The Cenotaph incursion
The area permitted for the counter-demonstration was Parliament Square and Whitehall up to King Charles St - the street that separates the Treasury and Foreign Office. There was a double row of steel barriers across the road, but the footway on the south side was left open. Those gathered at about 10am were largely the peaceful ex-servicemen and the responsible early risers. The Whitehall barriers were staffed only by two bored police officers in patrol dress engaged in deep conversation. The counter protestors used their initiative in the absence of a police presence and surged over the barriers and up the footway to gather around the Cenotaph. Non violent.
Trafalgar Square
The march from the Dorchester was sparsely attended. BLM-UK had cancelled the official march so those that went straight to Trafalgar Square were unofficial and largely peaceful protesters. I saw animated protest but no violence.
The Thugs arrive
I can only assume the thugs on both sides are late sleepers, or maybe they preferred to get stoned or intoxicated away from the main protest areas, but it was about 1pm before the snide Chinese knock-offs of Hugo Boss leisure wear (oh the multiple ironies) began to be visible at the counter-protest and the hooded Antifa-cadets in Trafalgar Square.
5 pm
As the 5pm deadline for the end of the protests arrived, the police in Trafalgar square opened up exits to Charing Cross Road and the Strand, and at about 8 minutes past, the entire square emptied peacefully and in good order up the steps to the National Gallery and then towards St Martins.
In Parliament Square, the peaceful counter-protesters and armed forces veterans also left, their stewards litter-picking the area, clearing the bottles and rubbish into bin sacks which were piled for the Council to collect. A hard core of BF/ NF / EDL / BNP far-right racist thugs remained, looking for opportunities for violence. The thug who pissed in the corner adjacent to Keith Palmer's memorial was one such.
Aftermath
This was an affair of the thugs of both sides seeking each other out. The BLM thugs crossed Waterloo Bridge headed for the station, the Britain First thugs Hungerford and Westminster bridges, and there were isolated violent incidents at Waterloo Station.
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| Patrick Hutchinson - a top bloke in so many ways - rescues a foolish man |
The events of the past two weekends, and his statements to the press, have demonstrated beyond doubt that Khan is simply unfit to be Mayor of London. A shifty little narcissist, uninspired, untalented and with an ability only to affect the standard Labour glottal stop that the comrades imagine makes them sound attractive to working people, the people of London deserve so much better. Much more on this as time goes on.
Overall, the day was one of peaceful protest, generally well managed policing with two serious lapses (the unguarded Whitehall barrier in the morning, the chaotic and responsive policing of the limited violent post-protest incidents on the South Bank) and not much to see. It was a victory for public order, and a fail for the few hundred violent thugs from both sides.
31 comments:
I am very much an All Lives Matter supporter.
I watched the ITV news at 10.30pm on Saturday.What I saw was a PR disaster for the patriots of this country.
Unfortunately your calm analysis of what happened will not gain traction.
James Strong
The media hysteria continued unabated though as anyone/everyone who loves their country and all it stands for is, as usual, labeled 'far right'. Oh I don't deny there were the usual troublemakers present - as minorly ineffective as their actions were other than to give the media what they wanted - but it's similar to a potential Russia versus China conflict.
Should it come to conflict I'd rather see Russia win than China (BF winning over BLM).
It's a Christian/white/patriot 'thing'.
Why do you say that Londoners deserve so much better than the shifty little weasel Sadiq Khan? They've got what they voted for, so they deserve what they've got. Or are you imagining that Londoners now are the same breed as Londoners in decades past?
I didn't watch the protests yesterday but my sympathies, as you'd imagine, lie with the British patriots; ie the ex servicemen and also the Scouts who protected the statue of Bayden-Powell in Poole the other day, not the BF/NF/EDL/BNP thugs who were just out for a fight.
BLM are a bunch of left-wing extremists who have learned that by claiming to find "racism everywhere" they are effectively untouchable and the left wing media will give them maximum publicity. So the British patriots and the silent majority will never get a fair hearing, or fair reporting, on the BBC or any other mainstream media.
Sadly, the Conservative Party doesn't have the guts to stand up for the silent majority, or for British history, heritage and culture. The boarding up of Churchill's statue is a good metaphor for the cowardice and invisibility of Boris Johnson.
Thanks Raedwald for the calm analysis. I avoid most of the news so only saw a few isolated incidents that get on Twitter (accounts of others, I do not use partake on Twitter). All was very 'football hooligan gangs' type violence accept for one possible throat slashing. I know blades and worse have been common for 'tooled-up' gang-on-gang "meets" but this looked cowardly and serious (one guy with multiple attackers, knife guy from the back darts in then legs it).
Heve seen a number of great biased media comparisons of the reports too: side-by-side screenshots/headlines.
Didn't mention Khan but see DeeDee's comment coincided. yes, the ethnic and political make-up of London these days means he will probably get re-elected. He has been REALLY very poor in EVERY aspect but they won't care.
"Sadly, the Conservative Party doesn't have the guts to stand up for the silent majority, or for British history, heritage and culture. The boarding up of Churchill's statue is a good metaphor for the cowardice and invisibility of Boris Johnson."
Applause.
Yep- Vote Leave's finest.
Did you notice how the BBC referred to BLM groups as 'protesters' and those opposing them as 'far right' ?
Anon, 08:44
"Yep- Vote Leave's finest."
They all voted Remain...
If I had to pick a dog in this fight then it would not be the BLM proto terrorists, you fight with what you have and so EDL etc it is, I'm just glad somebody is not afraid to stand up when everybody else is even terrified to mention on social media that they even mildly disagree with the new red guard and their struggle sessions.
Once again Raedwald shows his inability to separate genuine patriots from the bogus troublemakers. I suggest you actually study what the groups represent before lumping them
Referring to Whitehall, you say that "the footway on the south side was left open". But Whitehall runs north-south; don't you mean either the footway on the west side or the east side?
East side .. I'm used to thinking of north bank / south bank and as Whitehall is roughly parallel you must excuse my mental confusion
Radders
Its a pleasure to read your column every morn with my breakfast. Your writing is informative in many subjects I have no idea of.
But its the left, BLM and antifa possibly, who started this provocation and destruction of the icons of our culture. The so called "Far Right" the BBC stigmatises, are the ones who responded.
If they hadn't, it would be assumed by the left and BLM, plus the BBC, that it was acceptable to attack all the icons and symbols of what makes Britain the greatest civilising force in all history.
"Sadly, the Conservative Party doesn't have the guts to stand up for the silent majority, or for British history, heritage and culture. The boarding up of Churchill's statue is a good metaphor for the cowardice and invisibility of Boris Johnson."
Its not just the above two, but the media, the BBC funded by us all, and the rest of us, who failed to condemn the violence and provocation of the left and BLM.
So it was left to the EDL to defend, forcefully if necessary, to what the so-called majority, should have done. I don't expect the BBC to be anything but a Lefty media output that we have to fund by threat of legal penalty.
You point out "They forgot to proof-check the flag". True. I didn't pick it up either. But more importantly, their hearts are in the right place. For I'm certain, if or when push comes to shove, as in 1939, its these lads who will sacrifice their lives more than any other demographic, and then predictably, spat on.
Thank you for a great blog.
Sincerely
DP111
DP111 - The flag pic was posted by Hugo Rifkind and I made the error of assuming it was genuine - he presented it as a real photo. However, it appears likely to have been photoshopped to include the flag error, so I have now removed it.
Thank you for your comments and your readership.
Radders
If the photo was photoshoped then I hope it was just a mistake and not deliberate. The latter is disinformation in time of war.
Thanks
DP
Raedwald, I think your admirable common sense has deserted you on this one occasion. The photo of the man urinating onto the railings in the corner by the side of the right hand pillar of the Palace of Westminster Carriage Gates does not show what arch-Remainer MP Ellwood and the Police Commander Bas Javid say was happening: "appearing to urinate on a memorial to PC Palmer".
Surely to any impartial observer (certainly to this one) he is quite obviously not pi$$ing on the stone in front of the pillar. He is standing clearly to the right hand side of it, not urinating on it - in fact he is paying it no attention at all. The pubs and other toilet opportunities are all closed. He needs a pee urgently. So he does what any London male in those circs does - he finds the nearest wall, preferably with some minimal cover or a recess (such as this bit, recessed about one foot or a little more by the gate pillar), and relieves himself, standing as close to the cover provided by the side of the pillar as possible. He is clearly paying no attention - you can see his right hand is raised, so he is apparently phoning (or smoking?) at the same time. The PC Palmer memorial - maybe two feet high? - is inconspicuous. At normal head height, it is unidentifiable, barely visible, certainly not legible.
In fact surely this brave hero deserved a much larger and more conspicuously situated memorial than this small, apologetic plaque?
And stepping back from the shortsighted (or mendacious?) faux outrage by the Met - clearly intended to brand all the counterdemonstrators as vicious and out of control - just think about motive: how likely is it that a 'far right' activist would deliberately choose to desecrate a small memorial to a white policeman who was killed in the defence of parliament by an islamist terrorist?
Btw, in the UK it is still not generally illegal to pee in a public place, and the man was clearly taking basic measures not to 'outrage public decency' or commit 'indecent exposure', which are the only relevant laws - extremely rarely invoked.
This photo gives a more accurate picture of the relative dimensions of the memorial relative to the gates: https://www.counterterrorism.police.uk/memorial-unveiled-for-pc-keith-palmer/
And btw we have not yet forgotten or forgiven the Acting Police Commissioner who fled the scene of the terrorist attack. https://www.policeprofessional.com/news/most-senior-uk-officer-criticised-for-fleeing-westminster-terror-attack/
John - great response, mate, but it has absolutely nothing to do with anything I wrote.
Go on. Read the post again.
There are many in America who wish to defund the police. But that won't lead to peace. All manner of rival gangs will fill the gap. Mafia, Nigerian narcotic gangs, Sharia gangs, and other vile gangs who will make the EDL look civilised.
To prevent this anarchy, we the law abiding public, who have most to lose in such a situation, set up our own gang. We fund it, arm it and back it up with all the power the state, but make it responsible to us. There was no way that our gang, the police would be allowed to submit to gangsters and looters.
But this is precisely what happened. The police, our police, who wear the symbol of the Crown, and the authority of E11R on their caps, bowed and submitted. They submitted the Crown and Her Majesty, to indignity that has never ever occurred to the Crown in historic memory.
This is the doing of our government, the mayor and the commissioner of the MET. They humiliated the Crown and Her Majesty.
The following day, it was still possible for the above three to recover from their gross shame. But they didn't. It was then up to us, the great British public to rise up and defend the honour of the Crown. To our shame, we didn't either.
At last, the EDL and others with them, rose to defend the nations's honour. They may not be the kind of people you or I would invite, but they have more honour then all the elite, PM, cabinet and parliament put together. Its not surprising that the EDL rose up. After all, it was they who protested the mass gang rapes of English girls, which the authorities turned a blind eye. They revealed the ugly shameful secret. Far from a gang of thugs, they are patriots. Rough hewn but patriots. To some extent they rescued the people's honour. Its not surprising the elite and their state funded broadcaster, the BBC, are castigating the EDL as Far Right.
Make no mistake, if the nation is in peril, it is these rough hewn men we relied on in the past, and will do so again.
14 June 2020 at 17:10
by DP
DP, John Vasc, yes indeed, twas ever thus. Just look at Wellington's comments and those of foreign generals marvelling not so much at fighting prowess but the fact that they never gave in, or never knew when they were beaten etc. People may say no. the soldiers were not the same sort of hooligan or thug but they are indeed exactly the same.
My hero is not the inadequates who were trying to provoke violence - nothing noble or heroic about that - but Patrick Hutchinson, who put himself at great risk to rescue one of them from serious harm.
The Government and Cressida Dick must have thought that Christmas had come early when they saw BF turn up for now they will be able to show us how tough they are on law and order by demonstrating their toughness on BF violent thugs rather than having to deal with any BLM violent protestors.
Sadiq Kahn, like Bill Gates is unable to speak properly. Strange really and to my mind calls in to question the reason for their positions of power.
Colour me cynical Raed but that 'rescue' was far from spontaneous - I'd like to see the roll of credits and who's up for the 'dramatic content' Oscar.
Raed, Sorry if I mistook your drift, but your phrase in its context does rather imply to the innocent reader that you took his act to be that of 'a thug looking for opportunities for violence'.
I am no BNP supporter. If he committed an act of violence he should be arrested: but I see the police arrest is 'outraging public decency' - which carries very high penalties. But the test is "an act which is lewd, obscene or of disgusting character, which outrages minimum standards of public decency as assessed by the jury".
Peeing against the corner of a wall, in London, during a demonstration, when all public toilets are closed? No London jury would give a Guilty verdict on that one. It's so obvious that - however gross the act was - it was not intended to offend, and was not capable of outraging the reasonable man/woman.
I suppose the police (trying to get themselves off the hook with BLM) are hoping to blow up the proximity of the Palmer memorial into a deliberate act of provocation, and the CPS will be aiming at finding a judge who's a bloody fool (and there are plenty of those) directing a jury of sheep (lots of them too.) I've no sympathy with the BNP, but they too deserve impartial justice, and the CPS and courts seem increasingly keen on using the law to pursue a political narrative.
sorry, typo, Para 2 l. 1: 'but I see the police *charge* is 'outraging public decency'...
John -
If he'd left Parliament Square at 5pm like all the responsible, well-behaved statue protectors did he could have had a piss where no-one would have noticed.
He chose to defy the Public Order Act notice and stay with a small group determined to find violence. No sympathy.
and has been stated elsewhere...3 minutes walk fromm a massive park
As we were quickly told by the BBC yesterday ‘Police have arrested the man’.
Impressive reaction.
Oh, hang on........ the man presented himself at an Essex Police Station later that evening.
Kudos to the guy for locating an open, and manned, police station.
Are Patrick Hutchinson's gloves a little weighty? Word is they aren't quite for COVID...
span owls, how dare you? don't you know the man is a saint.
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