For a Government led by a former human rights lawyer and one that continues to underline the importance of the right to peaceful protest the authoritarian drift of recent times is marked.
It didn’t start with the mass arrest of many hundreds of people holding signs containing words on Palestine that the Government doesn’t like but that was an indication of the direction of travel. The entirely peaceful protesters are apparently alleged terrorists. Clearly the pen must be mightier than the sword.
The latest development is the arrest of four Led By Donkeys activists for projecting images of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein on to the walls of Windsor Castle on Tuesday evening. Trump was in the UK but not at Windsor at that time.
The protest was entirely peaceful and there is by now a long tradition of various groups projecting images on to public buildings including Parliament.
By contrast at the Unite the Kingdom rally on 13th September there was disorder and attacks on police. Few arrests were made on the day, due to lack of officers. Facial recognition cameras, used controversially at the Notting Hill Carnival, were absent and the Met Police have resorted to posting pictures of people they want to talk to on social media.
An authoritarian drift with a smidgeon of the two tier it seems
Donald Trump is in the UK for a State visit and will stay at Windsor Castle, one of King Charles many residences on 17th and 18th September. There will be a State Banquet, military flypasts, talks and as the picture above shows, agitprop
Donald Trump landed at Stanstead Airport on 16th September and spent the night at the US Ambassador’s residence in Regents Park, central London. He will spend the next two days at Windsor Castle where there will be a State Banquet presided over by King Charlie. Nigel Farage who owns Reform UK a hard to far right political business is not invited. His outfit has only 5 MPs in a Parliament of 630.
A protest at Trump’s visit assembles at Portland Place (near the BBC) in central London at 2pm on 17th September and will march to Parliament Square, although Parliament itself is not sitting again until October now.
With St George’s Cross & Union flags continuing to appear across England, funded in the main by far right supporters of Yaxley Lennon, the long running debate about whether the flags can be reclaimed from the far right or whether its better to use other symbols continues.
Keir Starmer who often appears wrapped in a flag argues that there is the patriotic flag and then there is the flag that is abused by unpatriotic racists. The problem is, its exactly the same flag, so how to tell.
Its not a debate that allows for much nuance. However those raising the flag at England sporting events, where the teams composition is hardly ever something that would meet the approval of the nearly all white attenders of the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally on 13th September can easily live with, do represent something that is mostly not of the far right.
Beyond that the efforts of some on the left to reclaim the flag continue. Full marks to Billy Bragg for continuing to try- his latest sticker focused campaign is shown above.
As a contestation it hasn’t noticeably stopped the far right from flagshagging, although its notable that Mosley’s British Union of Fascists often used other imagery as well as the Union flag, so at some point fascists endeavoured to claim the flag themselves, perhaps starting with the National Front in the 1970s. More research or info from someone who has done it please!
Beyond all that I’m very much with Phil Piratin the East End Communist MP (1945-50) whose biography is called Our Flag Stays Red. Indeed, after all isn’t the anthem of the labour movement or at least British labourism the Red Flag?
The left of course is also internationalist as the thirty Central London demonstrations on Palestine since October 2023 underline. Flying the Palestine flag is an excellent antidote to flagshaggers whether on demonstrations or in local neighbourhoods
E P Thompson in his collection of essays, Writing By Candlelight, argued that letter writers to the Times were often characterised by a provincial and distinctly reactionary viewpoint. The paper still regularly publishes examples of the genre.
However when it comes to Trump’s visit to the UK, all but one published epistler joins Max Hastings (not a figure of the left) in saying they plan to join a protest.
If only Keir Starmer knew how to pick up on a popular mood…
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has paid tribute to Robert Redford who has died at the age of 89.
Redford was one of the most iconic moustache wearers of the post-1945 period. In films like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance his facial hair added gravitas and sexuality that few other actors could manage.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, it is of course no accident that all the tributes to Redford are accompanied by a picture of him in his later years, clean moustache. In contrast we remember him for his magnificent moustache
Stuart Hall on the lessons of Blairism: a project on the left to grasp the ‘change of the whole terrain’ is needed
The late Marxist cultural theorist Stuart Hall was interviewed by the New Statesman in 2012 and in it he touched on the New Times project of Marxism Today in the Thatcherite 1980s.
His understanding of where the New Times project led and what it was intended to be is perhaps relevant for 2025. Hall’s corrective to what he thought New Times was meant to be and should be about remains interesting:
The analysis, and his account of “new times” (the changes in the so-called post-Fordist economy brought about by globalisation), had some influence on the early intellectual outriders of New Labour, but Hall insists that his insights were vulgarised by the Blairites. “There is a tiny kernel of truth in the assertion that [Marxism Today] created Blairism, in the sense that the ‘new times’ stuff was addressing the change of the whole terrain. But what we recommended was that you needed a project on the left of the same breadth and depth as Thatcherism. New Labour understood it as meaning that you needed the same project!”
The post Brexit environment, the demise of the Tory Party and the rise of the hard right Reform certainly suggest a new political terrain. Starmer’s attempt to follow it, close to Blue Labour, is not working. As Hall a project on the left is needed. If Starmer can’t or won’t do that there are others who may be able to
Justin Von Haynau was known as a brutal soldier and one of those responsible for violently repressing the European revolutions in 1848
His reputation for brutality spread throughout western Europe. In Brussels, Haynau narrowly escaped violence. In London in September 1850, he was attacked by some draymen from the Barclay & Perkins brewery on the South Bank of the Thames who threw mud and dung at him and chased him down the Borough High Street, shouting “Down with the Austrian butcher!”.
Donald Trump who is in the UK yet again this week is arguably personally responsible for no violence, at least in his current role as President. But without doubt he has overseen, approved and encouraged violent activity.
Protests this week will be peaceful but below is a detailed report of what happened to Haynau when he visited London. Robust protest against unwelcome foreign tyrants is a great British tradition
The Miscreant Haynau in London
Well and nobly have the high-spirited fellows employed at Barclay and Perkins’s brewery displayed their disgust and horror for a ruffian who has dared pollute our shores by his presence, and thrust his scoundrel person amongst us. The following description is given of his reception at the large brewery, where he was introduced as Rothschild’s friend:-
On Wednesday morning, shortly before twelve o’clock, three foreigners, one of whom was very old and wore long moustachios, presented themselves at the brewery of Messrs. Barclay and Company, for the purpose of inspecting the establishment. According to the regular practice of visitors, they were requested to sign their names in a book in the office, after which they crossed the yard with one of the clerks. On inspecting the visitors’ book the clerks discovered that one of the parties was no other than Marshal Haynau, the late commander of the Austrian forces during the attack upon the unfortunate Hungarians. It became known all over the brewery in less than two minutes, and before the general and his companions had crossed the yard, nearly all the labourers and draymen ran out with brooms and dirt, shouting out, “Down with the Austrian butcher!” and other epithets of rather an alarming nature to the marshal. A number of the men gathered round the marshal as he was viewing the large vat, and continued their hostile manifestations. The marshal being made acquainted by one of the persons who accompanied him, of the feeling prevailing against him, immediately prepared to retire. But this was not so easily done. The attack was commenced by dropping a truss of Straw upon his head as he passed through one of the lower rooms; after which grain and missiles of every kind that came to hand were freely bestowed upon him. The men next struck his hat over his eyes, and hustled him from all directions. His clothes were torn off his back. One of the men seized him by the beard, and tried to cut it off. The marshal’s companions were treated with equal violence, They, however, defended themselves manfully, and succeeded in reaching the outside of the building. Here there were assembled about 500 persons, consisting of the brewer’s men, coal-heavers, &c, the presence of the obnoxious visitor having become known in the vicinity. No sooner had the Marshal made his appearance outside the gates than he was surrounded, pelted, struck with every available missile, and even dragged along by his moustache, which afforded ample facilities to his assailants, from its excessive length, it reaching nearly down to his shoulders. Still battling with his assailants, he ran in a frantic manner along Bankside until he came to the George public-house, when, finding the doors open, he rushed in and proceeded up-stairs into one of the bed-rooms, to the utter astonishment of Mrs. Benfield, the landlady, who soon discovered his name and the reason of his entering the house. The furious mob rushed in after him, threatening to do for the “Austrian Butcher;” but, fortunately for him, the house is very old-fashioned, and contains a vast number of doors, which were all forced open, except the room in which the marshal was concealed. The mob had increased at that time to several hundreds, and from their excited state Mrs Benfield became alarmed about her own property as well as the marshal’s life. She accordingly despatched a messenger to the Southwark police-station for the assistance of the police, and in a short time Inspector Squires arrived at the George with a number of police, and with great difficulty dispersed the mob and got the marshal out of the house. A police galley was at the wharf at the time, into which he was taken, and rowed towards Somerset House, amidst the shouts and execrations of the mob. Messrs. Barclay have suspended all hands, in order to discover the principals in the attack. It appears that the two attendants of the marshal were an aide-de-camp and an interpreter. He had presented a letter of introduction from Baron Rothschild. who had therein described him as “his friend Marshal Haynau.”
ADDITIONAL PARTICULARS.
Our own reporter, who visited Bankside on Thursday, ascertained that the general had a narrow escape from death, as his captors exhibited a strong inclination to extend towards him the same full measure of vengeance which he had so often exercised towards the unfortunate patriots of Hungary. In flying from his pursuers, he, as stated above, entered the George, where, after seeking vainly for some outlet by which to escape, he found his way into a small pantry, in which was a door. This door the general opened with the energy of desperation, and was half-way through it, when he found there was no hope of escape that way – the conqueror of Hungary had taken refuge in a dust-bin. As he stood looking around him, half in the pantry and half in the dust-bin, his pursuers overtook him; and, as he stood in a stooping posture, had a good opportunity of thrashing him with their various weapons, one of which, a bean-stalk, about an inch and a quarter in thickness, was used with such hearty good will, that it was broken upon his back. He was then seized by half-a-dozen of his assailants, some of whom had hold of his coat, while others less tender of his person, grasped his long moustachios, and dragged him back along the passage towards the street: but watching his opportunity, he managed, with the help of two labouring men, who were ignorant of his name, to break away from his captors, and rush up-stairs. His newly-found champions closing the door at the bottom of the staircase, and mounting guard outside. The general and his two foreign friends who had accompanied him, tried to escape by a window in one of the bed-chambers, but not succeeding, were compelled to remain in “durance vile,” until the arrival of a strong detachment of police enabled them to leave the house with safety. The general’s outer man had been so damaged in the fray, that he was glad to accept the loan of a coat, and that from a pitying bystander. The two men who had so gallantly defended the “Saviour of the Austrian Empire” against his assailants, were magnificently remunerated; the one receiving 4s. 6d , and the other 2s. 10d. for his services. The landlord of the George, upon inquiry at Morley’s Hotel, Trafalgar Square, on Thursday morning, was told that the general “had gone back.” Several dismissals have, we are told, taken place in Barclay’s brewery, but the obnoxious name of Haynau, together with those of his two companions, have been carefully obliterated from the visiting book.
A lot has happened in the last 16 years and a good deal of it not for the good.
One positive has been the explosion of craft or independent, in terms of styles, availability and quality.
Few if any breweries encapsulate that better than Kernel and its founder Evin O’Riordan who has now been brewing with a beard for 16 years.
A new beer a brown stout based on a Barclays brewery recipe from 1812 has been brewed for the occasion. An interesting revival of an historic London beer style.
Kernel’s beer remains excellent continuing to push at the boundaries of what makes good and interesting beer.
The bottles and the label remain as they were although rather easier to get nowadays. Indeed a few Kernel beers including the Table Beer can now be found in Waitrose.
As much to the point Kernel just continues doing what it does very well. No crowdfunding, takeovers and mega-expansion plans.
Its perhaps the toughest of all business models but arguably the best.
As Trump visits London raise a glass in Solidarity. Taybeh, Palestinian craft brewer & Brewgooder Sun & Stone lager
The 30th central London march for Palestine took place on 6th September. Marching in numbers (200,000)is important. It underlines that anger at the Government’s failure to act on Gaza is not going away.
There are other ways of demonstrating solidarity.
Corp B Brewgooder Brewery has produced a collaboration 4.5% lager with long standing Palestinian craft brewery Taybeh
However the impact goes much wider than that. Following a members decision the Co-Operative is no longer selling Israeli goods. It is however selling the Sun and Stone lager in its stores across the UK.
By the way for those who think the duty of solidarity is important but the beer probably isn’t up to much, you’d be wrong. I’ve imbibed some and can report that it is decent and highly quaffable.
Finally to get a thirst for drinking the Sun and Stone lager the Trump Not Welcome protest assembles on 17th September at 2pm at Portland Place near the BBC and will end with a rally at Parliament (not sitting on Wednesday but symbolic) at 5pm
