Let them in; if we stand together, we will win

I am in Birmingham, England’s second city (so they claim) for a few days. So this evening we decided to look in and observe the Birmingham section of the national demo called to protest President Trump’s policy regarding immigration for seven Muslim countries.

It was called at short notice for outside the Town Hall. I read the exact time on one of the university websites. I would say that the majority of demonstrators were students,  very many young women, mostly idealistic, a little naive but well meaning. There were the usual sprinkling of wooly hatted older people, some families, the usual suspects from the Trades unions and Socialist Worker. There is something pulling their strings from the rear but it was in hiding tonight. The Muslims were groups of young women of the smiling hijab sort; there were no obvious organised groups that I saw from Birmingham’s many mosques.

These are the self proclaimed badest Trots in the West Midlands

Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here. According to local newspaper the Express and Star the speakers were Labour Councillors.

Photographs EWeatherwax and her husband England January 2017