Reporting From Parliament: 99 Problems and Democracy's Just One

“Who’s square? Our square!” they shouted. Christina and I went to Parliament Square at 6pm on Friday evening to get a better idea of what Occupy Democracy is about. Upon arrival, the area was quiet, wet and barricaded. Big Ben read 5.50pm but no protesters were in sight so we took a walk around the square, asking the on guard officers, who according to the statement they issued had an “appropriate and proportionate policing plan in place” for the event, about what they were expecting to happen and why fences had been put up. The first part of our investigation proved quite revealing in terms of the mixed responses we received from the policemen. The first officer we approached was very helpful in explaining the situation. Batons are for self-defence and arresting is only used as a last resort. The second officer, on the other hand, gave us a clear indication of his lack of will to cooperate or negotiate with the protesters when the first statement he made was that “nobody cares about what the protesters have to say, nobody listens to them.” They told us that they had experienced some violence in the previous protest, which I’m not surprised about if that’s the attitude protesters received from the authorities. When we asked more about why they had barricaded the square, their answer was that the grass was already in a bad condition and it they couldn’t afford to worsen it.  Perhaps that is so, but perhaps letting the protesters have their voices heard in front of the capital’s political landmark has prevalence over the aesthetics of a lawn. What’s more, they claimed the lawn of Parliament Square to be “private property”, belonging to the Greater London Authority. However, it doesn’t take much to realise this is a Government entity and we all know whose taxes pay for Westminster’s wages and administration. (The GLA is mostly funded by direct government grant with some money collected with local Council Tax.) According to the protesters, the lawn they’d been denied was in no way private property, as claimed by the police. It was owned by the people that worked in the Parliament building right in front of them... One man told us “we can’t even go on a square that we paid for ourselves”.  

             

           

One policeman told us that on their arrival, the protesters would be guided to other places in the city where they would be able to protest peacefully instead of Parliament Square. But we didn’t notice any such advice being given during negotiation attempts with the officers as the crowds started gathering. For a while everyone was just gathered on the south side of the square, chanting occasionally, grouping together - there was a wide range of issues being fought for/complained about: NHS, environment, Freedom for Palestine, paedophilia scandals and democratic accountability. We spoke to a young man who had come all the way from Liverpool on a coach, for the evening, to represent the views of his family and to demand more democracy: “We haven’t really got a democracy in this country. We have what is perceived to be a democracy. We have a few party members to choose from. Unless you go outside the media, which most people don’t, you are only going to get a certain message and there is only a certain choice of people to vote for and I don’t see that as democracy and I don’t think that anyone here sees that as democracy.”

By 7pm, a considerable crowd of protesters had gathered (about 100), leaving little room for everyone to fit on the small footpath of the square. Led by a chanter, they overflowed into the street itself unrolling a big banner, which read “REAL DEMOCRACY NOW”, blocking Whitehall traffic. As we decided to head home at 7.15pm, the protesters were off, walking through traffic in the direction of Millbank.

                           

More press appeared to be on the case this time around. Like last month, Russia Today’s reporter was on site filming live coverage of the events, as well as Press TV, Leading Britain’s Conversation (LBC) and a fair few freelancers who we got talking to. There were also rumours of Sky News reporting however we did not see them ourselves. From our investigating the protest was covered by The Mirror, itv News and The Evening Standard, too.

Although we only stayed for a couple of hours, we got a real feel for the enthusiasm that the mass can create. After speaking to the protesters, we realised how personal and different everyone’s reasons to protest were. The most striking part of the evening, even more striking than the grass ruining excuse from the police, was talking to a young man who told us about paedophilia scandals with orphans in Jersey as well as in London; “Paedophilia is the worst crime but the reason that nobody takes it seriously is because they’re all part of it. As long as it’s kept discreet, it’s not a problem. Those involved in paedophile rings at Dolphin Square, just down the road, are the numbers 2’s and number 3’s of the country.” We had never heard of the Dolphin Square scandal but we looked it up and found some sickening information online. By all means, take a look for yourself, but take into account that we have no way of checking the reliability of the sources, because unsurprisingly, they aren’t mainstream.

The couple of hours we spent observing the protesters’ behaviour and listening to what they, the press and the police had to say about the events raised a number of questions:

• How much attention and support would this movement receive had their right to protest not been limited and had they instead been given a platform?
• Why is the Green Party given the most marginal voice and platform in UK politics?
• Is it thus near-impossible for “new” parties, not in-keeping with the traditional status-quo to emerge as strong contenders in UK politics?
• Is there in fact, a considerable amount of covering up happening in Westminster when it comes to extremely dark topics such as paedophilia? Whether there is or no, I’m sure certain people would like to continue with their ways of see-nothing hear-nothing.
• Was the Savile scandal the tip of the iceberg?

Photo credits: Juliette Lyons

Juliette Lyons & Christina Anagnostopoulos