The March for Change July 2019, a personal view

Start at the March for Change. To see full album of 107 photos of London, banners and people, https://photos.app.goo.gl/R787imCrxBdXVbPs6

The March for Change on 20th July looked like the last chance to send a message, to rethink Brexit, to the new Prime Minister who was expected to take up his post next in the following week. In all conscience, I had to attend.

I hopped onto my bike with camera and enough spare batteries to see me through the day and took the 9:32 from Cambridge North to Kings Cross. For once the train was relatively empty and I was able to get a seat. Arriving an hour later in the big city of London, I captured my first fellow demonstrators on the platform.

Anticipating queues at the March for Change meeting point near Hyde Park, I took the tube to Embankment and then walked along to Parliament Square taking photos on the way. At 11:30 am the Parliament Square was relatively empty, with just the stage and the sound teams busy setting up ready for the incoming tide of protesters later in the day. I walked on to Horseguards Road and followed the path alongside St James' Lake in the Park till Buckingham Palace. Carefree tourists kept under the trees as the forecast thunderstorm turned instead into a mild shower, before returning to feeding the squirrels and geese or walk up to the gates of the Palace to begin the obligatory selfie sessions. I hurried through Green Park to arrive at Park Lane just after 12 noon, hoping I hadn't missed the start of the March.

I needn't have worried, the start was delayed as streams of protesters were still arriving. It was a relaxed carnival like atmosphere. The police were cheerful and friendly and happy to chat and answer questions. A camera crew or two and several photographers hovered around in front of the line as the 3 m tall Farage figure manipulated two smaller almost life-size puppets of Boris and Hunt. Occasional chanting would begin, but the crowds were really waiting for the start before losing their voices.

At 1 pm, the line started to move forward (video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxSokAHTGhA&list=PLO_a6a_qHNAU-0V92R92L_KUbIvwipgfY&index=2&t=0s). Only to be held up by a crowd fifty meters down the road. This was the gathering of the March leaders, with the March for Change Banner. After a brief interlude, we set off again (second video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eblAp0NdTGY&list=PLO_a6a_qHNAU-0V92R92L_KUbIvwipgfY&index=3&t=0s.

I stayed with the march a short while and then left to take a shorter route to Parliament Square to meet the march as it arrived there. Anticipating this could take a while, and with nature calling after hours on my feet,  I settled in at the Wesley Cafe in the Methodist Great Hall just around the corner from the square and also had a quick snack and drink. Returning to the square just after 2 pm, a crowd had already gathered on the green and it looked as if the march was also just arriving. There was enough space to wander through to within a couple of meters of the front rows of protesters and we settled down until the speakers arrived.

There was a lot of cheering and booing at the right places as the speeches got underway. We had a wide range of representatives from the organisers and also different parts of the four nations. I particularly enjoyed the Billy Bragg session where he played a number of familiar tunes with very apt and up to date new lyrics.

It was during Billy's first song that a lone, quite boorish brexiteer joined the front rows and began to heckle and leer (yes I do mean leer) at the surrounding audience. We were all frightfully polite, pretending not to notice him, or those nearest him asking "Oh do shut up please" in a low voice - very British. One of the stewards came over and, with a smile on her face attempted to intervene, to no avail. Billy came to the end of his song and had obviously noticed the disruption and just shouted out, "The organisers aren't allowed to do much to get rid of persistent hecklers but as a performer I can, go on, get him off!" Security arrived within seconds and the unfortunate was bundled off, much to our relief.

Note - escorted off, not jeered at or subjected to violence or hate, or made to feel afraid for his life.

After an hour, I began to wander around and take more photographs of the banners and people (with their permission). By 4 pm, the event was coming to an end and the crowd began to disperse gradually.

I walked towards Trafalgar Square and took the wrong turning for Leicester Square tube station and headed for Covent Garden instead, feeling ever more thirsty after the long afternoon. I was finally tempted to have a sorbet ice-cream cone from a packed Amorino, prepared with ice-cream petals to look like a rose, and absolutely delicious.

Fortunately, the trip to Kings Cross Station on the baking-hot tube was short. I finally took the train home.

Will this event have made a difference? I don't know. It was certainly smaller than the March march. But we have to continue to try and influence a more balanced and rational future in whatever small way we can. At least we still have a democracy that allows us to express our dissent. Others are not so lucky and the trend here and across the pond is to ignore the facts and push to a baser, less tolerant populism with the worst lowest common denominators.

Mad Don and Kipper-waving Boris - Our future?

Mad Don "Oh! I fear it is stronger rooted than I expected but with the assistance of my friend and a little more Brandy I will bring it down." The Devil "Pull away, Pull away my son, don't fear, I'll give you all my assistance."

Substitute 'Hate' for 'Brandy', and this 19th century US cartoon suddenly represents the ignominious language and demagoguery we see coming across the Atlantic.

I've been discouraged from writing this blog because of the increasing insanity both here and across the pond. The blatantly racist attack by the President - THE PRESIDENT! - against congresswomen of colour and the enthusiastic chants of "Send her back" about a citizen of the US who dares to not only express different views to Trump but also criticise him. The future of a once great democracy looks bleak indeed.

Not that it is any better here in the UK where the future of our country is going to be determined by a kipper waving Boris with scant regard for any inconvenient truths, economically or otherwise. Friends abroad look on disbelievingly and aghast as we are cheerily led to a mad lemming rush over the cliff of a hard Brexit.

It's off to London on Saturday for the "March for change" against Brexit.

Mrs May writes a letter, MPs rage, Pound falls.

Mrs May writes a letter to Donald Tusk (The Love Letter, early 1770s by Jean Honore Fragonard)

Nine days to go till Brexit Day and Mrs May has written to Donald Tusk asking for an extension to the end of June at the latest, to be considered at a meeting of EU leaders tomorrow. His immediate response is , that it could be possible, if Britain votes for her deal. A difficult proposition with Parliament polarised.

Another obstacle, John Bercow, the Speaker, has stated that a centuries old parliamentary precedent means she cannot bring back the same deal, unaltered, for a third vote after the past two defeats.

The opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, after repeatedly asking for the Prime Minister to open her door to him for talks because Britain is in crisis, walks into a meeting with her and straight out again, because the centrist Chukka Ummuna had also been invited. Very statesmanlike!

And the pound, which had been rising, begins to fall again.

Tick tock, tick tock.

No real progress in a stormy Brexit

Under The Wave off Kanagawa, Katzushika Hokusai, Art Institute Chigago

Just over a fortnight to Brexit Day and we have been treated to a turbulent theatre of Westminster posturing. Nothing has really changed, chaos remains. The ship of government has made no progress and is still in peril of sinking, though the captain May be thrown overboard (or not).

To future readers - this is what actually happened (you couldn't make it up!)

1. Tuesday: Theresa May's Deal with the EU was resoundingly defeated for a second time in the Commons. 
2. Wednesday: The Commons voted to avoid leaving the EU without a Deal.
3. Thursday, the votes were:
1. Against a second referendum.
2. Against handing control of Brexit to Parliament.
3. For delaying Brexit for an (unspecified) time

What we expect to see in the future is therefore:

1. The Prime Minister will ask the EU for a delay in Brexit.
2. The Prime minister will submit her deal to Parliament AGAIN.
3. Parliament may wrest back control later.
4. A referendum could still happen after all.
5. A Hard Brexit could still happen.

That's not another fine mess we're in, it's still the same one.

The Brexit Hydra grows more heads

Hercules and the Hydra of Lerna, by Antonio Tempesta (1608). The MET

If you have wondered why this blog has been silent since December, despite all the shenanigans with Brexit, it is because the basic situation has not changed. Parliament is gridlocked over the withdrawal agreement and refuses to approve it, the EU says that it it is up to the UK to come up with an alternative realistic proposal for changes to what already agreed and signed with the rest of the EU. The Prime Minister must feel that she is fighting the proverbial many headed Hydra. No matter what she proposes, another ugly head raises itself and blocks her move, whether in the right or wrong direction.

Meanwhile business is getting increasingly worried about the possibility of the UK crashing out without an agreement, with supermarkets and other suppliers considering stockpiling products that normally arrive from the EU within a day or two. Major car manufacturers are intending to have a break over the Brexit period in March and are reconsidering or even withdrawing their investment in the UK.

The one possible new light on the horizon is the resignation of 8 Labour MPs and three Conservative MPs and their setting up a group (not a party) that aims to be in the centre. They claim they are escaping from parties pulled radically to their respective political left or right wings. Is this the birth of a middle ground common sense, trying to rise from the mire of navel gazing Westminster politics.

Or is it just a new head on the Hydra?

May Two Thirds Vote Confidence Win but Internecine Conservative War Continues in Westminster Bubble

As I awoke in Germany, the news that there would be a conservative vote on confidence in the Prime Minister was just hitting the news. Back in the UK by the evening, the conservative MPs had voted with an almost two thirds majority that they had confidence in her.

Yet, rather than accept the decision and unite to find a solution best for the country, Westminster conservatives have resorted to its navel gazing in their political bubble. The hard line brexiteers still think she should resign and the continuing internecine war will weaken the ability of the government to function

So, in effect, this has all just been a distraction and the actual problem, the concern at all sides about the Backstop if negotiations fail, is still unresolved. With hardly a rest, the Prime Minister is going off to talk to the EU colleagues tomorrow. A hard brexit on WTO rules seems increasingly likely..

And the reaction in the EU when asked whether the UK had the most unstable government in Europe, one source according to the Guardian replied: “Is there a government in London actually?”

May´s Doomed Pilgrimage to Europe and WWII POW Memories of Kindness

The vote on the Withdrawal Agreement was called off until an unspecified later date - and hit even the headlines of the local paper here in Krefeld Germany this morning. During the day local and international media reported on The Stations of May´, as she travelled around Europe looking for some crumbs that might keep the sniping UK politicians at bay and give her deal a chance. Here in Germany, there was incomprehension as to why the Prime Minister thought she could get any changes on a done deal. Indeed the answers from national EU leaders and the EU negotiators themselves came in various shades of Non, Nein, and No.

As the day comes to a close, the conservative sharks were massing close to the critical 40 to instigate a leadership challenge and tomorrow may be another chaotic day.

The pound continues to gradually slide lower against the Euro and the Dollar.

It was therefore a relief and a pleasure to find myself listening to a former German prisoner of war earlier this afternoon, who, wounded at 18 shortly after being drafted in the dying stages of WWII, found himself in a POW camp near Ross on Wye in 1944.

His memories were of the kindness of local English strangers,  who politely stopped him and another POW and invited them to spend Christmas with their family; Who, after the war helped send parcels to his parents, refugees displaced from the East to what was to become West Germany; an English family that arranged for a taxi to collect him from the POW camp for a farewell visit before he finally returned to Germany after 4 years as a POW in the UK.

The heart warming thing is that these were not isolated incidents, but part of a greater humanity, shown in Britain to former enemies,  reported by many POWs of different nationalities, so immediately after a terrible war that showed the true and dark hazard of rampant nationalism.