16.12.2010

Eyewitness in Whitehall

Who caused the violence on the December 9 stop fees and cuts demonstration? Organised thugs and street gangs - as alleged by home secretary Theresa May? This first-hand account, written by a Labour Representation Committee activist, clearly shows that it was the baton-swinging riot police. They were well-organised and bent on confrontation

The demo started (for most people) with a rally in Malet Street from 12 noon, with speakers including John McDonnell (who I chatted to before he addressed the crowd and dashed off to parliament) and Clare Solomon (de facto NUS leader in many people’s eyes). I would guess there were about 10,000 people at this point, with banners from the RMT, PCS, TSSA and a Unison branch. We picked up hundreds more at Kings and LSE on the way, met up with student delegations from South Bank University and Goldsmiths at Trafalgar square, and others just made their way straight to Parliament Square.

We marched off peacefully around Russell Square, down Southampton Row and Kingsway, through Aldwych (LSE) and onto the Strand (Kings) towards Trafalgar Square. I later learned we were supposed to walk down Whitehall towards Parliament Square. This would have been difficult since there was a two-deep police line in full riot gear, supplemented further down Whitehall by a barrier of police vans and further police lines.

So we rushed through Admiralty Arch, turned left down Horse Guards Road and then left via Birdcage Walk/Great George Street into Parliament Square. There were heavy police lines (full riot gear, batons drawn) in front of parliament reinforced with metal barriers, bags of sand (not the puny sandbags you see people using - usually in vain - to stop their house flooding, but wholesalers’ tarpaulin bags full of sand, which had crates underneath them showing they had to be lowered into position by fork-lift truck), and police vans. These also covered the exits to Millbank and over Westminster Bridge. Victoria Street also had a police line (again full riot gear, batons drawn).

As the rest of the protest flowed into Parliament Square via Birdcage Walk/Great George Street there was some milling about while protestors got acclimatised to their new surroundings and evaluated the lay of the land. Whitehall was closed off, but far beyond Downing Street (though police lines would later move further down), as were exits through King Charles Street and via the Ministry of Defence building. After demonstrators were in Parliament Square/Whitehall the police put lines on Birdcage Walk/Great George Street. It was therefore, by 2pm, a large kettled area - though at that point fairly spacious.

What made the area even more spacious was the liberation of Parliament Square - the metal fences were torn down quickly and people flooded into the square, set up camps - lighting fires to keep warm - and set up music systems (sometimes just mobile phones on speaker setting) and there was a carnival atmosphere.

Attempts were made to break through towards parliament, but these were fairly futile, given the obstacles, and attempts were soon abandoned. At this point I took a stroll up the sparsely-populated Whitehall. The cafe next to the Red Lion pub was open and serving protesters (it was packed, so on a ‘one-in, one-out’ basis). As I walked back down Whitehall I saw the young man swinging from the cenotaph flag. He seemed to be shouting ‘wahey’ as he swung. It was not an attempt to desecrate the statue, just a perhaps misjudged attempt to show off and alleviate the boredom. A couple of police moved towards him shouting and he immediately jumped down and ran off into the crowds at Parliament Square.

As I re-entered the square there was a surge at the Victoria Street corner of the square. An Asian man walked past me with a nasty cut/graze on his head. The police were becoming increasingly violent, with sporadic charges into the crowd by police on horseback. The crowd panicked the first time, ran and stampeded. A few people fell over in the melee; there were a couple of damaged ankles. The second time we had spread the word: “link arms”; that way no one falls, no one can be crushed; and the crowd stood firm. As the horses drew back and lines of riot police re-formed, people picked up anything they could and hurled it at the police. I saw sticks, coins, drinks cans and plastic bottles, all thrown by people around me. I also saw one young man (probably a teenager) reach into a bag, pick up two eggs, give one to his mate - and they hurled them at police. All this was utterly futile - but it made everyone feel better. Yes, they could baton us, push us, beat us and charge us, but we weren’t accepting their authority or showing the respect they had so clearly lost. A chant went up: “get those animals off those horses”. There was still an element of the carnival atmosphere and good solidarity among protesters crushed together.

Blood

When the crowd was unmoved by the horse charge, riot police on foot moved in and scattered people with incredible violence, swinging batons wildly and charging at the crowd. Another two men with bloodied heads walked past me. One was being propped up by another protester and looked dazed; I noticed that blood was spurting (not just leaking) out of the side of his head by his temple. As people reacted to this, his assister put a hat or glove (something woollen, anyway) over the wound and pressed it.

This batoning action had opened up space in the crowd for another horseback charge. A large police on a white horse came charging towards me. I moved to the side and hurled abuse (Mum, feminists - I’m not proud of what I said). The red-faced six-foot-plus burly cop leaned over from his horse and shouted “fucking come on then”. Anything to hand rained down on the mounted police again; people threw and swung sticks that had been holding placards. As the riot police charged again a shout went up: “This way” - to move on to another ‘exit’ (I put this in inverted commas since you couldn’t actually exit anywhere).

I could hear that others were throwing firecrackers - presumably in an attempt to spook the horses (perhaps this worked as I later learned one police was thrown from his horse). I later saw evidence of ‘paint bombs’ (I heard someone say they used condoms for them - useful tip!) having been thrown as I saw the paint-splattered uniforms of some police. There was one moment of idiocy when a young man tried to throw a metal pole (detached from the fencing that had been ripped down around Parliament Square) towards police. He was at least 10 lines back from the front - and the pole landed about three or four people in front of him (he was no Tessa Sanderson). Two or three people near him turned round and shouted at him immediately and even the two mates he was with looked sheepish and pulled him back out of this part of the protest. The person it hit was unharmed, knocked but not hurt (mercifully I think it landed on their shoulder).

I took time out at this stage - walked around Parliament Square - and then noticed that a line of riot police on Whitehall had moved right down in front of the Red Lion pub, across the street - and was pressing forward to seal off Whitehall completely. Police vans (about 8 to 10 of them) had also been moved to the Parliament Square end of Whitehall. This was now a tight kettle and tensions rose.

I saw a surge towards the right hand side of Whitehall (on the corner by the Parliament Street entrance into the parliamentary estate and the TSO bookshop) and headed over. Within ten to 15 minutes we had broken through and charged up the road. What I (and many others) hadn’t realised was that there was a metal fence (protecting roadworks - a four foot wide, four feet deep trench for about 50 yards up Whitehall) between the road and the pavement, and we were corralled on the pavement between the buildings to our right and the metal fence to our left. A shout went up that riot police had covered the exit from this ‘tunnel’ 50 yards up. The only solution was to tip the metal fence into the ditch, and exit that way onto Whitehall - it toppled to form a makeshift bridge across in places! Buoyed by our success, the kettle was breached further along and a new stream of people joined us as the police line fragmented in despair - though one cop, in anger or panic, started swinging violently.

It was at this stage I looked up and noticed another section of protesters was kettled further up Whitehall - behind the cenotaph. Again buoyed by seeing thousands of protesters charging towards them, they also broke through and the police pulled back - with much baton swinging along the way. Their 8-10 police vans were now kettled with us. One police officer ran towards a group of four students standing (that is all they were doing) near a police van. He violently threw the smallest one to the ground and the other three turned around and faced him. He drew his baton and found himself with his back against the van with a group of 20 or so students shouting at him. He cowered back and was withdrawn by two other police who saw he had put himself in stupid situation.

At this point, the crowd had room again - we had taken back Whitehall past the Red Lion pub. One line of riot police remained in front of the vans at the Parliament Square end of Whitehall, and became the target for a hail of debris flying at them - all of which bounced off, but they were clearly under attack and hundreds of people were enjoying the role reversal of the police being penned in and scared. The identifiable debris included drinks bottles (glass and plastic), drinks cans, flares (red flame, not bell-bottomed trousers), firecrackers, small chunks of concrete, placard sticks and coins.

I took up a nice seat on the concrete balustrades in front of the Treasury building. From here I could see that while the police were protecting the vans at the front (most protesters were in Parliament Square still) one young man spray-painted ‘SCUM’ in 3-foot high letters on the side of the police van.

Shortly after this I heard news of the vote in parliament - we had lost by 21 votes (others may have heard this earlier). I got talking to some sixth form students as I sat on the wall. To our left (up Whitehall towards Trafalgar Square) we could see police lines re-forming and mounted police heading towards us. The woman next to me said “we’ll be alright, we’re on this wall”. As I knew then, her optimism was misplaced: as the police lines pressed up we were crushed and the most brutal part of the night was about to occur.

The police lines moved in quickly and I was about to jump down when I realised there was no longer any space beneath me. The police were kettling the protest tightly, hitting people with riot shields and swinging the occasional baton at head height. The mood was panic now. Young people - mostly 16-19, I’d estimate - around me began complaining that they couldn’t breathe. I was still stuck on the wall, both feet on the ledge and standing now rather than casually sitting. A young man looked up at me, his terrified girlfriend crying in his chest, and asked “can you tell them [the police] to stop pushing”. I did, as did several others. A couple of people away I noticed another person had fainted. She was only still standing since there was no room for her to fall. By now many people were shouting or screaming I looked one police in the eye and shouted “people are getting crushed, move back”. His snarled reply was “fuck off” as he swung his shield against the unfortunate people in the front of this kettle, pushing up even more - as did the entire police line.

I looked over the wall and saw the police on that line had pushed up further, and that I could have actually jumped over behind the police line - or at least kicked an officer in the head (not saying I wanted to, just that the opportunity was there) - but so tight was the crush that I couldn’t lift my feet off the ledge now. I admit I was a little panicked at this point since the police line was only two people away from me and if somehow it had surged forward, with my feet trapped I wouldn’t have been able to move away from the baton and shield swinging police.

People had now managed to somewhat revive the woman who had fainted - she now seemed to be somewhere between dazed and the early stages of a panic attack. People manoeuvred themselves to push her through to the front so she could be let out. How did the Met respond to this semi-conscious helpless small young woman being pushed towards her with cries of “let her out”, and “get her help”? She was bludgeoned around the head with a riot shield and told to get back. These mostly passive students were becoming increasingly enraged. The police eventually realised the woman was in trouble and pushed her through the lines behind them - her friend was not allowed to go through with her and was hit with a riot shield in the face for her polite and desperate attempts to help her friend.

I, and my sole remaining wall-stander, used the opening created by her departure to slip down to the pavement. We had a crush of people to our right and behind us, a wall to our left and a violent police line just in front of us. Another protester was having difficulty breathing, and people hesitated before squeezing her through to the police line. She was bundled through, but her friend (I’d guess both were 15) was not allowed through and was crying - scared and now alone. I climbed back on the ledge and looked a police in the eye and shouted “tell this lot to fucking move back, someone’s going to get killed”. To be fair, she did look in shock herself. I shouted again at the police on this side “are you fucking thick, move back you fucking idiots”. Several others were even less polite. With many people screaming, there was a genuine fear that people might actually get crushed or killed.

Police tactics

Every police I saw was dressed in riot gear from the off. It’s worth dwelling on what this means. The police are cocooned in heavily padded and (I’m told) Kevlar-plated body armour. They have riot shields and batons (thick metal truncheons over a foot long) which rained down on protestors throughout. They’re also wearing fitted blue riot helmets, with chinstraps and visors that cover from just above their eyeline down to their neck, and finished with boots with steel toecaps - which were used to kick protesters.

They are virtually impenetrable. How any police got hurt is a mystery to me. The one police injury I did hear about from other protestors was when a police was bucked off his horse and then trampled by same animal (come the revolution we should knight it and stable it in the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft). Please also understand the police on horseback are wearing the same riot gear and, from their mounted position, were batoning protestors in the head (if anyone’s seen the cavalry charge in Braveheart, it was reminiscent). If not, just watch Youtube, the aerial footage is perhaps clearer, but the street level shots bring home the frightening reality of being charged by mounted police.

When we reached (and then breached) Parliament Square, there were lines of baton wielding police on Victoria Street, across Parliament (several deep), Millbank and Westminster Bridge, further up Whitehall (two separate lines), and around the MoD and Downing Street, and blocking off King Charles Street. There was clearly not any intention to facilitate a peaceful march. Soon Great George Street/Birdcage Walk was blocked off too.

Soon after, lines of mounted police on horseback were visible in Victoria Street and up Whitehall. Protestors trying to break through the kettle at both these points were regularly charged by police on horseback.

I’ve been on many protests and demonstrations before, been kettled, shoved, batoned, kicked by the Met Police but I have never witnessed that level of violence. I am amazed no one was killed - either by being crushed, hit over the head or trampled by horses. The police were aggressive, violent and rude from the beginning.