The Guardian newspaper reported today about a march in London against the Far Right attended by anywhere between 500,000 and 50,000, depending on who is counting.

Having been on a couple of marches against Brexit, and baving witnessed more, I would say that if not half a million, then certainly a big number, and way above 50,000.

I can never figure out why people claim it is difficult to count numbers. Find a high vantage point and count people passing. It’s not rocket science.

The march was billed as being against the Far Right, and there were people from unions representing care workers, educators and other sectors, and people in favour of refugees and the contribution they make to British society.

But the Guardian journalists must have been at a different march to the one I watched because the only mention of Gaza and Palestine in the Guardian article was this:

Separately, police arrested 18 people it said had staged a demonstration in support of Palestine Action outside New Scotland Yard.

In fact I must have seen over a couple of hundred huge Palestinian flags and endless people wearing keffiyehs, and people chanting freedom for Palestine, and more people with signs opposing supposed Israeli genocide and similar accusations.

I’d say the anti-Israel faction all-but hijacked the march and the narrative of the union supporters and people holding up pro-immigrant banners.

I recognise the patterns of my own positions in this. And then I rein myself in and think how people are entitled to take up a cause, including one I think is misguided and that they don’t know what they are supporting.

And if I were to mention October 7th, what would I hear in return? It’s as though the rape, torture, and murder of that day was a blip justified in an otherwise virtuous story.

Mixing Ideas

It wasn’t all like that. There were many people who were marching against the Far Right, and I saw banners ridiculing or opposing Nigel Farage. And banners from the Socialist Worker saying Together we can stop the far right Smash the fascists – Refugees welcome. But then there are other banners, and when I looked at the books on the impromptu stalls, there were ‘Free Gaza’ and ‘Stop the Genocide’ mixed in with Marx and Trotsky and the perpetual revolution.

And stalls selling keffiyehs.

How did those two ideas get mixed up together?

Haaretz newspaper in Israel says the current Government is weakening the institutions that restrain executive power. And the news in Britain a couple of years ago was full of protests on the streets of Tel Aviv against the Government standoff against the courts.

But how does that stack up against the tens of thousands of protestors the Iranian regime killed not more than a few months ago or the killings against Palestinians carried out by Hamas?

Why does MacDonalds spend a million pounds on advertising? Because people are led and affected by messages. Tell it loud enough and long enough and you too will want to buy a MacDonalds burger or a new washing machine, new coat, new car, new political narrative.

Malcolm X

It was a relief to see a man holding a book Malcolm X Black Liberation & the Road to Workers Power. I mean, he was in the right march, but somehow he was ploughing his own furrow.

I remember when Malcolm X was assassinated, and by whom and for what reason.

Union Banners

As I said, there were unions there. Union banners are a whole subculture of pride that dates back more than a century.

These banners immediately make me think of the banners held on marches such as the Jarrow crusade in the 1930s, when thousands of people walked from the north of England to London to demand opportunities for jobs.

Hands Off

But everywhere on the march was the Palestinian cause. Israel has closed Al-Aqsa until April because of unrest but the nearest thing that has come to damaging Al-Aqsa is an Iranian missile that landed near it a week ago.

Maybe the man below with his Stand Up To Racism banner. But then he has a pin with Free Palestine.

And the men in the next photo, standing on the right side of history, and a photo of a leader of the Iranian regime.

In fact their website is nothing to do with Iran, but about apartheid, genocide, sanctions, and war crimes in Palestine, Yemen, and about the treatment of the Uighurs in China and the people in Kashmir.

The People

These are people pouring out of Trafalgar Square heading down Whitehall.

When they started to move, a policeman ran hurriedly down Whitehall looking worried, as though intent on telling his fellow officers of the number of people now coming. It was almost comical.

Ah, there is so much to say. But in this Britain, people can march in protest and no one shoots them for doing so.

This was a protest yesterday against what the protestors’ banners described as the crimes of General Museveni and Muhoozi in Uganda.

The woman sitting and looking to the side, drew my attention.

Later, I looked for sources to substantiate these claims, and I found reports from Reuters, Human Rights Watch, and the US State Department that describe disappearances of opposition supporters and critics.