This weekend (June 26), as the Government once again found itself embroiled in controversy, thousands turned out to a national demonstration called by the People’s Assembly to declare the Tory party as unfit to govern.
The protest, which started outside the BBC on Portland place before making its way through London to Parliament Square, saw activists and protesters from a range of different groups, organisations and collectives come together. Among them were the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Stop the War, Kill The Bill, Extinction Rebellion, Palestine Solidarity Campaign and various unions.
The day before the march took place, Health Secretary Matt Hancock came under fire following the leak of security footage that showed him kissing his aid Gina Colangelo, thereby breaching his own social distancing guidelines.
Upon arrival in Parliament Square the crowds were addressed by various speakers including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Labour MP Zarah Sultana and former Labour MP, and national Secretary of the People’s Assembly, Laura Pidcock. In a speech delivered shortly before Hancock’s resignation, Sultana said that it was not just him whose position had become untenable. “Under [the] government, tens of thousands of disproportionately working-class people died,” she said. “It’s also Boris Johnson [who has to go], it’s Rishi Sunak, it’s Priti Patel, it’s the whole rotten Conservative Party.”
Despite a police presence, there was no confrontation between protesters and officers in attendance. As the protest wrapped up, the anti-lockdown ‘Freedom March’ protest made its way past the square but the passage of the two groups went off without incident. Huck’s photographer, Theo McInnes, went down to capture the protest.
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