Pankhurst and Flora Drummond, Emmeline Pankhurst issued a leaflet with the message:
Men and Women, Help the Suffragettes to Rush the House of Commons, on Tuesday Evening, October 13th, at 7.30.
The three women were charged for this with inciting the public to undertake an illegal act. After speaking at a public meeting on 11th October they were instructed to attend Bow Street police station but defied this and a second request to report to police. They were arrested at 6pm on the 13th and so were unable to attend the Suffragette Rush they had called.
But despite this, 60,000 people came to Parliament Square and some attempts were made to rush through the 5,000 police cordon but failed. “Thirty-seven arrests were made, ten people were taken to hospital and seven police officers were placed on the sick list as a result of their injuries.”
One woman, MP Keir Hardie’s secretary, was working inside the building and ran into the chamber where MPs were debating, shouting ‘leave off discussing the children’s question and give votes to women first’ before being forcibly evicted.
The three leaders were tried and fined for conduct likely to provoke a breach of the peace and sent to Holloway when they refused to pay their fines.
On 13th October 2008, the 100th anniversary of this Suffragette Rush, as I wrote, ‘women concerned with the lack of political action to tackle climate change organised and led a rally in Parliament Square, again calling for “men and women alike” to stand together.’
They were making three key demands – “no airport expansion“, “no new coal-fired power stations” and “The creation of policy in line with the most recent climate science and research.”
So far the repeated demands by Heathrow to expand have been resisted, but only by continued protests and helped by financial problems. But expansion remained Tory policy and having ruled it out set up a biased inquiry to reinstate it. The new Labour government has already shown support for expansion at London City Airport and seems likely to support new proposals at Heathrow.
Although the last coal-fired power station closed a few weeks ago, we now have an even more polluting and environmentally damaging wood-fired power station at Drax, which ridiculously receives green subsidies which in 2020 amounted to £832 million as well as “exemptions for taxes on carbon emissions, estimated at savings of £358 million“.
And although successive governments had paid lip-service to “the most recent climate science and research“, their actions and actual policies continue to show any of the urgency that this requires.
On 13th October 2008, the event began with a rally in Parliament Square with rather fewer attending than in 1908, around a thousand including many wearing white and dressing in the styles of a century earlier.
As the final speech by Green Party MEP and leader Caroline Lucas ended, “most of the crowd, led by Tamsin Omond and friends, walked and ran across the road towards the main door into Parliament, chanting the Suffragette slogan ‘Deeds Not Words’. Police “made only a token attempt to stop them on their way, falling back to protect the door itself with several lines of police, and preventing any protesters entering the building.“
“There was a long melee outside the door, with police picking up demonstrators and throwing them back. I saw no violence by demonstrators towards the police.” Eventually the whole area in front of the door was crowded with protesters and police held them to a standstill.
By the time I left around half an hour later a few people were also beginning to drift away. “Later I heard that around half a dozen people had been arrested, including Tamsin Omond, who was in breach of her bail conditions following the ‘Plane Stupid’ roof-top protest at the Houses of Parliament in February.”
You can read more about the protest in my account on My London Diary, which also has many more pictures: Climate Rush – Deeds Not Words.
Sack Parliament on Monday 9 October 2006 was more a demonstration by police of their determination to protect the status quo following protests earlier in the year and the continuing saga of the Parliament Square peace protest which had led to their performance being criticised by politicians and our largely right-wing press than any real protest by the few who had come to protest against the increasing restrictions on our freedom to protest.
It was Brian Haw’s permanent peace protest in Parliament Square which led to the Labour Government including in the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 severe restrictions on the right to protest in a large area around Parliament and giving police new powers to control protests.
Media frenzy about this protest was whipped up in the days before at least in part by police briefings, and the police clearly saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate that they could control events such as this. I wrote and published an unusually long piece on My London Diary about the event – reproduced here with some minor corrections.
Sack Parliament on Monday 9, and event to mark the return of MPs to Westminster, was of course only ever an amusing idea rather than a serious chance of a Ukrainian-style Orange Revolution. As the large press turnout showed, it was one that had caught the attention of the media (Mondays perhaps tend to be slack) but unfortunately not that of the demonstrating classes.
It got off to a bad start with the planned ‘Critical Mass’, which failed to gather more than a handful of cyclists. Heavily outnumbered by the police bike posse, they faded away, a couple cycling down the side of the National Theatre and the other 3 or 4 carrying their bikes up the steps to Waterloo Bridge.
At Parliament Square, things were little better. At the advertised start time, apart from the normal Parliament Square Permanent Protest there were perhaps 25 demonstrators and rather more press, along with what must have been around a thousand police, counting those sitting in vans around the area as well as the impressive number standing around.
Twenty minutes later the numbers had been more than doubled, mainly by the arrival of a group dressed largely in black. And soon after they made a charge at the police line into the road towards the Houses of Parliament.
From the start it seemed a pointless gesture. The line held, and pushed them back, and soon the two sides were standing a few feet apart and glaring at each other. After a few more attempts to push through the police, the demonstrators ran back onto the grassed area of the square where they were surrounded by a cordon of police.
One of the photographers, an NUJ member I’d been talking to a few minutes earlier, was apparently pushed by police as they rushed the demonstrators. He fell and received a neck injury which left him with no feeling from the waist down. Police medics were on hand to give him first aid and to call an ambulance. Later I was pleased to hear he had been allowed home from hospital, and the injuries were apparently less serious than we feared.
I was inside the cordon to start with, but the police made no attempt to stop me as I decided to walk out, not even asking to see my press card (they had checked it earlier.) Around the square, small teams of police were rounding up anyone looking vaguely like a punk or a hippy and dragging them inside the cordon. Some of those they picked on seemed genuinely to have no connection with the protest. Eventually there were perhaps around 150 in there, including quite a few press, along with a few who clearly had little idea what the whole thing was about.
Apparently others who looked like possible demonstrators were stopped and arrested in Whitehall, or turned back on other roads approaching the square.
Outside the cordon, the normal demonstrations in the square went on, with the occasional interruptions by the police, nit-picking about where the demonstrators are allowed to stand and being largely ignored or abused.
Occasionally there were scuffles inside the cordon as demonstrators made an attempt to breach the police line, or police teams moved in to grab individuals. There were also occasional arrests around the square, including some of those who protested loudly they were simply bystanders.
At 14.13, roughly 40 minutes after the protesters had been imprisoned in the cordon, Police Superintendent Peter Terry (responsible for the taking away and destruction of most of Brian Haw’s property from the square and alleged by demonstrators to have lied in court) read from a handwritten statement telling the protesters that they were being detained in the square because he believed that their continued presence in the area would lead to a serious breach of the peace!
Around 15.00, police began to distribute notices to those outside the cordon warning them “we believe that you may be, or are about to be, involved in a demonstration located within an area subject to the provisions of the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005” and moving press and spectators well back from the cordon. There seemed to be little chance of getting further photographs, so I went to get on with work elsewhere.
According to a press report later in the evening, there were 38 arrests made. Those caught in the cordon who were not arrested at the event were apparently required to provide evidence of identity and address before being allowed to leave. SOCPA continues to be a blot on human rights in this country, and this protest, despite its apparent pointlessness and lack of support has underlined this point.
I’m one of a generation who grew up believing in British justice and a sense of fair play. We were rightly appalled at those countries where protest was banned, and demonstrators could be arrested. It sickens me to see this happening in front of what used to be a powerful symbol of freedom, the Houses of Parliament.
In 2007 the Labour Government, then led by Gordon Brown began a consultation about managing protest around Parliament which looked at different ways of imposing restrictions and those in SOCPA were repealed in the coalition’s by the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. But they were replaced by giving police new powers to control a wide range of activities in the area.
Even more draconian powers allowing police to restrict protests across the UK cane into force under the Tory Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 which seriously impact free expression, freedom of speech and the right to protest in the United Kingdom, and further powers and increased sentences for protesters were enacted by the Public Order Act 2023. We now have non-violent protesters serving lengthy jail sentences, with a Labour government which appears to be in no hurry to repeal these repressive police state laws.
Corbyn Victory & Refugees Welcome: Saturday 12th September 2015 was a day of hope when Jeremy Corbyn won the Labour leadership election with a landslide victory, getting more than three times the vote of his nearest rival, Andy Burnham. Several hundred Corbyn supporters met at Speakers’ Corner before the Refugees Welcome march to listen to the results of the Labour Leadership election.
Victory Party for Jeremy Corbyn – Speakers’ Corner, Hyde Park,
Tension built as the Deputy Leader results came and then erupted with Jeremy Corbyn’s first round victory.
Corbyn had only been able to stand in the election because some Labour MPs who did not support him were prepared to nominate him so that the Labour left would have a candidate in the ballot and not feel it was rigged against them. They thought he would only get a miserably low percentage of the votes.
According to Wikipedia, the release of opinion polls before the election which showed Corbyn in the lead prompted “high-profile interventions by a number of prominent Labour figures including Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, Jack Straw, David Miliband, and Alastair Campbell, among others” who felt Labour with Corbyn as leader would be unelectable.
These interventions almost certainly increased support for Corbyn, and although these and other Labour figures such as Peter Mandelson, along with most of the media and press did their best to try to get rid of Corbyn, including various plots and mass resignations from the Shadow Cabinet, he remained popular in the country.
The 2017 election turned out to be a much closer contest than most had imagined, and it was only due to deliberate sabotage by Labour party officials that Corbyn lost. A leaked report in 2020 which demonstrated this led to the setting up of the Forde report into Labour party factionalism which although it called the earlier report “factional” confirmed many of its suspicions and conclusions – as well as criticising both sides in the party – remained secret until July 2022.
What shocked many of us was the evident relief shown by some leading members of the party as the 2017 election results were coming out that their party had lost. And the witch-hunt against the left in the party continues unabated.
On the 12th September 12th 2015 there was much more media interest in the few hundred celebrating Corbyn’s victory than in the huge Refugees Welcome march which followed, and in the media scrum I got knocked flying and my equipment scattered, but managed to gather it up and continue work.
From Speakers Corner I joined the huge crowd – at least 50,000 – filling Park Lane as far as I could see. This national march was a response to the many reports of refugees fleeing war and persecution, with people wanting to show their support for refugees facing death and hardship and their disgust at the lack of compassion and inadequate response of the British government.
On My London Diary is a list and photographs of some of the speakers before the march set off. I photographed the front of the march as it set up at the southern end of Park Lane and went with it for the first couple of hundred yards into Piccadilly, where I stopped to photograph the rest of the march as it came past.
The marchers were fairly densely packed and spread across the whole of the roadway (and sometimes on to the pavement too) and it took exactly an hour to go past me.
There were many at the protest who were not the usual protesters, people who said this was the first protest they had ever attended, as well as those that I knew from previous protests, and there were many interesting placards and banners to photograph – and many more pictures on My London Diary.
As the end of the march passed me I rushed into Green Park Station and took the tube to Westminster, arriving on Whitehall as it went very noisily past Downing Street.
I ran back to Parliament Square, and this soon filled up with people and banners. I sat down on the wall close to the Churchill statue, realising I was rather tired and hungry.
Many marchers left rather than stay and listen to the speeches, though the square was still crowded and I decided I would leave too.
