London Calling III: Uniting the Kingdom.

By Esmerelda Weatherwax

I’m home; I didn’t stay until the end, which according to the Telegraph was at 5.55 so I missed an hour, not the half hour I expected.

These are better photographs from a camera, not my strange device.

As I said, we mustered in The Strand outside the Royal Courts of Justice. I didn’t get to see how far toward Fleet Street the crowd went; I stayed around the front and the route into Aldwich. I met old friends who were acting as stewards, which was lovely to see them again.

Outside St Clement Danes (the oranges and lemons church – note statue of Air Marshal ‘Bomber’ Harris. )

Tommy and some of the main speakers including Laurence Fox came through to the front led by a Scottish piper and we set off.

Then the stewards leading the main rally.Note how many of the stewards and crowd were women.

A panorama of the east side of the square

.

.One of the Jewish groups I have seen before, concerned with survivors and hostages. We will dance again.

A veteran serviceman, I didn’t catch his name and neither did the reporter for The Telegraph. He spoke of the lack of respect for ex-servicemen and women. In particular that many street sleepers and other homeless men are ex-soldiers and they receive scanty help compared with those men of military age who come daily across the channel. And the insecurity that a soldier can take an action in a combat situation, be it Northern Ireland, Bosnia or Afghanistan, which is held consistent with the rules of engagement, ie not a war crime but can find himself over 50 years later facing criminal charges brought for political reasons.

This is a better photograph of Laurence Fox, followed by an effort to get Carl Benjamin and Nelson’s column in the shot without sunlight dazzle. That’s my excuse – I had not had a drink!

Laurence Fox said that he had contacted Nigel Farage inviting him today and imploring him not to continue to expel from the party anybody found to have worked closely with Tommy in the past. He advised that Reform voters present today were too valuable to discard.

He ended by saying “This is our home. We have nowhere else to go. We must fight for our country. God Save the King’

Carl Benjamin said Britain feels like an occupied country.

Tommy showed his documentary Silenced, some of which covered issues I already knew about and which, being nearly 2 hours long, gave me a chance to wander the area, pick up a cup of tea and wifi, see if Stand Up to racism and the Palestinians had arrived yet and meet people. A policewoman I spoke to said that as her responsibility was traffic control she hadn’t heard the inteligence about the actual rally but in her estimation there was a good 30,000 people present. There was a good mix of people, black, Iranians and Jewish groups, Christian groups, some young families, many of us older people, some of whom had brought camp chairs and picnics.  Mugging an old lady even older than me for her chair is not a good look so I found a seat in a cafe.

According to the Telegraph Tommy is already in trouble for the documentary and

Nick Lowles, chief executive of Left-wing activist group Hope not Hate, suggested that Robinson could be “heading to jail” for screening the film due to an injunction preventing its release.

Nick Lowles is a tell-tale-tit

I managed to miss singer Louise Distras, who while originally mentored by Billy Bragg, blotted her copybook in those circles by insisting that a woman is an adult human female.

These are a few more photographs of some of the diverse groups present.

.

.

.

Yes, I know they are slightly confused about which member of the royal family is which, but the sentiment is sound and touching.

The SUTR/Palestinian group had arrived by this time. They were a very long way down Whitehall into Parliament Street, having been brought on a long circuitous walk from Russell square along the Embankment, possibly to tire them out to have less energy for troublemaking?

There was a wide santitary cordon both sides of them and the police were not letting anyone through. I gather that Jeremy Corbin was a speaker. I couldn’t see him, but I’m sure I heard a couple of calls of Allah Akbar.

Zooming in, these are the best I could manage.

.

Mahyar Tousi spoke. He said that SUTR and the others are being described as a counter-protest. But they can’t be as this isn’t a protest that they can counter. This is a celebration of Britannia. He is of Iranian heritage so he knows of what he speaks when he says that British culture must be celebrated, so that newcomers can be encouraged to join in. He also encouraged British families to ‘have more babies’.

Then Sammy Woodhouse, from Rotherham (not Rochdale as I incorrectly typed earlier. She had been in Rochdale a few days ago reporting on the local inhabitants distress at the riots from Roma and Pakistanis).

First a video was played of her talking from Rotherham, then she was on stage in person. At the age of 14 she was groomed by a man, a member of a gang and by the age of 16 she had had his baby. Some girls have a termination, others give the child up for adoption, but some, and she is one, rear the child. She feels that thse mothers and children are voiceless when social services decide, as happened to her, that the rapist father, who may currently be in prison for that crime, should have a presence in the life of the child.

She has a campaign to convince Yvette Cooper to strip rapists of parental rights over children born from their sex crimes.

She now has an encouraging opportunity as a reporter for Urban Scoop, which this week found her in Coldcotes Circus talking to local people.

Tamara Lich, one of the leaders of the Canadian truckers protest had flown in from Canada. She spoke of her time in prison for the protest and the continuing court case, then with her maple leaf guitar she and the band played their version of Tom Petty’s I Won’t Back Down which I always find rather inspiring.

Andrew Bridgen the former MP was next. He said that while he is used to public speaing as an MP of some years he is no longer used to an audience. Since speaking of his concerns about the Covid vaccine (speed of issue, sufficiency of testing and general effectivness) he was largely ignored for the rest of his time in Parliament.

He pointed to the statue of Nelson and reminded us of his message to the fleet on the eve of the battle of Trafalgar, usually paraphrased as ‘England expects that every man will do his duty”. Can you imagine trying to get that message aproved these days by the various woke committees? He said we must protect our free speech. There are so many things that Parliament does not want talked about. And by refusing to talk they are not promoting the truth; they are protecting lies.

Things will get worse before they get better, but he believes they will get better. The tipping point of public opinion is getting nearer.  I have been waiting for the tipping point since the London bombngs of 2007, I do hope he is right.

I decided at that point to go an see what, if anything, was happening at a distance at the SUTR rally. This was half past 4 and they had all gone. But where to? Many of the older people were staring to leave, and noting the Territorial Support Group standing by I decided I would also go home now.

I am not hearing that there has been any disturbance this evening. Wih one minor exception all I saw during the day was friendliness and good humour.

To conclude some aerial footage by Rebel Media of Canada of the crowd in Trafalgar Square.

 

Photographs E Weatherwax London July 2024