UAF Oppose EDL Westminster March: There is a long history of protests where anti-fascists come to oppose marches and rallies by extreme right groups in London, including of course the Battle of Cable Street, but I think we have had more of them in recent years, if not on that same scale.
Ban the Burkha but not the Balaclava?
But looking back on my coverage of this event of Friday 5th March 2010 what we have seen different is the policing of such confrontations. The more recent such events have seen huge mobilisations of police to keep the two groups apart, with extensive use of double barriers with a large ‘sterile’ no go area between them, and often some fairly aggressive policing and arrests to achieve this.
Attending more recent events journalists and photographers have had to choose which side of the event to be at, with often rather long detours being needed to go between the two – and having a Press Card is seldom of any use.
Jeremy Corbyn
In 2010 police did keep the two groups apart, but only on opposite pavements of the road in front of the Houses of Parliament, and as my photographs show, I was able to move fairly freely from side to side.
Unite Against Fascism had tried to block the road a couple of hours before the EDL march after holding their rally in Old Palace Yard on the north side, but were then forced across the road onto the opposite pavement by police. I wasn’t there to see this but was told by others that there had been a few arrests when people had refused to move.
I had walked away down Millbank where the EDL were to hold a rally before marching to Parliament. I was early and nobody was there but as I had expected there were several hundred at a packed pub a couple of hundred yards further on with many standing on the pavement outside.
Most were in in a good mood and happy to talk to me and other journalists about why they were protesting – and you can read more about this on My London Dairy. I think I represented them fairly in my article, though as always they felt strongly that they did not get fair treatment in the press. I felt that the coverage was generally fairly accurate, the problem was more with the views and actions of some EDL members rather than the reporting.
As I noted in my account: “Later during the actual march I did get sworn at, threatened and given the finger, but only by a small minority of marchers, and a young female Asian journalist seemed to attract considerably more aggravation than me. There was also a considerable amount of clearly anti-Muslim shouting and singing, and the placards and slogans that attack the building of mosques seem to threaten all Muslims rather than just the extremists. The atmosphere was unpleasant, and really gave the lie to the earlier denials of racism.”
I went along with them to the rally outside Tate Britain, but the start was delayed and they went back to the pub. When it did finally start the main speaker was the Sikh Amit Singh (Guramit Singh Kalirai), and his speech seemed to me at times to be clearly racist in its attacks on Muslims. Police took no action over this or his other speeches, but three years later he was jailed for taking part in a violent attempted armed robbery.
From there the EDL were escorted by police as they marched to Parliament and taken into a pen on the north side of the road opposite the UAF. As I commented, “The first thing that many of the EDL did on arriving in the pen was to urinate against the wall of Westminster Abbey” but mostly they shouted often racist abuse at the UAF who responded with calling them racists and fascists.
The EDL made great play of denying they were racists and showing off their few Black and Asian members to the press. But there was a hugely visible difference between their largely white male crowd and those across the road which reflected the multiracial nature of London – and where women were in a majority.
After around an hour of shouting across the road the UAF crowd began slowly to drift away. Police kept the EDL in their pen but did escort a few to Westminster Station.
I decided it was time to leave. As I commented I hadn’t enjoyed spending much of the afternoon in the company of the EDL “hearing their racism and right wing simplicities. It was an unpleasant way to spend an afternoon, but I think its important to show these events and these people honestly.”
Outsourcing, North Woolwich & Rees-Mogg Freakshow: Tuesday 26th February 2019 was a long day for me, beginning with a day of action over the outsourcing of workers on the day of a High Court challenge to extend the legal rights of the 3.3 million outsourced workers. In the afternoon I went to complete a walk I’d begun several months earlier in North Woolwich, returning to cover a protest by Class War outside a performance by Jacob Rees-Mogg at the London Palladium.
Rally for an end to Outsourcing – Parliament Square
The day of action by outsourced workers had actually begun several hours earlier at 8.00am at the University of London from where they had marched to protest outside the High Court before I met them for a rally against outsourcing in Parliament Square.
The day was a part of a coordinated strike action by outsourced workers, mainly migrants, working at the Ministry of Justice, Dept for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and the University of London, organised by the grass roots unions United Voices of the World (UVW), the Independent Workers’ union of Great Britain (IWGB) with the BEIS PCS branch .
The unions argued that outsourced workers should be able to collectively bargain with the management of their actual workplace as well as the outsourced employer and that not being allowed to do so was in breach of article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. You can read more about the case which the High Court dismissed in an insightful article by Tom Long for Personnel Today.
Had the legal challenge been successful it would have greatly extended the legal rights of the UK’s 3.3 million outsourced workers and have led to a great improvement in their working lives.
Labour Shadow Business minister Laura Pidcock – she lost her seat in 2019
Several Labour MPs came to speak at the rally and support the demand to end outsourcing which creates insecurity, discrimination and low pay.
After the rally the the protesters marched around Parliament Square and then along Victoria Street to protest outside the Dept for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.
Strikers at BEIS included catering and security staff who are members of the PCS and are demanding the London Living Wage as well as end to outsourcing.
Chris Williamson MP
Among the speakers at the rally here was then Labour MP for Derby North Chris Williamson who was under investigation for his comments about the party’s response to allegations of antisemitism in the party – and was eventually barred from standing for Labour in the 2019 election.
The protesters marched on to the Justice Ministry in Petty France.
Low paid workers belonging to the United Voices of the World union at the Ministry of Justice have been campaigning for some time to get the London Living wage, but the Justice Minister has been unwilling to talk with them. They call it the Ministry of Injustice.
They are also calling for an end to outsourcing and the insecurity, discrimination and low pay it causes. A number of trade unionists came to speak in support of outlawing outsourcing and to support the strikers in their claims.
This was a loud and boisterous protest with drumming, music and dancing on the pavement and street outside the ministry.
During the protest some of those who had already been on strike for 24 hours went back into the ministry to resume work, to cheers and hugs from those outside.
My attempt to go for a walk along the Capital Ring in North Woolwich was made difficult by the DLR having a temporary shut-down and I arrived an hour later than intended and was unable to finish the walk – I came back several months later to do so.
It wasn’t ideal weather particularly for the panoramas I was trying to make with a clear blue sky. And finally I failed to put all the pictures I had intended onto the web page – including these two
Class War protest Rees-Mogg freak show – London Palladium
Class War protest outside the London Palladium as fans who had paid £38 for a ticket entered to listen to Jacob Rees-Mogg.
With Jane Nicholl dressed as a nun, Mother Hysteria, and Adam Clifford as Jacob Rees Mogg they loudly asked why people had come to listen to him “spout homophobic, transphobic, racist, pro-hunting, misogynist, classist, privileged” nonsense.
It was certainly a better show than anything that would take place later inside the venue, and all for free. You can read an excellent account of it on Inside Croydon.
Later Police searched Jane Nicholl and threatened to arrest her for carrying offensive weapons after it emerged she had brought some novelty stink bombs to the protest. Class War protest Rees-Mogg freak show
Unite The Kingdom & Rejoin Europe: Although I’m not covering as many protests as I used to I haven’t entirely given up covering them. But my priority at the moment is in digitising as much as possible of the photographs which I took on film before I moved to digital around 20 years ago.
I think those images are a historical record of those times showing London in the latter years of the 20th century. You can see around 35,000 of them already on Flickr.
But also I’m feeling my age, and get tired much more quickly; after spending two or three hours covering events I’m ready to go home. But still most weeks I try to get out at least one day covering protests, usually on Saturdays.
Of course over the past year many of the protests I’ve photographed have been about the continuing events in Palestine. But last Saturday there were only a few small events related to this taking place – the next big protest comes this Saturday, 5th October, starting at 12 noon in Russell Square. Unfortunately I’ll miss that one as I’m away at a conference.
I covered two events on Saturday 28th September, both unfortunately starting at noon, but one in Trafalgar Square and the other on Park Lane, around 2 kilometers to the west. Fortunately the journey by tube between the two is fairly fast.
I began taking pictures in Trafalgar Square, where Stand Up To Racism had called on its supporters to come to oppose a threatened far right racist protest which was to take place there.
The far right group was calling itself “Unite the Kingdom”, inspired by that phrase used by ‘Tommy Robinson’ at his protest in Trafalgar Square in July. He and his followers incite hate against migrants and asylum seekers, and their racist and Islamophobic rants were what led to the extreextreme right, right-wing, me right riots in Stockport, Birmingham, Hull and elsewhere – which tried to burn down buildings housing migrants.
There were a few short speeches and by the time I left Trafalgar Square half an hour or so later there were perhaps a little under two hundred people who had come to oppose the extreme right, with banners from various parts of London and a few from various organisations including GiK-DER Refugee Workers Cultural Association, and more were still arriving. But there was no sign of the extreme right protest.
The third annual grassroots National Rejoin March was a rather larger event, with several thousand people crowding around the area close to the Hilton Hotel, and I had time to take some pictures and talk to a few of the protesters before the march set off.
There is now a fairly large proportion – almost 50% of us – in the country who realise that leaving Europe was a huge mistake, while support for staying out is under 35%, and opinion polls in 2023 showed a hugely different result – around 70% to 15% – if a referendum was held then.Despite this there now seems very little chance that we would return into membership of the EU in the foreseeable future.
Singer Madeleina Kay, Young European Movement, with her guitar.
In England & Wales the Green Party, Plaid Cymru, and the Liberal Democrats want to rejoin, but the two major parties and Reform are committed to stay out. It may well have contributed to the success enjoyed by the Lib-Dems in the recent general election, and there seemed to be a strong presence at the protest from some of their stronger areas.
One of the main themes in the protest was that the question of rejoining Europe is the ‘elephant in the room’ of current British politics. Both Labour and Tories seem to believe that if the came out in favour of it would give the other party a huge boost.
This march seemed smaller than the previous two annual marches and it took less than ten minutes for the whole body of marchers to pass me as I stood on the street corner before rushing back to the tube to return to Trafalgar Square.
When I arrived there around a dozen ‘Unite The Kingdom’ protesters had arrived. Police had formed two lines on the North Terrace perhaps 50 yards apart separating them from the Stand Up to Racism supporters. Most of these had left with their banners leaving only a small fraction – still considerably outnumbering the racists. But police now seriously outnumbered both groups.
I took a few pictures, but couldn’t really be bothered – and it shows. But I think we are likely to see much larger numbers at future extreme right-wing protests than this disorganised damp squib.
End Immigration Detention – Harmondsworth: Saturday 11th April 2015 saw what I think was the largest protest to date outside the Heathrow Immigration Removal Centre on the Bath Road immediately north of Heathrow airport.
Various organisations had held protests here over the years, but these had grown since Movement for Justice began organising them, bringing a large group of current and former asylum seekers out from London on the tube to Terminal 5 and then on the short bus ride to the prison. They included some who had come from other cities in the country – and even from Glasgow. Other groups at the protest included No Borders, Southall Black Sisters and Shoreditch Sisters W I.
There are two detention prisons on the site, both surrounded by 20ft high fences with a private road to a BT site running between them. Called Harmondsworth and Colnbrook, they were in 2015 both run by Mitie’s ‘care+custody’ division, and the overall name for the centre had changed to Heathrow Immigration Removal Centre, which made clear that the government intention was to deport people rather than operate a fair asylum system.
The Home Office has long proved itself to be both incompetent and racist, and huge backlogs have built up over the processing of asylum claims. They seem to start from the position that all asylum claims are unfounded and those making them are liars, often despite the evidence. Claims that should be processed in days take months or years – during which time people may be kept in detention centres like these generally quite unnecessarily. We should imprison criminals, not asylum seekers.
As I commented in 2015:
“these are prisons, with those inside being unable to leave; they have a few privileges denied those in normal jails, including the use of mobile phones, but some disadvantages, including that they are all on indefinite sentences at the whim of government and subject to a constant threat they will be forcibly bundled onto a plane and taken back to the country from which they have fled, often at fear of their lives. These prisons are also run by staff who often lack the basic training, supervision and accountability of normal jails.”
The majority of those who claim asylum are eventually granted leave to remain in the UK as their claims are well-founded. Some have been deported before they are given time to prove their cases to the Home Office’s satisfaction under “fast track” procedures that have been ruled illegal.
Our laws prevent them from working and contributing to our economy and society, and almost all are keen to do so and have skills which are in short supply. We need a system that gives people the medical treatment they need and gets them back into normal work and life as quickly as possible. Instead far too many are simply parked in prisons like these without proper medical care and largely isolated from those who could help them. Its both inhumane and economically unsound.
Although police and a large team of security guards stopped the protesters from going down the road toward the prison blocks, forcing them into a pen in front of the administration building at the front of the site, the loud protest could be heard throughout the site. Some of the prisoners were able to use their mobile phones to welcome the protesters and let them known about the poor conditions inside, and their calls were relayed over the public address system the protesters had brought.
Most of those who spoke at the protest had themselves been held inside these or other detention centres often for long periods after escaping from beatings, rape and torture in their home countries, and several spoke about their experiences in the system here. Some said they had been treated as troublemakers because they stood up for their rights – and that inmates who failed to do so, whatever the strength of their cases, were likely to face deportation.
I was tired after a couple of hours of the noisy protest, with chanting, singing and dancing – though mainly I had just been taking photographs, and left to catch a bus home. I could hear the protest continuing from the bus stop several hundred yards away, and when the bus came – ten minutes late – saw the protesters making their way out of the site to a public footpath which runs along the side of the Colnbrook site to continue their protest closer to those prison blocks.
Red Army & Chinese Torture Victims – 2005: Events in London on 15th January 2005 connected with China and Russia.
Falun Gong Demonstrate – Chinese Torturers. Westminster – Portland Place
Back in 2005 I wrote “to me, Falun Gong seems a harmless form of meditation exercises, available to anyone without charge and following the admirable principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance, but the Chinese government seem to regard it as the most dangerous form of terrorism.”
Now I’m less positive although still shocked by the accounts of “physical tortures, including beatings, electric shocks, immersion, chaining for hours and days and the infamous ‘tiger bench’ are used together with psychological attacks including humiliation and sleep deprivation by the Chinese government to suppress the practice.”
According to Wikipedia, while Falun Gong is a new religion based on Buddhism, its founder in the early 1990s Li Hongzhi gave it some highly reactionary characteristics, such as the rejection of modern scientific ideas including evolution and medicines, racism, and opposition to homosexuality and feminism. More recently it has promoted conspiracy theories including QAnon and anti-vaccination misinformation and supported Trump and extreme-right movements in Europe.
The Wikipedia article also carries an account of a 2018 report that “highlights Falun Gong’s extensive internet presence, and how editors who have to date contributed to English Wikipedia entries associated with Falun Gong to the point where ‘Falun Gong followers and/or sympathizers de facto control the relevant pages on Wikipedia‘”. Perhaps Wikipedia has now managed at least to some extent to prevent this, but although a number of academics have criticised Falun Gong as a cult, this word and the criticisms appear nowhere in the article.
Li Hongzhi now lives with hundreds of supporters close to a 427 acre compound in New York State, Dragon Springs which is the training ground for its Shen Yen performers. The organisation describes itself as “the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company” and whose performances around the world provides significant funding for Falun Gong including a press group The Epoch Times and a PR firm.
Falun Gong has also received considerable funding from the US government particular for the development of free software intended to circumvent Chinese government internet censorship. Their activities have certainly been incorporated in the US’s fight to retain dominance over China.
Red Square, SW1- Russian Winter Festival – Trafalgar Square
Red square, SW1 was a Russian winter festival celebrating the Russian Old New Year, January 1st according to the Julian Calendar used in Russia until the Revolution and still by the Russian Orthodox Church – which falls on 14th January for the rest of us.
This was a spectacular event, run in cooperation with Moscow city government and many Russian businesses trading in the UK, and I only photographed it for the first few hours, missing the big celebrations, the rock concert, the ice skating at Somerset House and more. As well as the audience at the event it was also going out to 20 million listeners on Russian radio, as well as to anyone who could put up with an inane presenter from some UK radio station.
Both London Mayor Ken Livingstone and Moscow’s Mayor opened the show, though I decided to take a rest at that point from taking pictures and instead try “a fine but overpriced Baltika beer, imported from St Petersburg – at a sensible price i could develop a taste for it.” But I could still hear the speeches and learn that Ken’s father had taken part in the Baltic convoys in WW2.
But for me the cultural highpoint was the performance of the Alexandrov Red Army Choir, founded in 1928 to glorify the revolution by the composer of the Soviet national anthem. Though I found little to photograph during the performance I was able to take quite a few pictures of the men later and of a Irish woman who had attended a red army choir performance in Dublin in the 1950s as a schoolgirl,and had brought a record of them from 1956 for them to sign.
The record cover had a picture of the choir and some of those who had sung on it were still with the choir 49 years later. A younger member of the choir brought some of them across, including the fantastic bass soloist who treated us to a little of his voice and signed the cover – using the Stabilo ‘Write-4-all’ pen I carried to do so on the glossy cover when an ordinary pen failed.
And in 2005 I concluded:
Oh yes, there was fake snow on the lions, some very weird folk dancing involving things that looked rather like dustbin lids wielded by fur-coated women with a lot of heavy breathing rather than singing, Russian dolls, food and more.
What I failed to record was that in the crush to see the Red Army Choir I had forgotten to zip up my camera bag and later found that the cheap telephoto zoom was missing from it. I wasn’t too bothered, as I had already realised it had been a mistake to buy it as it was rather a poor performer and I rather welcomed the need to replace it with something better.
I wrote rather more and there are more pictures, particularly of the choir on My London Diary
EDL Rally Supports Israel: In 2010 the English Defence League (EDL) an extreme right-wing organisation founded in June 2009 was reaching the peak of its existence and several hundred came to a protest in Kensington to show their support of Israel.
The EDL’s support of Israel came from the anti-Muslim centre of their activities; the group was founded following their opposition to a protest at a homecoming parade in Luton by a small group of Muslim extremists against a regiment returning from Afghanistan, which was also opposed by Luton’s large Muslim community.
Rabbi Nachum Shifren
The EDL had invited right-wing US Rabbi Nachum Shifren, part of the ‘Tea Party’ movement from California to speak at the rally outside the Israeli Embassy. As I wrote at the time, “Although the EDL claim to be opposing the rise of fascism in their opposition to Muslim extremists, they have come to a very biased view over Israel and Palestine, and have been very effectively infiltrated by bigoted Zionists.“
The EDL gathered at a pub on Gloucester Road before their march to the Embassy, filling the pavement outside. There were a number of press photographers on the opposite side of the street watching them but I decided to cross the road and talked with and photograph Rabbi Schriffin. None of the other photographers followed me.
For some minutes before the start of the march I was able to talk with him and some of the EDL supporters and some were happy to be photographed, and even complimented me for my accurate reporting on earlier protests – while complaining bitterly about the media coverage they get. As I told them I always try to report objectively, while also making my own difference of opinion clear.
The press they got did reflect the behaviour of at least some of those at their protests, and if the EDL wanted to end the accusations of racism they needed to take more positive action against the kind of behaviour that makes them possible. But many of their members including leading figures had a long history of membership of right-wing racist groups, and it was clear that the claim they made “We do not support racism or intolerance of any kind” was simply window dressing.
The leaflet they handed out described themselves as “the knights of old, defending our great nation for the threat of Militant Islam” and said “All welcome no matter of colour, religion or sex” and there was at least some truth in that shown in the composition of those in the march, with certainly a number of women, some claiming to be gay but, search as I have, not a single black face in my pictures.
For once Unite Against Fascism failed to mobilise much effective opposition to this demonstration – and did not appear to have tried very hard to do so. On their web site I found the statement “UAF does not have a position on the question of Israel and Palestine – our members have many different views on this question. Instead, we unite around our common aim of opposing the rise of fascism.” And as I commented, “Perhaps on this occasion they felt that taking action might offend some of their Jewish supporters.”
Some of those Jewish supporters were there in the rather small crowd opposing the rally, and there was a more direct action by a young man in a black jacket and gloves who came and stood listening for a short while, who took out his water bottle, had a drink and then reached over and poured the rest of it over the amplifier before turning and running down the street.
The sound from the microphone cut immediately, and the people inside the pen burst into angry shouts. It took the police longer to react and by the time they were moving the man had escaped, probably disappearing into High Street Kensington to catch the tube. I’d also been taken by surprise and hadn’t managed to take his photograph. Or perhaps I’d been wondering whether I should…
Eventually the water was tipped out and the amplifier wiped dry and came back into some very crackly life. Police shut the stable door by moving everyone outside the pen away and that and the sound quality made it hard to hear much of Rabbi Shifren’s speech, some minutes of which were in Hebrew. But he made clear his opposition to Sharia Law and Muslim extremists and I think to any aspect of multiculturalism. And I think he also denied the Palestinians any right to exist in the land which had been given to Israel.
Roberta Moore of EDL’s Jewish Division
I went home rather than go on with the EDL to Speakers Corner, where they were apparently heavily heckled. Another photographer who was there told me “that a small group of EDL supporters had attacked a Muslim bookstall and the 11-year-old boy who was running it, and then turned on photographers for taking pictures of their actions.” His camera had been smashed into his face by an EDL supporter. Photographs on the web confirmed this story.
Kevin Carroll
On My London Diary I wrote at some length about my own views on the EDL and the event as well as putting far more pictures than usual online which you can view at EDL Rally to Support Israel.
Turkish Spring, Badgers and BNP: Ten Years ago on Saturday 1st June 2013 Turks in London were celebrating the start of the Turkish Spring, but now they are mourning last Sundays’ election results with the Islamist dictator winning another term in office. Badger culling was just beginning and there is still no sign it will actually end and over 210,000 badgers have now been killed to little effect – and Defra is still failing to introduce more effective methods to control bovine TB. Anti-fascists managed to prevent the BNP laying a wreath to exploit the killing of Lee Rigby – but despite the family’s clearly stated wishes and MoD condemnation – racists including a leading Tory MP are still using the murder to whip up hatred.
London Supports Turkish Spring – Marble Arch
A large crowd, mainly Turks and Kurds from North London, met in Hyde Park close to Marble Arch for a march in support of the popular protests that had erupted over the previous few days over Gezi Park.
At first there had been small protests against the loss of one of Istanbul’s few remaining green spaces for a shopping mall. But brutal police repression, with tear gas and water cannon used indiscriminately on people in the area angered many and the protests grew, becoming protests calling for an end of the authoritarian Erdogan regime.
Many Turks were then disturbed at Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), abandoning the secular state established as the basis for modern Turkey in the 1920s by Kemal Atatürk towards a conservative authoritarian Islamic dictatorship.
This process has continued, and Turkey has also been involved in the supporting of wider Islamic movements in the Middle East, particularly ISIS, as well as supporting Russia in its intervention in crushing the anti-Assad revolt in Syria. Last week’s election came as a huge blow to democracy in Turkey.
The 2013 protest was high-spirited and noisy, with many young men including Turkish football supporters. Many of London’s Turkish and Kurdish community are people who had to flee Turkey for political reasons and their sons and daughters. Kurds in particular have long been subjected to huge discrimination and oppression with the Turkish government attempting to eliminate their culture.
I had to leave before the march to the Turkish Embassy were around four thousand protested in support of the ‘Turkish Spring’.
I joined a large crowd at a rally in front of Tate Modern for the National March Against the Badger Cull, where the speakers included Queen Guitarist Brian May.
Many at the protest had come up to London from country areas, particularly from the pilot areas in west Gloucestershire and west Somerset where culling was to start later in the year. Many more licences were issued in later years and culling is continuing. Detailed statistical analysis suggests in some areas culling has led to a slight decease in bovine TB but overall it has had no real effect as badgers are only responsible for a small amount of the transmission, with 94% of infection being passed from cow to cow.
Defra’s support for culling and their reluctance to bring in more accurate cattle testing, controls on the movement of cattle, vaccination, proper slurry management and other effective measures seems largely to be driven by lobbying from farmers who want to avoid more controls on their activities.
After the rally there was a short march to Parliament where some of those taking part danced on the street, with many then going on to join the protest taking place opposing the racist British National Party.
Anonymous were there along with Antifa, trade unionists and the UAF to oppose the BNP hate
On May 22nd 2013, off-duty Fusilier Lee Rigby was brutally murdered on a Woolwich street, run over then stabbed by two Muslim men who tried to decapitate him. The killing was universally condemned, including by Britain’s Muslim community, and I had two days ago photographed a march and rally in East London by Muslims to show solidarity and sympathy with the family of Lee Rigby and to denounce his brutal killing, describing it as against all the tenets of Islam.
Nick Griffin answers questions under a placard ‘Hate Preachers Out’ and fails to appreciate the irony
The BNP had wanted to organise a mass protest in Woolwich to exploit the killing, making use of his senseless slaughter there to gain support for their anti-Muslim rhetoric, but police had banned their plans for a march as it would have endangered public safety, enraging many in the local area. Lee Rigby’s father had made clear that he and his family did not want his son’s death to be used to stir up hatred.
Instead, BNP leader Nick Griffin had planned to march to the Cenotaph and lay a wreath there, and had come with a small group of supporters to Old Palace Yard to start the march. It was only a very small group, even for the BNP, with perhaps as I wrote suggesting “it was something that even the ultra-right membership of the BNP could not stomach”.
Griffin himself blamed the low turnout on the police turning many of his followers away, stating that the whole area around Westminster was “a virtual exclusion zone“. I’d just walked there seeing no unusual police activity, and certainly large numbers who had come to oppose his wreath laying found no problems in getting in to do so.
Police arrest an anti-fascist
It would have been possible for anyone – BNP member or not – to go to the Cenotaph on any of the days following the brutal murder and even on this morning to lay a wreath, though not today a well-known racist face like Griffin himself. But Grffin’s intentions were not about expressing sympathy. He wanted a triumphal march with flags flying to gain support for his Islamophobic hate, and given the opposition this never seemed likely to happen.
Police tried hard to clear a way for the BNP to march, but anti-fascists held their ground and refused to move. Police told them they were acting illegally and would be arrested if they did not move – and I saw a couple of double-decker buses being filled with arrested protesters and driven away, but there were simply too many for police to arrest them all.
The protest brought back memories of Cable Street, though few if any there were old enough to have actually been there back in 1936, though rather more had been at the http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2006/10/oct.htm 70th anniversary. But as then the slogan was ‘They shall not pass’, and on this occasion there were not enough police to force a way through. After the two buses of arrested protesters had been driven away police tactics changed and they simply maintained a standoff keeping the opposing groups apart.
Police told the BNP that they expected the anti-fascists to go home and they expected be able to clear the route by half past four, but they stayed on. It was the BNP who gave up, turning around and walking back to waiting coaches and leaving. When the anti-fascists were told the BNP had gone, they marched to Old Palace Yard for a brief rally to celebrate the victory.
On Saturday 13th May 2017 I put my Brompton folding bike on the train and made my way to Bedford Station via St Pancras. I was on my way the the 11th protest outside the immigration detention centre at Yarl’s Wood in the campaign led by Movement for Justice to shut down this and other immigration prisons.
This was the first time I’d taken a bike to get to Yarl’s Wood, although I’d been to most of the previous protests they had organised there. Before I’d ridden from the station on a coach organised by the event organisers which hadn’t always been ideal, meaning I sometimes arrived late – especially once when the driver got lost – and had to leave when the coach was leaving, sometimes before the end of the protest and sometimes when I would have liked to leave earlier. On the bike I was free to arrive when I wanted and leave when I liked.
Yarl’s Wood is sited in an area remote for the southern parts of England, on the site of a former wartime airfield, probably chosen as somewhere people could be locked away out of sight and out of mind, on the hills around 5 miles north of Bedford. Motorists would take the A6 to Milton Ernest, the closest village, and then a mile or more uphill to the meeting point outside the Twinwoods Business Park. But I took a slightly more sensible cycle route, mainly along side roads or cycle paths, with just a short section beside the A6 into the village.
Most of the route was uphill, climbing slowly towards the hills, then wasting the energy I’d expended in climbing with short downhill sections. But the final section from Milton Ernest was uphill all the way, long and steep, though I didn’t need to worry about traffic on it as the police had helpfully closed the road.
My Brompton has a 3-speed hub gear and isn’t really good on hills, with the lowest of the three still being rather high when things get steep, but I managed to struggle up without having to get off and walk, though I was tired and seriously panting by the time I reached the top.
There I locked the bike to a fence and joined the thousand or so protesters who had travelled from around the country in a long line of coaches parked along the road. There were speeches and chanting for some time as we waited for others to arrive.
The gates of the business centre were locked and protesters are prevented from taking the shortest route to the prison (there is also a more direct private road from the south closed to the public.) But a public footpath runs beside the 20ft fence around it. To reach it the campaigners first march a few hundred yards along the road, then turn down one footpath to reach a bridleway before going a few hundred yards along this to the path leading to the prison.
Its not a great distance, a little over three-quarters of a mile, but much of the way is on paths often muddy and full of puddles, and the Brompton is not happy off-road. I ended up pushing it much of the time, occasionally carrying it along with my camera bag, though some of the protesters did give me a hand so I could take some photographs.
Outside the prison the protesters marched into a field on the north side where a small hill rises to give a limited view over the solid lower half of the 20 foot metal prison fence. Their shouts and noise were greeted by those inside the centre who had managed to get to the windows on that side.
The prison windows have very limited opening, but enough for some of the women inside to get their arms through and wave, often holding items of clothing, or sheets of A4 paper with messages calling for freedom and for justice. Our view of them from the hill was only through the wire mesh of the upper 10 feet of the 20 foot fence which made taking pictures difficult.
From most places we could only see the two upper floors of the building, but at the very highest point the upper part of some ground floor windows was also visible. These rooms are used to house families being detained and although Yarl’s Wood was mainly used to detain women there were a few men here as well.
Most of the protesters stood up on the hill holding banners and placards but others were at the bottom, some banging or kicking the metal fence which resonates to make a terrific racket. Others wrote slogans on the fence, though these were only visible to us outside. People climbed up on ladders or other people’s shoulders or used long poles to hold banners, posters and placards in front of the upper mesh where the detainees could see them.
Movement for Justice had brought a public address system and there were speeches, mainly from former detainees, including several women who had been held at Yarl’s Wood. One who spoke was Mabel Gawanas who had been recently released a after a few days short of 3 years inside. A few detainees were also able to speak from inside over mobile phones, amplified by the PA system.
The protests at Yarl’s Wood have been important in gaining publicity for the terrible way in which the UK treats asylum seekers, particularly women who are locked up in this ‘racist, sexist hell-hole’ which has been exposed by various reports. They have an enormous morale-boosting affect on the prisoners who feel isolated and forgotten inside.
But the government’s response has been to re-purpose Yarl’s Wood as a short-term holding facility for men arriving in the UK by boat in December 2021 and to set up a new immigration detention centre for women in an even more remote location in County Durham, where it is much harder for the women to organise and argue their cases. Almost certainly a part of this decision was to try to avoid further protests such as this one.
More recently the Home Office has started indefinitely detaining women at Yarl’s Wood again, although the numbers are much smaller. No official announcement was made of this reversion.
Saturday 3rd December 2016 saw the 10th protest organised by Movement for Justice at Yarl’s Wood, the immigration prison on an isolated wartime RAF base around five miles north of Bedford. Around 2000 protesters made there way there to call for the closure of Yarl’s Wood and all immigration detention centres.
Because of heavy security inside the prison there were fewer women to greet them at the windows than on previous protests, but those who were able to make it greeted them enthusiastically, shouting and waving from the prison block behind the high fence, hindered by windows that open only a small crack.
Several of those held inside were also able to speak to the protesters using their mobile phones, which detainees are allowed to have as they are essential in communicating with their lawyers. Conditions in immigration detention are different from those in our normal jails, but those held are still prisoners. And unlike most in normal jails, they are held in indefinite detention, never knowing when they will be released, with no limit on how long they can be held. One woman who spoke to us from inside had been held without any charge or trial for over two years.
Those imprisoned at Yarls Wood are almost entirely women, with just a few family groups also being held there. The women who spoke, along with other former inmates who were taking part in the protest outside told grim and shameful stories of their detention. They told of assaults and abuse by Serco security guards who today had locked many in other wings to stop them seeing the protest and threatened those who greeted the protesters.
70% of Women in Detention are Survivors of Sexual Violence
One of the many complaints by those who are locked up in this and other immigration detention centres has been over the lack of proper access to medical treatment and it was worrying to hear from inside that there were now cases of TB in Yarl’s Wood. There have been some cases of death in detention when the staff have refused to take detainees health complaints seriously and have only called for medical assistance too late.
The complaints about abuse by security guards have been confirmed in reports in the mass media, including testimony and recordings made by an investigative reporter who worked as a security guard for several months there, revealing a horrific story of abuse.
Yarl’s Wood was temporarily closed down at the start of Covid with women being released or moved elsewhere. Most of the women who are held there are eventually released, most granted asylum or leave to remain. Some are simply released and disappear into the community and a few are actually deported.
It is a wasteful system in every way, particularly wasteful for the women who are confined there, often in great need of proper medical treatment and care for the trauma they escaped from with threats, beatings and rapes in their own country. But also wasteful for the taxpayer, both in paying the private companies that run these prisons and also in losing the positive contribution these women could be making if they were allowed freedom and able to work – and pay taxes rather than be a burden on them.
Yarl’s Wood is now being used to house some of those who have made the dangerous journey across the English Channel in small boats. A new asylum detention centre for women has been opened up in an even more isolated location, a former youth prison in County Durham, removing them even further from their legal advice and from protesters.
The protesters stood on a small rise in the field outside where they could see the upper two floors of the prison over the tall metal fence through the 10 feet of open metal grid above the 10 feet of solid metal panels. Photographing through the metal grid was possible but not easy. Some protesters went up to the fence and banged noisily on the panels, while others held posters on tall poles or climbed ladders against the fence so that those on the ground floor could see their banners, and there were also a number of flares let off to give large clouds of coloured smoke.
My MfJ organised coach back to Bedford Station was leaving shortly before the protest ended, and as I boarded it, half a mile away as the crow flies though nearer a mile along the public footpath and road, I could still clearly hear the noise of the protest. Those women locked away from the block facing the protesters will certainly have been able to hear it too. It had been a powerful protest but at the end I felt an intense sense of shame for the way this country treats asylum seekers and our clearly racist immigration system.
One of my busier days in London was Saturday 27th October 2007, when I began with a trip to Hoxton to collect and take home some pictures from a group exhibition, then travelled back into the centre of London for a number of events. The main protest I covered was the annual UFFC march against deaths in custody, but there were also Kurds protesting against Turkish army attacks on them in Northern Iraq, campaigners calling for a Brexit referendum, an anti-abortion rally and peace protesters around Parliament where I also photographed a new statue in Parliament Square. I ended my working day with a Halloween Zombie Crawl.
Here’s what I wrote back in 2007, with minor corrections including normal capitalisation and some changes of tense – and I’ve included some headings and pictures. As usual there are many more pictures if you follow the links to My London Diary.
On saturday, everything was happening. I had to run around to start with to collect my unsold pictures from the City People show at the Juggler in Hoxton. Fortunately I’d sold one of my four pictures, so that made them easier to carry, but it was a rush to be back in the centre of London and I had to more or less miss the demonstrators who wanted a referendum on leaving the European Union.
Instead I started at Trafalgar Square, where the annual event remembering those who have died in custody was taking place, organised by the UFFC, families and friends of those killed.
It’s an occasion that always shocks me by the sheer number of people who have died in such disgraceful or suspicious circumstances, in police cells, in prisons and elsewhere. It’s an event I sometimes find it hard to photograph, both emotionally and physically – thankfully autofocus works even when your eyes are filling with tears. more pictures
While that demo was getting ready to march, a large crowd of Kurds swarmed into Trafalgar Square and held a short rally, protesting against the Turkish government’s approval of incursions into Northern Iraq to attack the PKK there. Both the Kurds and the Armenians have suffered greatly at the hands of the Turks (who in turn have been rather screwed by the EU over Cyprus.)
It was a typically exuberant performance, and one that I enjoyed photographing, but rather a distraction from the family and friends event. more pictures
Pro-referendum on Europe Rally – Old Palace Yard, Westminster. 27 October 2007
There seems to be hiatus in the UFFC demonstration, so I caught a bus down Whitehall. Walking along to Old Palace Yard I passed a few of the pro-referendum demonstrators, though some others had stayed to join in the anti-abortion protest. a couple of pictures
This was rather smaller than I’d expected, perhaps around 500 people, although it was the only event that made the BBC news bulletins I heard when I got home later in the day. more pictures
Lloyd George – Parliament Square, London. Saturday October 27, 2007
I listened a little to the speeches, but then went to Parliament Square to take a look at the new statue of Lloyd George – which failed to impress me. Of course he was long before my time – although I did have a landlady as a student in Manchester who had worked as a secretary for him – but somehow I feel the statue trivialises him, looking rather like an enlarged version of a plastic figure you might find in a box of cornflakes rather than a statue of a Prime Minister. another picture
Peace Train – Parliament Square, Westminster. Saturday October 27, 2007
The Peace Train is beginning to form a protest in Parliament Square and I go along to talk to them and take a few pictures.
I rejoin the ‘Famiilies and Friends’ march now making a considerable protest opposite Downing Street, where a delegation has permission to deliver a letter to the prime minister’s residence at No 10. It takes a lot of argument before the police let them in despite this.
For some reason the police decide not to allow those with press cards into the street in the normal way. I don’t like going in – the security checks are a nuisance and being restricted to a pen on the other side of the street is normally hopeless, but I think its a matter of principle that access should not be unreasonably prevented – as it was for this event, even if personally I don’t particularly want to take advantage of it.
By the time the deputation emerge, the mood on the street is getting rather angry. One young policeman is getting surrounded and insulted and is trying hard to ignore it. A few minutes later a motor-cyclist foolishly stays in the route of the march, and is soon surrounded by angry people. He has to be rescued by his colleagues.
There are police who are racist, who are thugs, who are bullies. Too many who have got away with murder, often thanks to covering up or a lack of diligence in investigation by their colleagues. If it were not so, there would be no demonstration. But there are also officers who do their best to carry out a difficult and necessary job in a decent, reasonable and even-handed way – even though they may sometimes get disciplined for doing so. Those who bear the brunt of considerable and understandable hate directed against the police at a demo like this are not necessarily the guilty. more pictures
Crawl of the Dead IV – City and Southwark, London. Saturday October 27, 2007
It’s time for me to leave and make my way to the City of London, where this year the zombies are starting their walk at a pub on Ludgate Hill. I go into the pub and talk to some of them and take photographs, and am gratified to find that quite a few have seen my pictures from around Oxford Street last year.
By the time they emerge from the pub it is getting dark, and my flash by now is refusing to work at all. I have to make do either with available light (and there isn’t a lot) or the pretty useless camera built in flash, but I still manage to get a few decent pictures, even though some are rather noisier than I’d like.
There are quite a few people around as we go over the Millennium bridge, and more in front of Tate Modern, where zombies decide to play dead for a while. Then we visit the famous crack in the turbine hall, coming out towards the Founder’s arms, where I made my goodbyes and turned for home.
