University of London Union

Margaretta D’Arcy, Education & African Refugees – 2014

Margaretta D’Arcy, Education & African Refugees: On Wednesday 22nd January I photographed a protest at the Irish Embassy demanding the release of anti-war activist Margaretta D’Arcy before going to a peaceful march by London Universitry students for democratic, public education free from exploitation and police violence. Finally I went to a protest close to the Israeli Embassy in Kensington in solidarity with African asylum seekers in Israel who are protesting their against arbitrary arrests, imprisonment and inhumane treatment.

Release Margaretta D’Arcy Now!

Irish Embassy

Margaretta D'Arcy, Education & African Refugees - 2014 — *Selma James calls for the release of Margaretta D’Arcy*

Margaretta D’Arcy (1934 – 2025) was an prominent Irish actress, writer, playwright and anti-war activist and a veteran of the Women’s Peace Camp at the US airbase on Greenham Common, where she had been a powerful member of the group at the ‘Yellow Gate’; protests by the Peace Camp eventually led to a legal challenge and the closure of the US Base with its cruise missiles.

Earlier in 1961 D’Arcy had joined the anti-nuclear Committee of 100 and in 1981 had been imprisoned for the first time after defacing a display at the Ulster Museum. Active in many campaigns in Ireland including the Shell to Sea campaign against the Corrib gas project and the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, she was arrested in October 2012 for lying down on the runway at Shannon in a peaceful direct action by members of Galway Alliance Against War against the use since 2001 of Shannon by Galway Alliance Against War in violation of Irish neutrality.

D’Arcy received a suspended sentence but after she had been arrested again on the runway at Shannon in September 2013 and she refused to sign a bond to keep out of restricted areas at Shannon the suspended 12-week sentence was reactivated. After serving nine and a half weeks of this she was released from Dublin prison in March 2014. She continued her activism until a few days before her death in 2025.

The protest at the Irish Embassy in London took place a week after D’Arcy was arrested to serve her suspended sentence, and around 50 people had come with banners and posters for a protest outside the Irish Embassy in London and to deliver a petition calling for her immediate release.

On My London Diary I list some of the many groups who supported the protest and most of those who spoke.

Release Margaretta D’Arcy Now!

Students March to Protect Education

London University & Holborn

The protest by London University students took place following a number of incidents in London and elsewhere the previous term when university management had called police onto the campus or gone to the courts to prevent or oppose student protests or to harass students. This had led in December 2013 to a Cops Off Campus National Student Protest.

*A student speaks about police violence, and in particular violence directed at the black community including the killing of Mark Duggan*

The protest began outside the University of London Union which the university is closing down with a speech by ULU President Michael Chessum and also by representatives of the lecturers who were taking action that week and the cleaners, maintenance and security staff who were about to hold a 3-day strike in their ‘3 Cosas’ campaign for sick pay, holidays and pensions, as well as for recognition for their union, the ndependent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB). Another student spoke about police violence, in particular against the black community.

*A few from the black bloc enter Woburn House, home to theUniversity & Colleges Employers Association but it was only a token gesture*

The marchers then went on a tour of key university sites including Senate House and the University & Colleges Employers Association in Tavistock Square where there was a brief token occupation of the lobby before going on to protest outside Holborn Police Station. Here as well as protesting against police violence they also protested the police execution of Mark Duggan.

They continued down Kingsway to Aldwych and the Strand, ending the march with a short rally outside the Royal Courts of Justice. The police had kept at a discreet distance while the students were in the university area but both the police station and the law courts were guarded by a line of police.

At the end of the rally Alfie Meadows suggested people might like to go on to a protest at the Royal Opera House, where the cleaners are also going on strike the next month for a living wage and proper conditions of work. About half the students then marched off with him, but I needed to leave for another event.

Students march to protect Education

Solidarity with African Refugees in Israel

Israeli Embassy, Kensington

Tens of thousands of African asylum seekers had been protesting in Israel since the start of the year holding mass rallies against their treatment by the Israeli authorities.

*Protesters stand on the pavement in front of the private road in which the Israeli embassy is located*

In December new laws in Israel had meant entering the country without proper papers could be held for up to a year without trial, and those already in the country could be held in indefinite detention. The detention facility in the Negev desert, like many other Israeli prisons, is run by the private security company G4S.

There were around 50,000 refugees currently living in Israel, most who had fled brutal conflicts in Sudan and Eritrea, with only a few hundred of their applications had been processed. Most keep alive by working illegally, exploited and in fear of arrest.

Recently a strike by those working as cleaners, cooks, dishwashers and other low paid workers had brought many restaurants, hotels and businesses to a standstill. They held a rally with over 20,000 in Rabin Square in the centre of Tel Aviv with banners saying ‘We are refugees, not criminals’ and demanding their rights.

The London protest was one of many around the world following a call by the African Asylum Seekers Community in Israel for international solidarity. It isn’t possible to protest outside the Israeli Embassy in London which is down a well-guarded private street, but the protesters gathered on the pavement in front of the entrance to this street, refusing police attempts to move them further away.

More pictures at Solidarity with African Refugees in Israel

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Cops Off Campus National Student Protest – 2013

Cops Off Campus National Student Protest – Ten years ago today on Wednesday 11th December 2013 I was at the University of London for a large national student protest over the use of police against student protests on campus at several universities around the country.

At Sussex University the management had called the police onto the campus or gone to the courts to prevent or oppose student protests or harass students. A number of students had been arrested.

In London police had been called to protests over the closing down by management of the University of London Union and the 3 Cosas campaign supported by students for a living wage and decent conditions of employment – sick pay, holiday pay and pensions – for the low paid workers on campus. The cleaners union, the IWGB, had come to support the students at this protest.

The previous week in London there had been a large police presence harassing and arresting students at an emergency protest over police brutality in their eviction of students from the Senate House that Wednesday, with a total of over 40 arrests on that day and the following day.

When I had arrived for that protest, there were police vans parked in all the side streets around and later the police made several failed attempts to kettle the large group of students at the protest despite it being intended as an entirely peaceful and orderly march around some of the various sites of the university in the area.

The police actions on that occasion seemed totally unnecessary and it was hard not to see them as a deliberate attempt to provoke a violent response, but the students kept their heads, moved rapidly and outwitted them. My account of the protest at ‘Cops Off Campus’ Protest Police Brutality‘ ended with the sentence: “It did seem an incredible and pointless waste of public money, and it resulted in more inconvenience to the public than if the event had not been policed at all.”

I don’t for a moment imagine the police had been influenced by my account, though I do know from occasional comments made to me by officers at various protests that some of them at least followed me. I’m sure that they had come to the same obvious conclusion independently, and for the protest on 11th December there was not an officer in sight in the whole area.

There were speeched outside the University of London Union before the march moved off, at its front a ‘Book Bloc’ carrying large backed polystyrene foam shields with book titles, including George Orwell’s ‘1984’, particularly appropriate as the Senate House is said to have inspired Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Truth’, and alongside it were Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, Mary Woolstonecraft’s ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Women’, E P Thompson’s ‘The Making of the English Working Class’ and other classics.

When the march came to the gates to Senate House from Russell Square they found that these gates, normally open, had been locked and chained to prevent them entering, despite most of those present being members of the university. They are stout metal gates but the chains could not for long resist the bodies pushing against them and they gave way and the crowd surged into the car park.

After a few minutes the marchers made their way back to Russell Square and continued to march around the area, eventually coming to a halt outside SOAS, where the samba band was playing and they sat down, stood around or danced.

Later some went on to protest outside the law courts where the inquest on Mark Duggan, shot by police in 2011, was ending and then to Whitehall, but I left as I was getting tired and needed to file my pictures.

More at Cops Off Campus National Student Protest.

Sick Pay, Holidays And Pensions – End Outsourcing

Sick Pay, Holidays And Pensions – End Outsourcing – Nine years ago on Friday 28th June 2013 I photographed a protest by low-paid workers at the University of London who with their supporters ran into the Senate House and protested noisily inside the building for sick pay, holidays and pensions for all workers at the University.

I’ve spent some time over the past few days thinking about strikes and industrial actions, partly because of the rail strikes. My local station is one of the few that still has a train service, but out of solidarity with the workers I won’t be using it on strike days, and on the days in between it is still likely to be unreliable.

*The campaigners met up at SOAS before the protest*

Of course I support the strikers, many of them low paid workers and all of whom have seen the value of their wages cut over the last few years. And these have been years when for all the problems that politicians and media state many of the wealthy have got considerably wealthier – and some made huge fortunes over Brexit and profited greatly (and not always legally) over Covid. We are living in an increasingly unfair society, and with a government which despite claims about levelling up is doing its damnedest to make the rich richer while making the poor poorer.

*After marching quietly past university buildings they dashed towards Senate House*

The government and train operating companies make much of the need to modernise the railways and I can only agree with them. We desperately need to get back to a sensible structure for running railways, to reverse the breakup of the system into small pieces, each with its highly paid management, caused by the doctrinaire privatisation of the 1990s. And yes, there are other changes which could greatly improve the system, but what the companies mean by modernisation is largely slashing the additional rates for overtime, weekend and night work. It’s ‘we’ll give you more pay if we can cut your wages at the same time’.

*and were all inside the building before security noticed*

June 28th is said to be the date on which new restrictions on the right to protest pushed through parliament in the last session come into effect. I think the protest by the IWGB on behalf of low paid workers employed by contract companies at London University on Friday 28th January 2013 would clearly have been illegal in several ways had this law been in place then. And it would be precisely those aspects that made this and most other protests over low pay effective that could have resulted in arrests.

*They swarmed up the stairs towards the Vice-Chancellor’s office*

I don’t know how (or even if) the police will enforce the new laws. Although I think they will have little appetite to do so, there will be considerably political pressure on them. And while the large unions will worry about the huge impact legal measures would have on their funds and largely play safe, perhaps the small grass-roots unions who have been so much more effective for low paid workers will feel they have less to lose.

*They held a noisy protest outside the Vice-Chancellor’s office*

Back in 2013, the low paid workers who keep London University running were taking part in a ‘Summer of Action’, supported by the grass roots IWGB union (Independent Workers of Great Britain) and the students of the ULU (University of London Union.)

*making sure he and his staff could hear why they were protesting*

Many of the the cleaners, security guards and catering staff who work in the same buildings as other service staff employed by the university have brutally inferior conditions of service as they employed on behalf of the university by contracting companies who give them none of the kind or working conditions that any considerate employer would provide.

*They then returned to the large lobby below to tell those attending conferences why workers were protesting.*

Often they are not provided with proper safety equipment and expected to work in unsafe ways to get the job done, and may have to put up with harsh and unreasonable demands over workload, derogatory treatment and even racism from the managers employed by contract companies.

But this ‘3 Cosas’ protest was largely about three things, sick pay, holidays and pensions, on which these outsourced staff often have to fight even to get the rock-bottom statutory minimum provisions. Statutory sick pay is so low that few workers can afford to take time off when they are sick. Even at the height of Covid, many who were unwell had to drag themselves into work, putting their own health and that of others at risk to pay their rent and feed their families.

*They continued a noisy protest in the lobby and its balconies for a few minutes*

It took many protests such as this to persuade the University and other bodies to end the unfair outsourcing – even when studies showed there were considerable advantages in having a properly employed workforce and little if any financial loss. At SOAS, where the protesters met before the protest the Justice for Workers Campaign led by SOAS Unison branch began in 2006 and was only finally successful in 2018.

*and then decided it was time to leave, pleased that the protest had gone so well.*

The IWGB is still campaigning against outsourcing at University College London (UCL) and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) as well as other campaigns. A few days ago I photographed them outside the London offices of the world’s largest healthcare multinational Health Corporation of America (HCA) Healthcare, who run the private London Bridge Hospital, and they also support other groups of low-paid workers, including foster carers, delivery drivers, minicab drivers and cycling instructors.

More about the 3 Cosas protest at Cleaners Surprise Senate House Invasion.

Students March Against Huge Fee Rise

Thursday 9th December 2010 was the day of a third student protest against the three-fold increase in university tuition fees which was being debated in Parliament that day, and the scenes in the area around were probably the most confusing of any I’ve seen in London.

My account of my day on My London Diary runs to around 1,700 words, and I’ll attempt not to repeat myself here, while giving a rather shorter account. The march started outside the University of London Union in Malet St, with a crowd of perhaps 10-20,000 including many sixth-formers who would be hit by the £9,000 a year fees when they went to university as well as current students and supporters.

There was a good atmosphere as the crowd listened to speeches there from trade unionists, John McDonnell MP and two sixthformers from schools that were being occupied in protest who got the largest cheers. As usual with student protests there was plenty to photograph.

The march began well though progress was rather slow, and several hundred students decided to walk in front of the main banner and for some reason police tried to stop them. They thought they were about to be kettled and rushed off towards Covent Garden. The official march continued without obstruction along the agreed route along the Strand. It wasn’t at all clear what the police had intended, and this was something that set the scene for the day.

Many more protesters joined the march at Trafalgar Square, and rather than proceed down Whitehall, police and march organisers had agreed on a route though Admiralty Arch and down Horseguards Road, and then left into Parliament Square. The march was then meant to continue down Bridge Street to an official rally on the Embankment, but most marchers had a different idea and wanted to stay in Parliament Square, the obvious place for the protest to continue.

It’s hard to understand why either police or march organisers had thought people would march on rather than stay outside Parliament – and probably many on the march had simply assumed it would end there. And soon police were actually preventing any who wanted to go on by blocking all the exits from Parliament Square except that into Whitehall (which they later decided to block.)

I managed to move around thanks to my press card, but even with this I was often refused access through police lines even in calm areas, and had to move along and find other officers in the line who would let me through, or take a longer walk around to get to where I wanted. The police didn’t appear to know what they were supposed to be doing and at one point I was being crushed by the crowd against the barriers in front of the riot police who were threatening us with batons unless we moved back – which was impossible because of the crush. Several press colleagues did get injured.

Late in the day students who wanted to leave were told by officers they could do so by going up Whitehall – only to be stopped by other police who were closing the street off. We were pushed back into Parliament Square by riot police and police horses. Police told protesters they were not being detained although they were not being allowed to leave, a kind of police logic most of us find infuriating.

Kettling like this is used by police as a kind of minor but arbitrary punishment, and as in this case it often leads to violent incidents and arrests which are then used to retrospectively justify police actions. After I had managed to get through one of the police lines and catch a bus away from the area I heard that Police had pushed a large group into a very confined space on Westminster Bridge with a total disregard for their safety, with some needing medical treatment for crushing. As I pointed out “there could easily have been more serious or fatal injuries and people pushed into the freezing river below.”

Of course protests like this need to be policed to avoid serious disorder. But the confused and sometimes unnecessarily violent way it was done on this occasion seemed to create most of the problems of the day.

As well as a long account of my day there are many more pictures on My London Diary in Students Against Cuts – Day 3.