Anti-Fascists Oppose the Far Proper: Final Saturday, 1st February 2025, I photographed one among two marches happening in London, stored effectively separate by a big power of police who had restricted the protests to extensively separated routes although ending shut to one another.
Supporters of “Tommy Robinson” (Stephen Yaxley Lennon) at present in jail after pleading responsible to contempt of court docket had known as a protest to demand his launch, in a march they described as ‘Unite The Kingdom’ and ‘Cease the Isolation’. Robinson is seemingly in solitary confinement in HMP Woodhill for his personal security, and has refused to take away the video he was sentenced for sharing which is pinned to the highest of his ‘X’ account. They started their march at Waterloo Station, marching throughout Westminster Bridge to Parliament Sq..
In response Stand As much as Racism had known as a counter-demonstration to oppose this march and extra typically the rise of the far-right in Britain. This met in St James’s Road simply off Piccadilly and marched to a rally in Whitehall.
Based on press studies each marches had been of an identical dimension, maybe between 5 and ten thousand marchers, although some on the excessive proper occasion claimed 100 thousand had marched.
Throughout the Covid lockdown there have been no protests for me to {photograph} and I started to publish right here on >Re:PHOTO rather more incessantly about my older work, each protests I had lined in earlier years and likewise my walks in and round London photographing buildings and concrete panorama within the earlier century.
So for some months there was nothing for me so as to add to my posts in My London Diary web page. Which was simply in addition to I used to be getting uncomfortably near the restrict of the variety of recordsdata and folders I might host on the net area I’ve – which hosts this weblog and quite a few different small web pages. That restrict is 262,144 and at present My London Diary has 194,257 Recordsdata and a couple of,938 Folders, with >Re:PHOTO taking on many of the relaxation. So even once I was capable of cowl protests once more I needed to change my methods, posting the photographs in Fb albums with only a hyperlink and one or two footage by myself internet area. Lastly I gave up new postings on My London Diary in January 2022, although the positioning stays in place and I feel is a vital archive.
Time strikes on and though I’m nonetheless photographing protests I’m attending somewhat fewer than in earlier years and taking issues simpler. Whereas ten years in the past I’d typically work on my toes for 5 or 6 hours, now after round three I’m usually feeling too drained to proceed, pack up and go house. And whereas again then I’d go our 5 days per week, now its typically one or two, primarily on Saturdays. And whereas in previous years I will surely have tried to cowl each marches, this yr I selected only one, the counter-protest by Stand Up To Racism.
Over time I’ve lined fairly just a few excessive proper occasions, however I made a decision to go away this one to youthful photographers. At many earlier occasions I’ve been threatened, identified as somebody who needs to be attacked, spat at and extra, regardless of making an attempt to cowl them and report them pretty though I disagree with their views. Folks have tried to cease me photographing and have tried to seize my tools and police haven’t at all times been prepared to assist.
On the Stand Up To Racism occasion there was a much more optimistic environment. Typically individuals had been completely happy, typically even keen, to be photographed and I used to be capable of stroll freely by means of a packed crowd earlier than the march started making footage, in addition to contained in the march itself.
After all the individuals on the protest had been offended on the manner the nation (and the world) appears to be drifting in direction of the best, with extra draconian laws limiting our proper to protest, lengthy sentences for peaceable protesters and the sort of political policing we’ve seen over demonstrations calling for an finish to the killing in Palestine. And a few at the very least can be able to struggle the fascists on the streets as individuals did within the Thirties at Cable Road and elsewhere – and Jewish teams did after the tip of the warfare.
However whereas being decided to cease the drift to the best in Britain – which seems to have been accelerated by the approaching to energy of Labour with a big majority – this was a march of the affordable, the type of people that will take a look at proof somewhat than imagine the lies and manipulations of the best wing media, individuals who embody the sort of values which I really feel are essential and which gave Britain hope after defeating the Nazis and led to the establishing of the welfare state, with the NHS and an Training Act that attempted to supply a free and truthful schooling. The sort of British values which I feel the vast majority of us nonetheless imagine in though they’ve been severely eroded by successive governments for the advantage of that small minority – the 1% in what’s changing into an more and more unequal society.
My footage inform one thing of the story of the march. It was totally peaceable. I missed seeing the handful of the intense proper who had come to attempt to disrupt it and had been arrested for breaching the restrictions that police had laid down. I noticed just one particular person arrested, for setting off a smoke flare. I noticed the smoke from a number of flares round 100 yards away and rushed in direction of it, however the crowd of marchers throughout the entire of Piccadilly made this tough and by the point I arrived a younger man was being held by police surrounded by a crowd yelling for them to launch him.
I stayed with the march till the tip of it went into Whitehall the place there was to be an extended rally than that earlier than the beginning. Out of the blue I felt somewhat drained it determined it was time to go house.
There are two albums on Fb with my footage from the Stand As much as Racism march:
Cease The Far Proper Nationwide Anti-Racist Protest. London
Extra from the Cease The Far Proper Nationwide Anti-Racist Protest
Flickr – Fb – My London Diary – Hull Photographs – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photographs
All images on this web page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to purchase prints or licence to breed.
Tags: anti-fascists, antisemitism, far proper, far-right, fascists, flares, Islamophobia, London, march, My London Diary, peter Marshall, police, protest, smoke flares, stand as much as racism, Stephen Yaxley Lennon, Cease the Isolation, Tommy Robinson, Unite The Kingdom, Weyman Bennett
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