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Frack Off, Animal Exports & Hands Off Queers! – 2013

Frack Off, Animal Exports & Hands Off Queers! On Saturday 10th August 2013 I went to Trafalgar Square for a small anti-fracking protest, took a few more pictures there and met a march from Covent Garden against live animal exports which ended with photographs on the Trafalgar Square steps. Then I made a short walk down Whitehall to photograph a protest against the homophobic policies of President Putin.

Frack Off – Trafalgar Square

Frack Off, Animal Exports & Hands Off Queers! - 2013

Protests were continuing at Balcombe, a small village in West Sussex, against test drilling and possible fracking for oil there by Cuadrilla, and a small group had come to Trafalgar Square to support their protests.

I took a few pictures and then wandered around the square a bit and missed them when they left to protest at Downing Street. Although a fracking ban later ended Cuadrilla’s attempts, Balcombe is still under threat from drilling for oil by another company, and legal battles continue.

Frack Off

Also in Trafalgar Square

I took a few pictures as I walked around Trafalgar Square, some including the blue cockerel then standing on the fourth plinth. It was hard to imagine why “Hahn/Cock” by German artist Katharina Fritsch had been selected other than to provide material for jokes, including many about us not needing another massive cock in London as we already had our then Mayor.

Trafalgar Square seems now more often to be used for religious events than political protest, and one of these was just starting, with a white-clad gosspel choir. But as I commented, “Nice hats, but some seem to have taken singing lessons from Florence Foster Jenkins” and I hope they got better after they had warmed up.

Also in Trafalgar Square

Against Live Animal Exports

I was hanging around in Trafalgar Square waiting for a march by Compassion in World Farming against the live export of farm animals. I knew it was starting from Covent Garden but stupidly I hadn’t bothered to find out its route so I could meet it on the way.

Live exports take place under the 1847 UK Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act 1847 which prevents public ports in Britain from refusing to export live animals as a part of the “free trade” in goods.

But EU law has recognised animals as sentient beings rather than “goods” since 1999, and different rules and regulations should apply to them.

In 2012, over 47,000 young sheep and calves were crowded into lorries for long journeys from as far afield as Wales and Lincolnshire across the channel to France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. The journeys inflict great suffering on the animals concerned with animals having no access to water and with temperatures inside the are often 30 degrees or more, and they are sometimes confined for 80 hours or more.

In 2012, 45 sheep died in a lorry at Ramsgate that had previously been declared several times unfit for use.

The marchers defied attempts by the Heritage Wardens to stop them posing on the wide steps in Trafalgar Square for photographs at the end of the march.

Many more pictures at Against Live Animal Exports.

Putin, ‘Hands Off Queers!’ – Downing St

Protesters had come to protest opposite Downing Street against Russian president Putin’s homophobic policies.

They called on the UK government to urge Russia to respect gay rights and for an end to the torture of gay teens in Russia.

*Peter Tatchell with his poster ‘Vladimir Putin Czar of homophobia’*

The protesters called for a boycott of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, the release of Pussy Riot and for freedom of speech in Russia.

*Street theatre called for the release of Pussy Riot*

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Putin, ‘Hands Off Queers!’

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EDL No Show & Pride Celebrates Love and Marriage – 2013

EDL No Show & Pride Celebrates Love and Marriage: I began my day with Unite Against Fascism activists who met at Speakers Corner to opposed a march by the EDL, but they didn’t turn up. After taking a few pictures as the UAF celebrated news of the arrests of the EDL leaders as they defied the Tower Hamlets ban I walked to where Pride was gathering in Baker Street.

UAF Oppose, EDL Don’t Come

EDL No Show & Pride Celebrates Love and Marriage - 2013 — *The only EDL present were English Disco Lovers*

On Saturday 29th June 2013 the English Defence League had been banned by police from entering Tower Hamlets and protesting by walking past the East London Mosque as well as from any assembly or procession in Woolwich. Instead they were allowed to march from Hyde Park to Parliament and UAF had been given permission to march in protest in the same area against them.

There were only 50 to 100 UAF supporters at Speakers Corner when I arrived, perhaps because it had become clear that the EDL seemed unlikely to accept the police compromise. While I was there the news came through that the EDL leaders Stephen Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’) and Kevin Carroll had been arrested in Whitechapel as they tried to ignore the ban and was greeted with loud cheering.

I left shortly after to go to Pride.

More at UAF Oppose, EDL Don’t Come.

Pride Celebrates Love and Marriage – Baker St – Trafalgar Square

Pride 2013 celebrated the passage of the 2013 Marriage bill then going through the UK parliament – it became law as the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 the following month, though only came into force in March 2014. A similar Act in Scotland came into force later in 2014, but couples in Northern Ireland had to wait another six years.

As I commented, “Pride has for years become a celebration of gay lifestyle, with a large participation by corporates who profit from this, but at least this year the overall theme was related to a political event.”

I tried in my coverage of the parade to cover as many as I could of those taking part who were clearly celebrating that theme, as well as many of the other individuals and groups who provide the incredible diversity and colour of the event.

*‘The Queen’ put in her usual appearance*

The parade was forming up on Baker Street and I arrived there a couple of hours before they all moved off, and most of my pictures were taken there, but I later went on to Trafalgar Sqaure, leaving when the end of the parade reached there. Here are just a few of the pictures I made – you can see many more on My London Diary.

*‘Trans* people are being Criminalised while you Party’*

*Stonewall: ‘Some Girls Marry Girls. Get Over It.*

There are many, many more pictures of people in the parade on My London Diary at Pride Celebrates Love and Marriage.

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Support Ukraine, Bring the Children Home 2025

Support Ukraine, Bring the Children Home: Last Saturday, 24th May 2025, I photographed three events in London, and you can see albums of pictures from all of them on Facebook – and they are also should be available to see (and purchase for editorial use) rather less conveniently on my Alamy Portfolio page should you not have a Facebook account. I’ll post links for the Facebook albums for all three at the bottom of this post. All the pictures in this post are from the third event I attended, a rally and march by Ukrainians.

My work began on Kensington High Street, close to the Israeli Embassy which is tucked away out of site around 80 metres up a private road, Palace Green. Barricades and a line of police officers – with further police vans parked on that street prevent today’s – or any other protest – ever taking place there.

In the past, protests had always been allowed opposite the entrance to Palace Green on the opposite side of Kensington High Street, but today the police had set up the protest pen on the pavement outside Kensington Gardens around 200 metres away and forced the protesters into it under threat of arrest.

Among the usual banners and placards calling for and end to the genocide in Gaza was one reading reading “WHY ARE 40 (FICTIONAL) ISRAELI BABIES MORE IMPORTANT THAN 14000 PALESTINIAN ONES”, referring to the continual re-iteration by Israelis from the Prime Minister down of some of the more sensational and long discredited claims made about the October 7 events. And of course they never refer to the scorched earth “Hannibal” policy the IDF were directed to adopt which was responsible for at least some of the Israeli deaths on that tragic day.

What was perhaps missing from this FRFI protest compared to the other protests for Palestine that I’ve covered was a call for the hostages to be freed. But they were calling for ‘Peace, though clearly for ‘Peace With Justice’ and for freedom for Palestine, and making clear their demand that the UK ends its complicity in genocide and cuts all military, financial, diplomatic, and cultural ties with the Zionist state.

From close to the Israeli embassy I made my way to Marble Arch where I spent a few minutes photographing a very formal and managed event organised by the PMOI/MEK calling for an end to the executions of political prisoners in Iran.

Following the forced end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988 an enraged Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering the massacre of political prisoners and some 30,000 MEK supporters – then Iran’s main opposition to the clerical dictatorhip – were hanged. The executions and torture of any political opposition in Iran still continue.

At Hyde Park Corner, around the Wellington Arch I joined a crowd of Ukraininans, many men and women in embroiderd traditional dress. Obviously they had come to support their country in the war against the Russian invaders but the main theme of the afternoon was a call for the return of the stolen children.

According to Wikipedia, since 2014 Russia has “forcibly transferred … Ukrainian children to areas under its control, assigned them Russian citizenship, forcibly adopted them into Russian families, and created obstacles for their reunification with their parents and homeland.” Figures from 2022 claim that over 300,000 Ukrainian children had been taken to Russia. Russia has passed laws to make it very difficult for any of them to be returned.

Many Ukrainian children of all ages at the protest were in traditional dress andmany took part in performances by their schools at the event, along with a few speeches, prayers by “our Bishop” and a theatrical protest involving a figure entirely in black leading children by red ribbons representing Russia and death leading children by red ribbons who eventually overpower and and escape.

Much of the event was in Ukrainian and I may have missed much of the nuances, but perhaps the most emotional part was the singing together, hands on hearts, of the national anthem. It was perhaps the most un-English part of the ceremony; back in my youth, not long after the war the main place I heard our terrible anthem was in the cinema where it was a signal for a stampede to the exits, with just a handful of angry looking middle-class men left standing to attention at their seats.

There were so many children taking part in the performances that the procession began around 45 minutes late and I had to leave it well before it reached the St Volodymyr Monument at Holland Park.

Links to my Facebook albums with more pictures from the three events:
End The Genocide, Full Sanctions on Israel
Stop Executions of Political Opposition in Iran
Support Ukraine, Bring the Children Home

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Syria and Ukraine Protests Against Putin – 2014

Syria and Ukraine Protests Against Putin: On Saturday 22nd February 2014 Syrians and supporters at one of their regular protests opposite the Russian Embassy were joined by hundreds of Ukrainians also protesting against Putin.

Protests had been taking place in Ukraine since the previous November against Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych and Russian soldiers in unmarked combat gear were already operating in parts of Ukraine and five days after this protest Russian forces seized control of strategic sites in Crimea. In April 2014 militants backed by Russia took control of some towns in the Donbas region in the east of Ukraine and declared two independent states in the area which were then covertly supported by Russia with soldiers, tanks and artillery.

The Syrian Revolution against the brutally dictatorial Assad regime had begun in February 2011, part of the wider Arab Spring. By the middle of 2012 it had become a military civil war, with Assad’s forces being supported by Iran and Russia, and supporters of Free Syria were holding regular protests opposite the Russian Embassy across the main road from the private street where the embassy is.

Several hundred Ukrainians had come to call or an end to Russian interference in the Ukraine, for an end to violence, and for Yanukovych to go.

While there they heard and cheered loudkt the latest news from the Parliament in Kiev, that the speaker of the parliament, attorney general and interior minister had been replaces and jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko freed.

After an hour of protest I went with the Ukrainians as they marched east along Holland Park Avenue to the statue of St Volodymyr, ruler of Ukraine 980-1015, erected by Ukrainians in Great Britain in 1988 to celebrate the establishment of Christianity in Ukraine by St Volodymyr in 988.

Here around the base of the statue were hundreds of lighted candles, along with flowers and other tributes to the many pro-opposition protesters who have been killed in Kiev and elsewhere in the Ukraine and more photographs of them were added.

Two Ukrainian Orthodox priests led a service in memory of those who had died in the protests to establish a free and independent Ukraine and people held up Ukrainian flags.

Ukrainians Protest, Celebrate and Mourn
Syrian Peace Protest at Russian Embassy

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Serenading the Bomb Makers – 2008

Serenading the Bomb Makers: Given the current increased tension over the possible nuclear escalation of the Ukraine war – something that would be disastrous to us all and totally insane and irrational, but if NATO keep poking the Russian Bear with a stick could be provoked – it seems appropriate to remember the lunchtime tour around the London offices of some of the companies involved in making the UK’s nuclear weapons on Friday 12th December 2008.

I don’t think I can improve on the piece I posted on My London Diary in 2008 – except by adding the odd word that somehow got missed out, so I’ll copy that here, with some of the pictures from the event. I got too cold standing around and left after an hour and went to take a short look at the work taking place on the Olympic site at Stratford Marsh as the light was beginning to fade.

‘Muriel Lesters’ Serenade the Bomb Makers

Serenading the Bomb Makers - 2008 — *Lockheed Martin, Carlisle Place – A man sprawls in memory of the many deaths caused by atomic weapons; security men look bored.*

Ten activists turned up in Victoria, London on Friday for a festive protest outside the offices of the US company behind the production of the UK’s nuclear weapons and the huge expansion of bomb production facilities at Aldermaston – costing £6,000,000,000 – which has never been debated or approved by Parliament.

They were the ‘Muriel Lesters*’, a London affinity group of Trident Ploughshares. Dressed in Santa suits, white nuclear inspector overalls and festive hats they called for an end to bomb production at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE).

Appropriately, their renditions of festive songs and carols with modified anti-nuclear lyrics were largely less than tuneful (one taking part was hear to say “I’m a Quaker, we don’t sing” and who could contradict him?) They called for a stop to the illegal activities of these companies in making weapons.

First to be serenaded by the group were the offices of the US arms giant Lockheed Martin, makers of ‘bunker buster’ and ‘cluster’ bombs, the worlds largest exporter of weapons and the leading member of the consortium set up to produce the nuclear warheads for the UK Trident replacement at Aldermaston.

After an hour or so of leafleting and displaying banners on Vauxhall Bridge Road just around the corner, the group moved to the front door of the building housing Lockheed Martin and several other companies in Carlisle Place for their half hour carol ‘concert’. It was a site I knew from the ‘Merchants of Death‘ tour by CAAT earlier in the year. A number of people came in an out of the building while this was going on and some took leaflets while others hurried past, often to waiting taxis.

Half way through the performance, a police car pulled up and dropped off two constables who came to talk to the protesters. They asked who was in charge (and of course nobody was) and for a mobile number they could use to contact the group, saying “it’s standard practice for protests“. Oh no it isn’t! They were handed a leaflet with the Norwich details of Trident Ploughshares, but that wasn’t what they had in mind.

The police were informed that the real criminals were in the Lockheed Martin offices, carrying out the vast expansion in UK nuclear arms, a breach of the UK’s obligations under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that they were involved in an illegal conspiracy with some groups we could name down the road in Whitehall. The police chose to ignore this vital evidence but eventually they went away, reminding the protesters that while they supported the right to demonstrate, it was important to keep the pavement clear.

As they left, one member of the group stretched out “dead” on his back on that pavement as a symbol of the many victims of nuclear weapons, including those killed in nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, “bomb test veterans, and victims of leukaemias, lymphomas and cancers caused by exposure to radioactive discharges from AWE Aldermaston and AWE Burghfield in Berkshire, Sellafield in Cumbria, Rolls Royce Raynesway in Derby and other sites“

I left the group as it packed up and decided to take a short break before going on for a similar protest at the London offices of Jacobs Engineering and Fluor Corporation, two other US companies who are competing for the stake in the AWE bomb-making contract currently filled by the British Nuclear Group. The third player in the contract – the only remaining UK involvement – is SERCO.

A few more pictures here

Muriel Lester, (1883–1968), born in Leytonstone, was a leading Christian peace campaigner and writer. Among many other things she founded Kingsley Hall in Bow, was a friend of Gandhi, Travelling Secretary of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and was detained for ten weeks in Trinidad and then several days in Holloway Prison for her activities during the Second World War.

Olympic Site – Stratford

A few more pictures from around the London 2012 site.

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Putin Hands Off Queers & Syria – 2013

Putin Hands Off Queers & Syria – 2013 On Tuesday 3rd September 2013, ten years ago I photographed two different protests in Central London, beginning at Downing St against Russian homophobia and going on the the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square for a rather mixed protest over Syria.

Love Russia, Hate Homophobia – Downing St

Several hundred had come to Downing St two days before David Cameron was to attend a G20 Summit in St Petersburg hosted by Putin, urging our Prime Minister to press him to repeal the Russian anti-gay law and prosecute violent homophobes.

The organisers had asked people to wear red, and many did though others came in more colourful attire and several were in drag. The protesters including a large African LGBT contingent and Peter Tatchell.

The protest which was a part of a world-wide day of action against Russian homophobia :

The organisers had listed eight themes for the action including some related to the forthcoming 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics:

David Cameron: What are you doing about the anti-gay law in Russia? We want answers. Tell Putin to drop the law.
Russia: End the anti-gay law & homophobic violence
Solidarity with Russian LGBT & human rights defenders
Defend freedom of expression & human rights for all Russians
Oppose the Putin regime’s escalating authoritarianism
IOC must protect LGBT athletes and spectators, and ensure freedom of expression
Sochi corporate sponsors must condemn homophobic legislation & violence
The IOC must insist that Russia lifts its ban on a LGBT Pride House at Sochi

More pictures at Love Russia, Hate Homophobia.

Hands off Syria – US Embassy, Grosvenor Square,

Several hundred people, including many Syrians living in the UK, came to the US Embassy for a protest rally called by Stop The War to keep up the pressure on President Obama not to bomb Syria.

Among the Syrians present were groups supporting both the revolution in Syria, particularly Kurds who have long suffered discrimination and repression in the country and supporters of the Assad regime who made the ridiculous claim that there had been no discrimination in Syria.

The Assad regimes have made more than 300,000 Kurds stateless, not included in the census, unable to vote, stand for office, gain school certificates or university degrees, or travel outside their own provinces. International organisations have clearly shown that Kurds in Syria are subject to discriminatory policies against their language and dress.

The Stop The War protest was followed by a lengthy protest by the pro-Assad Syrians against US intervention. They vociferously denied that Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons in Syria blaming others for their use. Reports by various bodies now show there is no room for any doubt that they were used by government forces.

The failure by Obama and other western countries to take effective action in Syria – such as enforcing a no-fly zone in disputed areas left the door open for Putin to intervene providing direct military support for Assad in 2015. Putin was also able to come to arrangements with Turkey despite them being key members of NATO in the region and enabled them to take military action against the Kurds who were the most efficient force in the fight against ISIS in Syria.

The failures of the USA in Syria was probably also key in giving Putin the confidence to invade the Crimea and parts of Ukraine in 2014 – and then on to the current invasion there. We were also given a powerful reminder of earlier US blunders by the presence outside the US Embassy just along from the protests I was covering of a protest camp already in front of the embassy over the attacks on Camp Ashraf in Iraq on 1 September.

Camp Ashraf in Iraq had been home to the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the main opposition to Islamic rule in Iran, in 1986. Before the US coalition invasion of Iraq, the US had come to an agreement with Iran that they would neutralise the PMOI, and coalition forces attacked the camp. Eventually there was a ceasefire after which the PMOI agreed to give up its tanks, armoured vehicles and heavy artillery and the residents of the camp were given protected status as civilians under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

But after the US left Iraq, the camp came under control of the Iraq government, who attacked it on several occasions. The Iraqi army killed 34 and wounded 318 in a raid in April 2011, and a raid on September 1, 2013 had killed killed 52. The PMOI blamed Iraq for this but others blame Iranian militias directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The PMOI camp was calling for the US for support. The PMOI were focibly moved to another site in Iraq in 2012 and in 2016 the US brokered a deal to relocate them to a site in Albania, giving the UN refugee agency $20million for their resettlement.

More pictures of the Embassy protests at Hands off Syria.

UAF, EDL and Pride – 2013

UAF, EDL and Pride : Ten years ago on Saturday 29th June 2013 my work began in Hyde Park where anti-fascists had gathered to oppose an EDL march – for which very few had arrived. I left to photograph the 2013 Pride London event.

UAF Oppose, EDL Don’t Come – Hyde Park

Police had banned the EDL from marching past the East London Mosque in Whitechapel and from any assembly or procession in Woolwich where Lee Rigby had been cruelly slaughtered under the Public Order Act.

Instead they had allowed a march by the EDL from Hyde Park to a rally near Parliament, and had also allowed Unite Against Fascism to march in protest against the EDL.

But the two EDL leaders, Stephen Lennon and Kevin Carrol had called themselves ‘charity marchers’ and had turned up in Tower Hamlets and been arrested by police. This news was relayed to the UAF supporters in Hyde Park and they gave a loud cheer. There were at most a hundred of them, and they had intended to march to the starting point of the EDL march, but none of the EDL had turned up. I left to photograph Pride.

More at UAF Oppose, EDL Don’t Come.

Pride Celebrates Love and Marriage – Baker St – Trafalgar Square

Over 150 groups had turned up for the 2013 Pride Parade to welcome the equal marriage Bill in England and Wales and celebrate the love that binds the London LGBT+ community together and links it with the wider community.

They included many of the figures I had photographed at previous Prides over the years – such as ‘The Queen’ , including some I had photographed back in the 1990s.

As always, some of the costumes were spectacular, while others were, frankly, just very odd. But variety is of course the spice of life, and there was certainly no shortage of spice.

My pictures show many of the individuals taking part, as well as smaller groups, but no the more commercial aspects of the parade which now tend to dominate. And I also like to show those using the occasion to make a political point. Pride is still for some a protest.

After photographing the marchers at the start – always where the most interesting photographs of the event can be found, I made my way to Trafalgar Square to photograph people arriving at the end of the parade.

By the time the march ended I’d been on my own feet too long and went home.

Many more pictures at Pride Celebrates Love and Marriage.

Tibet, Syrians, Nuclear Melt-Down, Islamophobia & Lions

Tibet, Syrians, Nuclear Melt-Down, Islamophobia & Lions. Saturday 15th March, seven years ago was another typically varied day of protests on the streets of London which I covered.

London March for Freedom for Tibet

Every year Tibetans and supporters in London protest around the anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, ten years after the Chinese invasion of the country. In 1959 the Dalai Lama and 120,000 Tibetans escaped to India and established the Tibetan Government in Exile.

In 2014 they met at Downing St for a march to a rally outside the Chinese Embassy in Portland Place, calling for Tibet to be free and in charge of its own destiny again and for an end to the illegal Chinese occupation. They say China is destroying Tibetan culture, and Tibetans are rapidly becoming a minority in their country as thousands of migrants are brought in. Peaceful protests by Tibetans are met by arrests, torture, death and lies, and China’s economic power means western countries adopt what they have called a policy of ‘constructive engagement’ with China, effectively turning a blind eye to the occupation and to human rights abuses in Tibet.

I left the Tibetans shortly after their march went through Trafalgar Square to photograph another protest.

London March for Freedom for Tibet

Syrians March for International Action

I had met the Syrians before the start of their march close to Hyde Park corner and had left them as they began their march along Piccadilly on the third anniversary of the start of their fight for freedom. I met them again as they came down Whitehall for a rally at Downing St to show their commitment to the cause and their solidarity with fellow Syrians inside and outside Syria.

The marchers from the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces and the UK Syrian community called for Assad to go and were appealing to the Britain and the international community to help them to get rid of him. Unfortunately although western leaders condemned the actions of the Syrian government they were not prepared to back up their words with action, and it was left to Russia, who backed Assad to determine the future of the country. Few can doubt that the weakness shown by the west over Syria was not a major factor in Putin thinking he could successfully invade Ukraine.

Ukraine is not of course Syria, but it is hard to read the statement made by the Syrians I quoted in my post without seeing some parallels: “Syria, once proud of its contribution to culture, its distinguished history and its beautiful mosques and churches has been overwhelmed with a brutal dictatorship. Syrian homes have turned to rubble, echoing the unheard screams of its inhabitants. The regime has tried to silence the call of freedom by murdering over 150,000, injuring 500,000, imprisoning 250,000, making 1.5 million refugees and caused over 4.5 million internally displaced people within Syria, and recently started using chemical weapons…” Putin in Syria saved a brutal dictatorship, while in Ukraine it seems his aim is to impose a different regime on the country, perhaps less brutal but requiring similar means for it to be imposed.

Syrians March for International Action

Fukushima Nuclear Melt-down Remembered

Earlier I had been at Hyde Park Corner where protesters had gathered on the third anniversary of the nuclear melt-down at Fukushima to march through London, first to the Japanese Embassy and then on to a short stop at Downing St before a rally in Parliament Square.

I photographed them again at Downing St, but had to leave as they marched away to their rally.

Fukushima Nuclear Melt-down Remembered

English Volunteer Force march in London

The English Volunteer Force is a coalition of various far-right groups and described the protest on Facebook as “highlighting multiple issues from immigration, Islamic hate preachers, sharia law, Sharia zones, Sharia patrol groups, banning the Burhka!, Halal meat, endless applications for more mosques etc.”
They insist that they are ‘patriotic’ and are not racist, and claim not to be against Muslims but simply against Muslim extremists, though I found this hard to take seriously.

The march started outside the Lord Moon of the Mall pub close to the Trafalgar Square end of Whitehall where people were just coming out of the pub as I arrived. Police were taking a great deal of trouble to keep anti-fascist who were intent on stopping the march from getting close to it, but were unhelpful when I complained about an assault by one of the protesters who shouted at me and pushed my camera into my face.

A few minutes before the assault I’d mingled with the protesters as they walked down to Downing St, joking with some I knew from earlier right-wing protests I’d covered previously. They seemed pleased that I was covering the event – and although they were clear we differed greatly in our views had personally invited me to some cover some ‘patriotic’ events as they trusted me to report accurately on them.

There were several groups of counter-protesters but generally they were kept apart by police – and by stewards in an official protest area against the EVF opposite Downing St. There were a few arrests both of anti-fascists and of EVF marchers who tried to attack them, and one of the larger groups of anti-fascist was kettled by police on Parliament St.

English Volunteer Force march in London

Save Our Lions – Ban Canned Hunting

Finally I walked back up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square, where hundreds had come for the Global March for Lions, marching from different starting points to meet and call for a ban on the ‘canned’ hunting of captive lions by wealthy trophy tourists.

Legal but unscrupulous, ‘canned hunting’ is big business in South Africa, with more than 8,000 lions in captivity, bred on lion farms. Rich visitors pay large sums to take part in lion shoots, where the targets are unable to escape, often raised to be tame and used to human presence and drugged to make them easy kills. Over 160 lion killing camps have been set up in South African in the last 15 years.

As I commented: “It is a terrible way to treat a wild and noble animal, but it also greatly threatens the wild lion population. To prevent the inbreeding that is rife in captive lion populations, wild lions continue to be captured, while the growth in the Asian lion bone trade increased poaching.”

Save Our Lions – Ban Canned Hunting

More about all these events on My London Diary:
Save Our Lions – Ban Canned Hunting
English Volunteer Force march in London
Fukushima Nuclear Melt-down Remembered
Syrians March for International Action
London March for Freedom for Tibet

Past Time To Act On Climate Change?

Past Time To Act On Climate Change? Seven years ago on Saturday 7th March 2015, 20,000 or so protesters marched through London to remind government and the nation it was Time to Act on Climate Change. Seven years on, the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report released a week ago warns “that climate breakdown is happening faster than expected and that the window to take action is closing fast. The report is a call to governments and private sector players to take drastic action against climate change.”

It’s a report that has largely been lost to public sight, pushed together with the stories about Tory sleaze and lies out of the news by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, though it has even more far-reaching implications. Not that I want to in any way minimise Putin’s criminal action and its terrible consequences for the people of Ukraine, largely innocents caught up in a situation of others’ making.

Of course the invasion of Ukraine has now raised the spectre of a nuclear war, which would almost certainly lead to mass extinction rather more rapidly than climate change, but the very dramatic prospect fortunately makes this almost unthinkable. Were it to happen it would almost certainly be by accident, something we have come close to several times in the past. Even our maddest politicians realise there is nothing to be gained by mutually assured destruction, and there would be no profits in it for the oligarchs or billionaires.

Climate change doesn’t happen in a massive flash, but is relatively slow and insidious. Even in the richer countries we are just beginning to feel its effects, and some in the Global South have long been suffering extreme hardship. But unless we heed the report and take drastic action without delay it will be too late to stop; many systems are coming close to their tipping points, past which there is no chance of recovery.

Scientists have been warning about the dangers for many years. Even 50 years ago when I was a student I spoke about the need to change the way we used the Earth’s resources and move to renewable systems of energy and agriculture, as many aspects of our current way of life were unsustainable.

Over 50 years ago it was clear to me that we needed to cut our dependence on fossil fuels, not just because of the carbon emissions and other pollutants, but also because thinking in the longer term it seemed a waste to burn what was a limited resource and an important chemical resource for plastics and other materials. I sold the only car I’d owned in 1967 or 8, because we needed to move away from a society based around private cars. It was clear too that we needed to farm in ways that conserved the soil and that many modern agricultural practices destroyed it – my father had joined the Soil Association which was established in 1946.

But of course there were huge profits to be made from fossil fuels and other industries that were driving up global emissions – and huge campaigns of obfuscation and lobbying. Most politicians in most countries were doing very nicely out of exploiting our natural resources – and the workers, who needed to be kept happy by more and more consumer goods as well as a huge and almost universal media promoting consumerism. Bread and circuses is of course nothing new.

Countries around the world, whatever their politics, are almost entirely run by politicians who have prospered from ‘business as usual’, and usually business corruption which they have colluded in by allowing money laundering, allowing huge tax avoidance and evasion and more. They have now learnt to talk the talk about climate change, but, as Greta Thunberg pointed out, it has been all “blah, blah, blah”, promises but little or no action.

There were many different groups taking part in ‘Time To Act on Climate Change’, including the Campaign Against Climate Change who have organised regular protests in London since 2002, Friends of the Earth who I’ve supported since the 1970s, the Green Party, anti-fracking protesters including the fabulous ‘Nanas’ of Frack Free Lancashire, campaigners against Heathrow expansion – and I list a few more in Climate Change Rally, which also has pictures of some of the speakers.

At the end of the rally I went on to photograph a protest by ‘Art Not Oil’ who invaded the steps of Tate Britain with their ‘longship’ and ‘oil spills’ in a protest demanding the Tate give up taking sponsorship from BP, who used their support of the arts to give themselves a positive public image despite the pollution and climate change their activites cause. It’s time to end this ‘greenwashing’.

Viking longship invades Tate steps has a few pictures of the event. The Longship first sailed to the British Museum where BP had sponsored a show on the Vikings. As I commented, the plastic oil spills used by the protesters “are a lot easier to clean up than the real ones BP has created such as Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, and which could be truly catastrophic in the Arctic.”

More on all these on My London Diary:
Viking longship invades Tate steps
Climate Change Rally
Time to Act on Climate Change

Anti-Putin protests over Ukraine and Syria 2014

Anti-Putin protests over Ukraine and Syria 2014. On 22 Feb 2014 the small regular protest opposite the Russian Embassy in Kensington was joined by several hundred Ukrainians supporting the Maidan coup in their country and calling for an end to Russian interference in the Ukraine.

*Ukrainian Orthodox priests lead a service of mourning for those killed in the Maidan revolution*

President Yanukovych was removed from his post by a vote in the Ukraine parliament on the 22 Feb, although he called the vote illegal as it did not follow the procedures of the Ukrainian Constitution. He fled as the new government raised criminal proceedings against him.

*Syrians were also protesting against Putin opposite the Russian Embassy*

There were Antimaidan protests in Ukraine, particularly in the southern and eastern areas, and there was considerable public support in the Crimea for the invasion by Russian troops which began on 26th February. There appears to have been considerable public support in the Crimea for the Russian action and a referendum, declared illegal by the EU and USA, on Crimea joining the Russian Federation had an official turnout of 83% and resulted in a 96% vote in favour.

*Ukrainians march from a nearby cultural centre to the Russian embassy*

On 22 Feb 2014, deputies at the Congress of the Southern and Eastern regions declared, accordint to Wikipedia, they were “ready to take responsibility for protecting constitutional order in their territory” and they rejected the authority of the Ukraine government. Demonstrations and clashes followed with opinion polls showing most people rejecting both the regional and national governments as illegitimate but fairly equally divided as to which they supported and separatist militia took control of large areas.

The Minsk summit in February 2015 brought a ceasefire between the Ukraine government and the militias but has failed to unite the country. When I drafted this post a few days ago Russian forces were massed on the borders of Ukraine and it seemed inevitable some would soon cross the border to come to the aid of their comrades in the breakaway areas as they now appear to be doing.

Fortunately I don’t suffer the same hawkish advisers as NATO – or at least like to add a pinch of salt as they more or less monopolise the BBC airwaves. This isn’t a second Cuba missile crisis (and I remember that vividly) but may possibly bring some resolution to an unsatisfactory situation in the area which the West has failed to properly grapple with since Minsk. At least I hope so. Nobody – not even the Russians – wants another war, and it would be disasatrous for the Ukraine.

Russia has interpreted (probably correctly) the large flow of arms and training by the west into the country as a build up for a Ukrainian government attack to retake Eastern Ukraine – where apparently over 600,000 people are of Russian heritage and still have Russian passports. It still it seems most likely to me that the Russian action will be confined to establishing clear borders for the breakway republics rather than a full-scale invasion of the country, and the end result will be a smaller but more united Ukraine in the remaining areas.

If Russia remains inside the new republics it has recognised, the Ukraine that remains, like the protesters in 2014, will be a strongly Orthodox country. After the protest opposite the Russian embassy they left and marched to the statue of St Volodymyr, ruler of Ukraine 980-1015, erected by Ukrainians on the corner of Holland Park in 1988 to celebrate the establishment of Christianity in Ukraine by St Volodymyr in 988.

The statue was surrounded by flowers, photographs and tributes with hundreds of burning candles to the many pro-opposition protesters who have been killed in Kiev and elsewhere in the Ukraine. Two Ukrainian Orthodox priests presided at a service to remember all those who have died to establish a free and independent Ukraine.

More about the 2014 protests in London on My London Diary:
Ukrainians Protest, Celebrate and Mourn
Syrian Peace Protest at Russian Embassy