What if they gave a race riot and nobody came?

As we were in the general area of Westminster last Friday afternoon to see how the British Oppression demo turned out, and we were early, we decided to check out what Brian Haw and his chums were up to

They seemed a bit grumpy...

and like they’d had a rough night...

and like they really, really, really were trying to get arrested

Haw was having a serious argument with a policemen and recording everything that was being said with voice recorder

Someone else was marching up and down with a loud hailer calling out to bemused tourists with lines like ‘That man in the yellow jacket is full of shit’

Someone else was waving a placard with ‘Bollocks 2 Blair’ in front of every car that was driving into and out of the Houses of Parliament




But the police were stubbornly refusing to arrest anyone in Parliament Square. Not that day anyway




To be honest, I had mixed emotions about what was going on. I’m totally behind what Haw is doing but I’ve always maintained that the police are simply maintaining laws made by the real bastards and getting into scraps with them is pointless.

On top of that, protests and demos do need some form of police presence. At one march a couple of years ago a few coppers saved my rear end when I was about to get my arse kicked by a bunch of ‘loyalist’ Irish psychos.

I was grateful

-

A little later on, five minutes walk away in Whitehall, we got to see what had come of all that publicity for the much heralded British Oppression demo

Not much actually

About 60-80 Union Jack waving White Nationalists had turned up. Most of them seemed to know each other and they were acting more like they were at a works picnic than looking for any physical confrontation




There were slightly more Muslims, maybe 100. Most of them also appeared to have come from one group and the majority were women; fully suited up and waving placards that all came off the same printer. There were maybe 30 or 40 men – their heads uncovered and acting quite relaxed

The Muslim Horde

and policing all of this there were at least 300-400 coppers. Most of whom were sitting eating chocolate bars and playing Nintendo in the 40-50 vans parked in the immediate area

And that was it

It was quite dull actually




And then a policewoman came up to me and tried to pick a fight.

I was standing on an empty traffic island in the middle of Whitehall, miles away from anyone, fiddling my camera when a little trog of a WPC brandishing a clip board walked up to me, stopped no more than a couple of inches from my chest and demanded…

‘Who are you’
‘I’m me. Who are you?’
‘Do you have a press pass?’
‘No? Do I need to?’
‘This area has been reserved for the press so I’d like you to cross back over to the far side of the street’
‘Um, OK but can I wait for the traffic to stop’
‘Yes’

a minute or so passes, she’s standing even closer to me, smirking

‘Um, do you want me to run in front of the traffic’
‘No. Of course not sirrrr’
‘Why are you standing so close to me’
‘I’m waiting for you to move. I’m here till 10 o’clock and I can stand here till then’

another minute or so passes, the road is still full of traffic

‘look sirrrr a perfect opportunity’

I weaved between the traffic and crossed the road. Meanwhile WPC Ewok is pointing me out with a biro, marking my card, to a group of policemen

I spent the rest of the afternoon pissed off with myself for letting her get away with it. In my defence I am looking to get a residence visa in a country that requires a police check on me in the not too distant future. So I am a little sensitive about dealing with the police at the moment but that’s no real excuse.

The thing is a few minutes before my little encounter a drunk Australian bloke was walking down Whitehall, saw the BNP demonstrators, stopped and to no-one in particular said ‘Fucking racists’. At which point a policemen turned round and said ‘They have a right to demonstrate’. The Aussie said something back to the policeman that almost certainly included the word fuck and bamn! three coppers had slammed him against a wall and arrested him.

This was uppermost in my mind when my turn came. The policewoman was standing so close to me that virtually any move I made could have been presented as assault, she opened her confrontation with me with a line taken from ‘How to start pub fights by asking questions that can’t be answered as rudely as possible’ and was hassling me going about my lawful business in a public place.

I’m a 42 year old white man with enough sense not to rise to provocation and it was all I could do to bite my lip. I doubt very much if someone younger, or browner, could have shown that restraint

That’s the great thing about being a copper. You can pick a fight with someone on the flimsiest of pretexts and if they react you can arrest them

Nice

The Full Monty

I suppose I could have told her I was about to join one of the demos but I’m not sure the Muslims would have had me and I didn’t have a Union Jack.

I’m still not sure why she picked on me. It was probably something to do with the fact that I obviously wasn’t a tourist and wasn’t part of the press pack. There was a big question mark hovering over my head and if there was thing that really irritates the shit out of The Machine it’s the thought of people it can’t classify. So back into the crowd of gawping American tourists for me.

Alternatively, maybe I was paying too much attention to the police presence rather than the demonstrators. People who take pictures of demos are supposed to focus solely on the most provocative placards they can find...

• They are not supposed to photograph those spooky police photographers who now attend every demo and jam their frame-mounted rigs into everyone’s face.

• They are supposed to only photograph those tiny, micro-sized coppers the Met thoughtfully places in front of the largest Muslims and most provocative placards (see previous post) not the 300+ other, considerably larger, coppers in the immediate vicinity
  

• And they are most certainly not supposed to giggle at the police ‘spotters’ walking up and down the length of the demo surreptitiously peeking at comical laminated A4 handouts filled with pictures of wanted Islamists that all look exactly the same...
  
  

The bottom line – I still think picking on the police is a distraction but I have absolutely no doubt that within the police there are some cunters in uniform who are absolutely loving the way the environment is changing in this country

And I still do not know who was behind that frickin’ demo...


.