rally | >Re-PHOTO

Shaker Aamer, Raif Badawi & Climate Change – 2015

Shaker Aamer, Raif Badawi & Climate Change: On Wednesday 17 June 2015 the weekly ‘Stand with Shaker’ vigil outside Parliament was visited by two of the new intake of MPs. Outside Downing Street human rights organisations took part in a national day of action calling for the release of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi. A mass lobby on climate change brought around 250 MPs out of Parliament to meet voters who were urging them to persuade our government to take a leading role in the forthcoming Paris climate talks and after the lobby there was a large rally on Millbank.

New MPs Stand with Shaker

Parliament Square

Shaker Aamer, Raif Badawi & Climate Change - 2015

In 2015 the Free Shaker Aamer campaign was holding a lunchtime vigil on the pavement opposite Parliament every Wednesday when it was in session, calling for our government to urge the US authorities to release London resident Shaker Aamer still held in the illegal Guantanamo torture camp. Two newly elected MPs came to support the campaign.

Aamer was one of the original residents brought to the camp in 2002 after being sold to the US Army by bandits in Afghanistan where he was working for a Muslim charity,. He was first cleared for release in 2007.

He remained held there years later, probably because he would be able to give evidence about his torture at Bagram and Guantanamo which would embarrass both US and UK security services. He was finally released in September 2015.

New MPs Stand with Shaker

Support Saudi blogger Raif Badawi

Downing St

Human rights organisations including Index on Censorship, English Pen and the Peter Tatchell Foundation held a rally and handed in a letter to PM David Cameron calling on him to urge the Saudi government to release Saudi Blogger Raif Badawi.

Badawi was arrested in 2012 and convicted for founding a liberal web site which was alleged to be insluting Islam. Hia sentence was increased in 2013 to a 1 million riyals (£175,000) fine, ten-year in prison and 1000 lashes, a punishment he was unlikely to survive.

Badawi was flogged 50 times on 9 January 2015 and was due to be given another 50 lashes every Friday until the total was reached. But further floggings had been postponed so far as he had not recovered sufficiently.

Threats of flogging continued until at least 2016, but were delayed on health grounds sometimes only hours before they were to be carried out in what seems to have been a deliberate psychological torture. Finally he was released in 2022 but with a ban on travelling abroad until 2032. His wife and children fled the country and were granted political asylum in Canada in 2013.

Support Saudi blogger Raif Bad a wi

Climate Coalition Mass Lobby on Climate Change

Westminster & Lambeth

*Labour’s Rupa Huq, MP for Ealing Central and Acton in the centre of a large group from her constituency*

Thousands came to lobby their MPs, who met constituency groups either inside the Houses of Parliament or in a series of meetings spread out in Victoria Gardens, across Lambeth Bridge and on along the Albert Embankment.

*Some, like Tooting MP Sadiq Khan took advantage of the bicycle rickshaws to ferry them to the meetings*

I listened in briefly to a number of these meetings as I was walking around to take pictures. Most MPs seemed aware of the need for action, but too many were making excuses for not being able to take the kind of urgent action needed, and some seemed to me to have a have a patronising attitude that would certainly have lost them my vote.

The only heated argument I saw was with Neil Coyle, MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark. After talking with him on climate change, the conversation moved on to housing, with Coyle defending the indefensible actions of the Labour local authority in emptying out their council estates and handing them over to be developed for private sale.

Climate Coalition Mass Lobby

Climate Coalition Rally

Millbank

*No to Austerity – Yes to a million climate jobs!’ is the message from the Trade Union Group of the Campaign against Climate Change*

After the lobby, the crowds moved on to Millbank for a rally, though many who had come from more distant parts of the country had instead begun their long journeys home. As well as filling Millbank, others sat on the grass in Victoria Gardens, where they could hear the many speakers, though not see them or the giant screen on which they and some short films were shown.

*Surfers Against Sewage stand with their boards*

With more than a hundred organisations taking part in the lobby, there were rather too many speakers for me, along with a number of celebrities, some of whom had very little of substance to contribute.

But there were others certainly worth listening to – and I name some and there are some photographs on My London Diary. But for me it was only the closing speech by Asad Rehman of Friends of the Earth which made a real attempt to tackle the political issues that are central to any effective action on climate.

Many more photographs on My London Diary at Climate Coalition Rally.

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Brexit, Fair Tips & Deported Cleaners – 2018

Brexit, Fair Tips & Deported Cleaners: On Tuesday 12 June 2018 after photographing the Stand of Defiance European Movement continuing protest outside Parliament I went on to a protest at the Business ministry calling for restaurant staff to receive all of the tips that clients add to their bills. Finally I went to SOAS where a rally was taking place on the 9th anniversary of the management conspiring with the Border Agency in a despicable anti-union move to deport nine of the cleaners who worked there.

Stop Brexit ‘Pies Not Lies’

Old Palace Yard, Westminster

Brexit, Fair Tips & Deported Cleaners - 2018

Steven Bray’s Stand of Defiance European Movement, SODEM, were continuing their protests outside Parliament every day it was in session.

This protest was a part of their ‘Pies Not Lies Remainathon‘ and was taking place as parliament were debating the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill.

They continue to point out that he public was misled by deliberate lies and say that Brexit does not reflect the will of the people as few if any of the 52% actually voted for the kind of hard Brexit that the government is pursuing.

Stop Brexit ‘Pies Not Lies’

Unite TGI Fridays demand Fair Tips & Fair Pay

Dept of Business etc, Victoria St

Striking Unite members from TGI Fridays along with others from the Unite Restaurant, Catering and Bar Workers Branch and Unite Community came to the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy to protest against restaurant owners taking part of the tips that customers give to staff on their credit cards.

The workers say TGI Fridays use the tips to drive down the pay of staff in kitchens, and demand to keep the tips they have earned and for proper pay for all restaurant staff.

One of the protesters was dressed as a giant burger. After half an hour of noisy protest, a deputation tried to go in to deliver a letter to business secretary Greg Clark, but were stopped at the door, where their letter was taken with a promise it would be delivered to him.

Two years earlier then then Business minister Sajid Javid had promised to take action to end this malpractice but had done nothing. Five years later The Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 made it law that all tips should go to the workers and a code of practice for this was issued in July 2024.

I left as the protest at the ministry was ending and the group were going on to protest outside branches of TGI Fridays.

TGI Fridays demand Fair Tips & Fair Pay

‘SOAS 9’ deported cleaners remembered

SOAS University of London

On 12th June 2009, after the cleaners at SOAS had begun to campaign for the London Living Wage, SOAS managers called them to an ’emergency meeting’ at 6:30am.

*Consuela, one of the cleaner’s shop stewards*

A few minutes after the start of the ‘meeting’, agents of the UK Border Agency rushed in, handcuffed all the cleaners and held them for questioning. Nine were then deported.

The was part of the despicable ‘hostile environment’ for migrant workers, begun by the Labour government, but severely ratcheted up by Theresa May as Home Secretary.

People stood at the rally in front of SOAS holding the names of the 9 deported cleaners – Alberto, Carlos, Heidy, Laura, Lucia, Manuel, Marina, Milton and Rosa – while people told the story of that grim day and about the long fight by cleaners to get a Living Wage, decent conditions of service and to be treated with dignity and respect.

*Sandy Nicoll, SOAS Unison Branch Secretary*

In 2018 that ten year ‘one workplace, one workforce’ struggle to bring the cleaners ‘in house’, directly employed by the university, had just been won in principle and negotiations were continuing on its implementation.

After the rally there was to be a showing of the documentary film ‘Limpiadores’ about the SOAS cleaners and the Borders Agency raid with a panel discussion, but I couldn’t stay. I don’t think the film is still available.

‘SOAS 9’ deported cleaners remembered

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Ealing Hospital, Free Shawki Omar, Hizb ut-Tahrir – 2013

Ealing Hospital, Free Shawki Omar, Hizb ut-Tahrir: On Saturday 27th April 2013 I made my way to Southall Park for the rally at the start of a march to save A&E departments at hospitals in West London, then went into central London. Outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square I met and photographed the wife and daughter of Shawki Ahmed Omar, arrested in Iraq in 2004 and still held and tortured there. Finally I attended a rally and march up Brick Lane by the now banned Islamic political party Hizb ut-Tahrir calling for he replacement of the Awami League government of Bangladesh by an Islamic caliphate.

Save Ealing Hospital & the NHS

Southall Park, Southall

A&E departments at Charing Cross, Hammersmith, Central Middlesex and Ealing Hospitals were under threat of closure in a move that would greatly reduce cover for around two million people in West London, leaving three large London Boroughs without a major hospital.

Local councils were firmly opposed to the closures along with the whole community. Public transport in the area is relatively poor (as I found getting to Southall) and roads are often extremely congested so the closures would lead to dangerous delays for those needing urgent treatment.

Ealing Hospital, Free Shawki Omar, Hizb ut-Tahrir - 2013

Among speakers at the rally were Councillor Julian Bell, the Leader of Ealing Council, other local councillors who have led the opposition to the cuts and the two local MPs, John McDonnell from Hillingdon and Virendra Sharma, MP for Ealing Southall, as well as representatives from some of the many faith groups in the area.

The proposals were widely seen as part of a move towards increased privatisation of the NHS as well as wanting to sell off much hospital owned land for housing and other development.

Largely as a result of the huge local opposition, the closure plans were reduced, but Central Middlesex Hospital and Hammersmith Hospital both closed in September 2014.

Save Ealing Hospital & the NHS

Lonely Vigil at US Embassy

Grosvenor Square

I called in briefly at the US Embassy to talk with Narmeen Saleh Al Rubaye, wife of Shawki Ahmed Omar, and their 7 year old daughter who were on one of their repeated protests calling for his release.

They stood quietly in front of the embassy with posters showing his injuries from US torture in Iraq after his arrest in 2004. Omar, born in Kuwait has dual Jordanian/US nationality. Despite legal attempts in the USA to free him, when the USA left Iraq they handed him over to the Iraq authorities.

Omar began a hunger strike in Al Karkh prison on February 4th 2013, protesting the ill treatment and torture of himself and fellow detainees. You can read more about him in my post on My London Diary.

Lonely Vigil at US Embassy

Hizb ut-Tahrir protest Bangladeshi Regime

Altab Ali Park and Brick Lane

Islamic political party Hizb ut-Tahrir (banned in the UK in 2024) held a rally and march in Whitechapel, an area of London with a large Bangladeshi community against the government led by Sheik Hassina in Bangladesh.

The reject all current governments of Muslim nations and call for their replacement by an but were also protesting against anti-Muslim measures Sheik Hasina has introduced in Bangladesh and the return of Rohinga Muslim refugees to Burma where they are discriminated against and persecuted.

They also protested against the corruption in Bangladesh which was responsibel for the deaths and injury of workers when the Rana Plaza factory building collapsed three days earlier. The search for survivors was continuing when this protest was held, only ending on 13th May, when the confirmed death toll was 1,134 and around 2,500 injured had been rescued.

There were around a hundred Muslim men at the protest, and around half that number of women in a separate group a few yards away. Only men spoke at the rally, though some of the women did hold placards. After the rally the protesters marched up Osborne Street and Brick Lane past the mosque where I left them.

Hizb ut-Tahrir had been banned in Bangladesh in 2011, alleged to have been involved in a failed coup attempt. When New Labour were in power, Tory leader David Cameron urged them to ban the UK group, but a review then and in the early days of his coalition government concluded that they were a non-violent group with insufficient evidence to justify a ban, and that “a ban may do more harm than good and could have serious implications for freedom of speech and assembly in the UK.”

Nothing had really changed when they were banned in January 2024 following a protest against Egypt and Israel following Israel’s attack on Gaza, except for a failing Tory government venting hate on anyone seeming to support the Palestinian cause. Something that was continued by Labour in banning Palestine action.

More on My London Diary at Hizb ut-Tahrir protest Bangladeshi Regime.

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National Housing Demo, London 2026

National Housing Demo, London: Last Saturday, 18th April 2026, I photographed the National Housing Demonstration which began with a rally in Soho Square.

In the years after the end of the Second World War, Britain began a concerted effort to address the housing problems. Money was short but succesive governments did all they could to address the problems of old, poorly built slums thrown up in the nineteenth century as industrialisation caused a huge population surge in our cites and large towns.

During the war, Churchill’s government had laid plans to build 500,000 prefabs, “with a planned life of up to 10 years, within five years of the end of the Second World War”. And from 1945-51, 1.2 million new houses were built including around 150,000 prefabs.

For many of the 1.2 million families moving into these new properties it was the first time they had their own bathrooms and toilets, no longer sharing often rather primitive facilities with neighbours in multi-occupied and overcrowded properties.

London, UK. 18 Apr 2026. ‘Labour is in Bed with Landlords’

There were new towns and local authorites were encouraged to build council housing, although under the Conservatives the emphasis altered in the 1950s to providing “welfare accommodation for low income earners” rather than meeting more general housing needs. But under MacMillan as Housing Minister they still aimed to build 300,000 homes a year.

Mistakes were made. It was also largely when the Conservatives were in power that we saw a huge shift towards building high-rise, and in particular to system-built blocks. Some of the best of these are now largely privately owned and expensive flats, but others, often because of shoddy building practices have had to be demolished.

Increasingly Conservative policies changed to encouraging home ownership rather than municipal provision of low-cost accomodation. And the final death blows came under Thatcher, who prevented authorities from using local tax money to build new housing and serverely reduced local housing stocks with the ‘right to buy’ – and added final cruel twist by refusing to allow them to use the money from sales to build. Right to buy also meant councils many of their larger and more desirable properties.

Thatcher’s policies resulted in an increase in the waiting lists for council accommodation and meant that councils had to take desperate measures to try to rehouse those they had a statutory obligation to – resulting in a huge increase in the use of often sub-standard temporary accommodation often far away from their local areas, and in people being rehoused with little security in poor private flats.

New Labour did little if anything to improve things, except for property developers. In London and elsewhere we have seen a succession of well-built council estates with years of life being allowed to deteriorate and then, rather than being refurbished at relatively low cost, being demolished and replaced by developers working with councils largely as high-cost private developments with little social housing.

Although there were a few examples of succesful regeneration, most have been disastrous for their former residents, priced out of their local areas, with those who had bought their properties sometimes being seriously defrauded.

Many of these regenerated estates are now full of empty homes owned as investments by overseas buyers, buying them simply to profit over a few years from the increasing house prices in the UK and in cities including London in particular.

Under the coalition government and succesive Tory governments the housing crisis has continued to grow, with rents in London skyrocketing. And bit by bit the security of tenure that council property used to provide has been whittled away. So far the Labour landslide has changed nothing.

There are some simple policies the protesters were calling for that could help. There are huge numbers of properties that are long-term empty and there could be greater powers of compulsory purchase. There could be changes to make it possible for local authorities to maintain and refurbish existing estates and build more social homes. We could stop getting estate agents and developers to dominate our housing policies for their own benefits.

Part of the housing problem is that too many of our MPs are themselves landlords and have opposed attempts to improve the conditions of tenants, watering down legislation. But perhaps the largest need is for a change in the way we think about housing, seeing it as an asset rather than a home. The whole idea of the ‘property ladder’.

Many more pictures from Saturday’s protest in my Facebook album National Housing Demo.

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ACTSA: Rally for Dignity & Tibet – 2007

ACTSA: Rally for Dignity & Tibet: On Saturday 10 March 2007 I photographed the ACTSA rally in Trafalgar Square and earlier in the day the annual march calling for an end to to Chinese occupation of Tibet.

Rally for Dignity

Trafalgar Square & Zimbabwe Embassy

Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) organised a rally in Trafalgar Square calling for an end to the crimes of the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. They called for peace, justice and solidarity with the people and an end to murder, rape and torture there and supported the DIGNITY!PERIOD campaign to provide essential sanitary protection for women backed by Amicus and Unison unions as well as ACTSA.

Many carried and gave out red carnations as symbols of the campaign and marched to lay them with placards at the door of the Zimbabwe Embassy in Strand.

Here is what I wrote in 2007:

For many years I've been a supporter of ACTSA, although I think my membership may have lapsed recently (its hard to keep up with my post.) They were the organisers of a 'Rally For Dignity' which celebrated the role of women in the worldwide struggle for justice.

Held two days after International Women's Day (8 March) it focused particularly on the struggle for freedom in Zimbabwe and on the efforts of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.

Zimbabwe is currently in a mess, and the cause of that mess is Robert Mugabe. It is a beautiful country with some wonderful people, but so sadly crippled by a cruel, corrupt and senseless dictator who has seized land and persecuted any who dare oppose him.

The economy is in ruins, and men, women and children suffer as he rewards and lines the pockets of his supporters.

One product of many in short supply is sanitary towels, and ZCTU [Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions] organised the donation of these necessities by overseas friends, only to have the government demand duty on their import.

Mugabe resigned to avoid impeachment in 2017, and died in 2019 but the human rights situation in Zimbabwe remains dire.

More pictures from ACTSA: Rally for Dignity.

Free Tibet: 48th Anniversary of the Tibetan Rising

Westminster

Earlier in the day I had once again photographed the annual march on the anniversary of the Tibetan Rising. I’ve written about this annual event in several posts recently so won’t write more about the 2007 march here.

You can find what I wrote in 2007 if you scroll down the March 2007 page on My London Diary, where there is also a picture of London’s second longest running protest, by Falun Gong opposite the Chinese Embassy against torture of religious prisoners in China.

Pictures of the Tibetan march continue here.

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Stop Trident March & Rally – 2016

Stop Trident March & Rally: Britain first deployed submarines carrying nuclear missiles in the Polaris programme from 1968, and these were replace by Trident in 1994-6. In 2006 Tony Blair won a vote on the principle of renewing the Trident system in the House of Commons with the support of the Tory opposition, though 95 Labour MPs rebelled.

Research into the replacement continued and this march came a few months before a House of Commons vote in July 2016. Again there was a significant Labour revolt, with 41 MPs voting against and 41 not voting, but 140 Labour MPs backed the Conservatives and it passed by a large majority.

Around 60,000 marched through London on Saturday 27th Feb 2016 to a mass rally in Trafalgar Square against the plans to replace the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons at a cost of £180 billion or more.

They say Trident is immoral and using it would cause catastrophic global damage with a global nuclear war possibly bringing all human life on the planet to an end. These weapons of mass destruction don’t keep us safe, though they do hugely enrich the arms companies and their shareholders.

Many argued that the use of nuclear weapons was illegal under international law, and a year after the decision to update Trident was taken the UN adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

*Nicola Sturgeon takes a ‘selfie’ of herself with Kate Hudson*

So far 74 countries have signed up to the TPNW which “prohibits the development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons” and for those already possessing them it gives “a time-bound framework for negotiations leading to the verified and irreversible elimination” of their nuclear weapons.

Of course no countries which currently have nuclear weapons have so far signed the treaty, and Britain continues on its program to extend its capabilities. In June 2025 Keir Starmer announced the RAF is to buy at least 12 new F-35A fighter jets which can drop nuclear bombs as a part of its commitment to NATO.

As well as increasing the risk of nuclear war, these new nuclear aircraft hugely divert more much needed money from essential spending on services like the NHS, schools and housing.

Costs of the Trident replacement over its 30 year lifetime are currently estimated to be at least £205 billion and the MoD estimate for the F-35 programme of £57 billion is bound to be subject to the usual huge cost overruns.

There was a long list of speakers at the rally, too many to list here, and I think I photographed most or all of them and put them on-line.

You can read more about the 2016 march and see many more pictures from the march and the rally on My London Diary at Stop Trident Rally and Stop Trident March.

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12 Days of Christmas – June

12 Days of Christmas -some of my favourite pictures from those I made in June 2025.

Billionaires Kill - 12 Days of Christmas – June — London, UK. Billionaires Kill. Several thousand march from the BBC to Whitehall against the government spending more on arms while cutting public services, the NHS and benefits for the disabled – they say is a blueprint for arms manufacturers to print money based on a false narrative. They demand Welfare not Warfare and call for taxes on the rich, cutting down tax avoidance and evasion and an end to cuts. Peter Marshall

London, UK. 21 June 2025. Starmer – what a joke. Many thousands including many Jews march to Whitehall calling an end to the war crime of deliberate starvation of Palestinians in Gaza and demanding a ceasefire there and in the war against Iran. The want action to end the genocide and murder of children. They demand the UK ends all arms sales to Israel and call for a ceasefire and negotiations on both Palestine and Iran with the release of all hostages and prisoners. Peter Marshall.

London, UK, 28 June 2025. People march from Islington Green to a rally at Highbury Fields to demand Barclays end funding which supports Israeli genocide in Gaza and continuing apartheid in Palestine as well as environmental destruction by fossil fuel use. Barclays underwrites Israeli ‘was bonds’ and provides billions to support illegal settlements and arms sales to Israel, Palestine Solidarity Campaign was joined by others including CAAT, London Mining Network. Peter Marshall.

London, UK. 28 June 2025. Unite Against Fascism held a rally in Whitehall against the cynical attempt by the far right Football Lads Alliance to spread racism and bigotry on the streets of London by a march and rally “against grooming gangs, knife crime and the sexualisation of children” despite many on the far right having been convicted as sex offenders against children. Police kept the two rallies several hundred yards apart. Peter Marshall.

More pictures from July 2025 tomorrow,

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Second Day of Student Fees Protests – 2010

Second Day of Student Fees Protests: London Tuesday 30th November 2010 - A student holds a lighter to set fire to a placard — *Second Day of Student Fees Protests: London Tuesday 30th November 2010 – A student holds a lighter to set fire to a placard*

Six days earlier a march against the Browne Review of Higher Education Funding, which had advocated an increase in tuition fees, allowing them to rise to £9000 a year, as well as the scrapping of the Educational Maintenance Allowances (EMA) for 16-18 year old and other changes including closing many arts and humanities courses had led to an angry confrontation between students and police when police decided to halt and kettle the march in Whitehall.

Second Day of Student Fees Protests - 2010

I had been there and reported at some length on the events, including the smashing of a worn-out police van which seemed to have been deliberately left by the police “as a plaything for the protesters” and charges in which some “police made pretty liberal use of their batons and a couple clearly went a little berserk“, and protesters were in danger of being crushed, screaming that they couldn’t breathe.

It hadn’t been like those protests I had taken part in during the late 60’s and most of those taking part “were probably well-behaved students on their first demonstration” who when more militant students breached the police lines “just stood around wondering what to do rather than following them.”

I concluded:

“It had been a pretty confused situation, and it seemed to me that neither police nor students came out of it with much credit. The police tactics seemed designed to create public disorder by kettling and a small minority of the students rose to the bait. Although most of the students were out for a peaceful march and rally and to exercise their democratic right to protest, the police seemed to have little interest in upholding that right.”

*Protesters run down Whitehall – but turn around when get close to a police line*

The following Tuesday around 5000 students came back to Trafalgar Square for what was meant to be a peaceful march at 1pm along the same route down Whitehall to a rally in Parliament Square – which had been agreed in advance with police. I think both sides wanted to avoid a replay of the previous week.

*They go back and through Admiralty Arch – with not a policeman in sight*

But shortly after noon, more radical students, including a group of younger students who would lose the EMA took to the plinth under Nelson’s column and called for the crowd to go down Whitehall and demonstrate at Downing Street; several hundreds followed them.

*When they see the police in Parliament Square they turn around again*

There were only a few police at the top of Whitehall and clearly they stood no change of stopping them, but their attempts to do so heightened the tension and when police formed a tighter line further down Whitehall the protesters began shouting that they were being kettled.

They turned around and went under Admiralty Arch and on to the Mall before continuing down Horse Guards Road. Police followed them, walking beside them as they crossed into Storey’s Gate, then turned into Parliament Square.

By now this group of protesters – perhaps by then a thousand or two were obsessed with the idea that they were being kettled – and certainly there were a large number of police in Parliament Square, particularly behind barriers set up in front of Parliament and at some of the exits from the square.

*A police medic attacks a protester in one of the only violent incidents I witnessed*

The protesters turned around and walked and ran, beginning a “long rather rapid walk around London“, rather painful for me as I was still suffering from a foot injury, “taking in Hyde Park Corner, Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus and Oxford Street and turning down Kingsway at Holborn and then walking into the City of London along Fleet St” with a couple of hundred police walking along the side of the march.

Most of the Met police stopped at the City of London boundary as the march continued “past St Pauls, the Stock Exchange, on up some of the narrow winding streets around St Bartholomews Hospital (it rather looked as if they were trying to kettle themselves there) to Smithfield Market before going back along Holborn Viaduct where I eventually left them to catch a bus and make my way back to see what was happening in Trafalgar Square.” The City of London Police had seemed to ignore the march and there was little or no trouble on their patch.

In Trafalgar Square there were still some of the original demonstrators but things were pretty quiet. There were police at the exits but people could walk past in both directions; “the protest was being isolated and watched rather than being kettled.”

Some of those I had been marching around London with made their way back into the square and there were a few short speeches before one of the official organisers announced that the demonstration was over and police would be happy for people to leave in small groups towards Charing Cross Station.

But most people decided to stay on and there were a few scuffles with police, with other students “linking arms in front of the police to protect them and stop any violence.”

It was snowing and beginning to get dark and it seemed to me that little further was happening so I walked out of the square and went home. It had been a confusing and tiring day for me. Later I heard that small group who had remained in Trafalgar Square had been kettled and some had been arrested.

More at Students Fees Protest – Day 2.

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Don’t Bomb Syria – 2015

Several thousands had come to Downing St on Saturday 28th November 2015 to urge MPs not to support British air strikes on Syria and more arrived as the rally was beginning bring the number up to perhaps ten thousand.

Police who had tried to restrict the crowd to the wide pavement area were forced to stop traffic on the southbound carriageway, but put in a row of barriers so they could keep northbound traffic moving.

There were a long list of speeches – you can read a partial list and see photographs of most of them on My London Diary.

Don't Bomb Syria - 2015 Tariq Ali — *British Pakistani writer, journalist, and filmmaker Tariq Ali*

The speakers called for the need to take effective action against the Turkish complicity in Daesh oil exports, in which members of Erdogan’s family take a leading role, and against what Tariq Ali described as “the obscenity of the Wahabi regime in Saudi Arabia” which provides the fanatical religious basis and much funding for Daesh. And, always in the background, the continuing crisis over Palestine.

But there seemed to me to a glaring omission. As I wrote, I was there “with notebook poised ready to write down the names of the speakers representing the Syrians and the Syrian Kurds, who should surely have been at the forefront of this protest rather than so many old ‘Stop the War’ war-horses. None came, not because none were available or willing to speak, but because the politics of those most closely involved don’t accord with those of Stop the War.”

Throughout the speeches some protesters had been trying to move across onto the roadway directly in front of Downing Street. Eventually so many moved past the barriers that it became impossible for the police to force them back and keep the road clear for traffic.

Hundreds then sat done on the road and were still there chanting ‘Don’t Bomb Syria’ and other slogans well after the speeches had ended. After around an hour after police reinforcements arrived.

Previously police had been trying to persuade the protesters to stand up and leave the road with little success, but now they were warned they would be arrested if they failed to do so. Some were more reluctant than others to move, but I think eventually all did and I saw no arrests.

*People slowly decide to move rather than be arrested*

In September 2014 the UK Parliament had voted overwhelmingly in favour of British air strikes against ISIS in Iraq, but Parliament had also blocked the government’s plans for military action against Syria after the 2013 Ghouta chemical attack.

PM David Cameron had repeated calls for air strikes following a mass killing of tourists by an Islamist militant group in Tunisia, but it was only after the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015 that the House of Commons approved air strikes against ISIL in Syria – which began hours later in December 2015. In the next 15 months the RAF carried out 85 strikes – and there have been others since.

Many more pictures on My London Diary:
Don’t Bomb Syria
Speakers at Don’t Bomb Syria
Don’t Bomb Syria Blocks Whitehall

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Sudan & Hong Kong Protests – 8 Nov 2025

Sudan & Hong Kong Protests: Last Saturday, 8th November 2025 I photographed a London rally and march against the horrific killings in Sudan before going to the Chinese Embassy where people were protesting for freedom of expression in Hong Kong, where three pro-democracy advocates were to go on trial this Tuesday for “subversion”.

End the UK-Complicit Genocide in Sudan

Gloucester Road Station

Sudan has been a divided country more or less since it gained independence in 1956, suffering a long civil war which eventually led to independence for South Sudan in 2011 and a brutal 30 year military dictatorship under Omar al-Bashir which included an ethnic genocide in Darfur from 2003 -2020. Al-Bashir was finally ousted by a coup early in 2019 following huge protests. Since 2023 the country has been devastated by a civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The war is partly one over resources and access to the Red Sea, but also has a strong ethnic dimension with the RSF being “violently Arab supremacist or ethno-fascist“. They are backed financially by the United Arab Emirates who also supply them with arms. In return the RSF has taken control of Sudanese gold mines and illegally smuggles gold to Dubai.

The RSF also control the major gum arabic producing areas of the country. Sudan’s acacia trees produce around 80% of the world total of this vital ingredient used in many consumer products from Coca-cola to lipsticks and pet food. The RSF smuggles this out to be sold on world markets.

The war between the RSF and the SAF has resulted in more than 200,000 people being killed, mainly civilians with huge numbers – perhaps 14 million -being displaced and according to the UN, “2025 will see 30.4 million people in Sudan in need of humanitarian aid due to the military conflict in the country.“

Both the RSF and the SAF are reported as carrying out war crimes. The ‘London for Sudan’ leaflet states:

“The RSF are burning villages to the ground, recruiting child soldiers, poisoning water supplies, attacking hospitals & targetting journalists.

“The SAF are carpet bombing indiscriminately, wiping out markets and other vital infrastructure in their bid for control over the region.”

In the continuing El-Fasher massacre by the RSF, “an estimated 2,500 or more civilians have been executed or murdered since 26 October 2025.” though some analysts believe the actual numbers are in the tens of thousands. The RSF are known to use rape as a weapon and have have committed executions, torture, mass displacement and deliberate starvation, armed by weapons sold by the UK to the UAE. In May Sudan took the UAE to the International Court of Justice for complicity in genocide.

The protesters pointed out the British complicity in supporting the RSF by selling arms to the UAE which are then smuggled to the RSF. They demanded that the UK government designate the RSF a terrorist organisation and called on them to impose sanctions on the UAE for their support as well as ending arms sales to them.

After a short rally with several speeches and a moving poem in English by a Sudanese woman poet the march set off along the Cromwell Road heading for a final rally. I left them at South Kensington to go to a protest at the Chinese Embassy.

More pictures in the Facebook album End the UK-Complicit Genocide in Sudan

Free the Hong Kong Alliance Three

Chinese Embassy, Portland Place

Trade unionists protested outside the Chinese Embassy in solidarity with the three Hong Kong pro-democracy leaders charged with inciting subversion under Beijing’s National Security Law for organising protests and vigils whose trial begins on 11 Nov.

They called for Lee Cheuk-yan, Chow Hang-tung, Albert Ho and all political prisoners to be released.

One man who continually tried to disrupt the event by shouting pro-China comments through a megaphone was finally pushed away across the road. Police argued with him and he was later arrested when he refused to obey police requests to stop.

More pictures in the Facebook Album Free the Hong Kong Alliance Three

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