STOP THE BORE
Last Monday saw an estimated 5,000 people gather in Trafalgar Square for the
latest anti-war extravaganza to listen to speeches and join the march to
parliament. The march had initially been declared illegal by police under
the arcane Parliamentary Sessional Orders, however Stop The War Coalition
(STWC) stated their intentions to go ahead with the march regardless (See
SchNEWS 605). According to STWC, the march was given the all clear only
minutes before the march was due to start. Our SchNEWS correspondents
arrived late, with their balaclavas and bag of transit wheel nuts, only to
find - to their disappointment - that the police had caved in. The prospect
of nicking Tony "national treasure" Benn or giving Mark Thomas material for
his next show was obviously too much for the Met.
The march ambled along to the edge of Parliament Square where the police
forced the thousands of people to respect the green cross code and wait for
the traffic lights to change before being herded into a pen on the edge of
the fenced-off square, a process lasting two hours. The SchNEWS reporters
declined to be herded and found themselves thrown up against the fence,
searched under the Terrorism Act and then followed by an escort of two
police officers. The reason given was that "you didn't want to have your
picture taken". (For more information about the behaviour of the
Metropolitan Intelligence Gathering team see
www.fitwatch.blogspot.com)
Once in the pen some of the demonstrators decided to make a point by taking
down the fences around the Parliament Square, which led to some push and
shove. The police showed special concern over the statue of Churchill
(remember the green mohican he was given one Mayday). The STWC stewards
tried their hardest to do the job of the police by making everyone move onto
College Green, with calls of "move along nothing to see here", leading one
irate liberal to snap at a stewardess, "young lady I have been told what to
do by people in yellow jackets all day, I will not be told by you in your
orange jacket!"
It seems therefore that although the STWC might have had one brief moment of
rebellion against the forces of law and order, as soon as they got their own
way it was back to business as usual and a distinct lack of support for
those who wanted to make the point that fencing off Parliament Square and
confining thousands of people to a pen was illegal and unnecessary.
If only the STWC had a bit more direct action they might actually have stopped the war!
and true
