Thousands of people gathered in London today in opposition to lockdown and to the idea of vaccine passports. Banners held by those in the “Unite for Freedom” protest read “no new normal”, “no health passport” and much more. Footage from the march gives an idea of the sheer number of people who attended.
The Mail has more.
TV presenter Beverly Turner has joined thousands of activists marching through central London in a “Unite for Freedom” protest to demand a ban on vaccine passports.
Demonstrators, also including London Mayor candidates Piers Corbyn and Laurence Fox, made their way through the capital earlier today as they waved banners and placards daubed with a range of slogans including “no new normal” and “no health passport”.
The crowds did not appear to be adhering to social distancing guidelines and were not wearing face masks.
The protest comes amid discussions over “Covid-status certificates” being considered by ministers… despite concerns from Boris Johnson’s own MPs that they will be “intrusive, costly and unnecessary”.
Earlier this month, Britain’s equalities watchdog warned the Government that vaccine passports could be unlawful, create a “two-tier society” and discriminate against migrants, ethnic minorities and the poor.
The supporters of the movement are protesting against new Covid measures including what they call “coerced vaccinations”…
The Metropolitan Police took to Twitter earlier in the day with a series of posts that read: “We have a policing operation in central London today as a result of a number of demonstrations.
“Anyone coming into London for a protest must make sure their gathering is lawful, with a risk assessment carried out by the organiser…
“Officers are on site and are engaging with those taking part.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Hector Drummond has questioned the lack of media coverage of the protest in London, accusing the BBC of “blatant politicisation”.
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Reuters:
‘Several thousand anti-lockdown demonstrators marched through central London on Saturday despite restrictions on mass gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The event was billed by organisers: “Unite for Freedom”.
The protesters view COVID-19 restrictions as unnecessary and a breach of their human rights. They oppose vaccinations, mask-wearing and so called health passports.
Media reports put numbers at about 10,000, though the Metropolitan Police did not confirm a figure.
Protesters chanted “freedom” and “take off your mask” and some carried placards saying: “No to vaccine passports” and “Lockdowns kill”. Most were unmasked.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said he was not aware of any arrests.’
Does 10,000 sound about right?
I would say a lot more than that. I stopped for a sit down at around 3 and although I joined late and thought I’d be near the back, the march carried on past me for a good 20 minutes until I rejoined and at that stage there were still thousands behind me. I stood at Hyde Park waiting for it to come to an end but it just didn’t and eventually I had to leave!
My brother and husband did the same! Had a break and a bit of a detour then re-joined! They had a great day, the atmosphere was brilliant, they said. But they too headed home from Hyde Park.
One of my friends stood to video the crowd and said it took 1hour 20 mins for the march to walk past. A steady pace was kept up throughout so we can probably work out a fairly accurate number on that. The road was solid with people.
Doesn’t matter, the villains will ignore a million if it suits them – how many were at the Countryside Alliance mach a few years back?
Indeed. And how many of us marched for Free Tommy. There were nearly 40,000 calculated in the end by police footage but. Not a single mention on any broadcast media, or for that matter any written media to support a fellow journalist.
There was a million at the huge anti-Iraq war march in London back along – and we got ignored then. I was there and it was HUGE. But I think one very important thing this march has done is give us confidence that there are a LOT more of us than the Government/MSM/etc have been making out and there’s a lot more “pebbles on our beach” than just little us.
The fact that Blair showed he could face down such vast numbers in the anti-Iraq war and get away with it gave the political class the confidence that they could do it too. That they still listen to the wretch says a great deal about the perversion of society in general, and the utter contempt in which government holds us today
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 on the ground were talking in the 100,000s some seasoned marches reckon it was nearly a million. It certainly was packed wall to wall down Oxford Street, and all streets into Parliament Square etc. Interestingly no helicopters circulating above. Usually when we march there are a good half dozen helicopters making a lot of noise.
No saw one chopper! 😀
My suspicion is that all the opposition – ie police,MSM, etc vastly underestimated how many of us would turn up in London. Witness how the police were very outnumbered and I got the distinct impression they’d worked out a battle plan based on a much smaller number of protestors.
normally the TSG vans are stationed in Piccadilly and Haymarket. Nothing this time.
I think the MSM need to go to specsavers to check their eyesight if they couldn’t see that there were a significant greater numbers than 10k – probably nudging the million mark according to some. Difficult to estimate on the ground but the crowds seemed never ending!
Still nothing on BBC and ‘COVID deniers’ video on Sky News. Bastards.
Not even a tweet all day from the BBC. They know the vast majority of the crowd are coming for them.
It took the March the best part of an hour to pass NBH on Oxford St. They probably didn’t notice.
You can’t see a crowd like that outside while their heads are stick in a fire bucket. Oh, and they couldn’t hear it either as they had their fingers stuck in their ears chanting la,la,la….
They are the ones who need to be deplatformed
they clocked a thousand Chelsea fans right enough
Just one more episode of Line of Duty to watch on Sunday, then the BBC licence goes! And apparently Line of Duty was actually made by ITV, but sold to the BBC! They can’t even make their own blockbuster dramas these days !
complain here, I have
https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints/make-a-complaint/
Done.
Done
Done
So have I — A disgraceful organisation… An embarrassment.
Completed!
Done.
Done!
…..I’m sure it’s because everyone in the Newsroom is home for the weekend but surely even your janitors must have noticed a few HUNDRED THOUSAND people marching in central London. Perhaps a fair and balanced report on it would be part of your remit? Or does your duty to report no longer matter?
PW
Thank you for the link! My complaint is in too, and I’ll be requesting a refund on my licence fee next week.
Must be fake news then!
You need to go to Sky News Australia for proper coverage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-5F2twDSgk
Agree. They’ve been the best source of real news this past year.
But the headline item on their online news is the proposed social media blackout by football clubs. Good to see they’ve got their priorities right. Bastards.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJk7qLsCnWs
This is on the Sky News video channel. The reporter started going on about how people would be angry at the protesters ignoring lockdown regulations, at which point I stopped watching.
I thought I saw something on BBC News about “conspiracy theorists and Qanon”. But I could have been hallucinating.
There was a character in John Brunner’s Stand On Zanzibar who spent his time stoned out of his head, watching TV and thinking “Christ! What an imagination I’ve got!”
Nowadays you don’t even need the drugs
Great stuff! Worth checking out the best rated comments, on the DM story, which are broadly very supportive!
Enjoy and please share my anti-lockdown music. There’s no monetary gain in this for me, I just want to inspire:
https://youtu.be/5jcewTk0pFs
What world are they living in please? Looks nice
It gladdens the heart to see so many people coming together to stand up against government tyranny!
Mad that it didn’t make the news. It was big and still going when I called it a day at about 4.30. We’d done a round tour back to Hyde Park. Generally a nice vibe and very diverse, which was good to see. Other marches I’ve been on – mainly climate, which I know won’t be popular here! – have been more bright-white and middle class. This one felt like a lot of very different people had come together, which was really encouraging.
Thank you for standing up for our civil society. You should be rightly pleased & proud of your stance.
Very much appreciated from a housebound Long Covid sufferer.
Have you tried the Math+ Protocol for long covid? It is supposedly effective very quickly for 95% of sufferers. https://covid19criticalcare.com/covid-19-protocols/ I hope it helps you! My sister had it – it quickly reversed after she started taking quercetin, zinc and vitamin D daily, though the protocol includes Ivermectin too which is a more powerful tool. Good luck!! xx
My impression formed over the last year or so, is that the anti lockdown movement represents little Britain, more than anything that’s come before. It’s as diverse as the country is and this scares those in power, who want the masses to believe it’s a right wing, white movement.
It was VERY ‘diverse’. A lot of singing & chanting. But the ‘diverse’ guys & gals looked as though they probably didn’t WFH, so had a dog in the fight.
Congratulations and thank you, your views on climate change are immaterial as are mine on Brexit.
There were a couple small protests last year in my provincial city but I will attend the next one though my presence will not add much to the diversity of the occasion.
Now on Sky News, with quite a good commentary despite the somewhat snarky headline
http://news.sky.com/story/oxford-street-shoppers-heckled-over-face-masks-as-thousands-protest-covid-rules-in-london-12285712
Fair report from the Daily Mirror of all places.
Although they limit themselves to ‘thousands of protestors’ not once do they use the words ‘deniers’ or ‘vax’ and no mention is made of the Police.
The attached strapline includes ‘arrest Boris Johnson’, later in the copy this is extended to ‘arrest Matt Hancock’.
The article garnered 3.2 million ‘likes’ but Daily Mirror articles always do.
I’ve complained about the lack of news cover at the bbc, please do the same:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints/make-a-complaint/
Done
Already done see above!
YAY!!!! Go us…
I’ve been on all the Covid marches apart from last month when I was having a part replaced. This was several orders of magnitude bigger. And the policing was different. No presence in or beside the March, A few at the end of a couple of side streets but along the 10 mile route hardly a cop. Less than on a no March day. There were a lot of police as the crowd formed up at Hyde Park Corner, including TSG vans, but when the crowd rapidly grew past a certain point they all melted away. The helicopter pictures to Gold Commander obviously triggered the “it’s too big – don’t interfere” switch. No need. Much jollier and less dangerous than Notting Hill.
Gold Commander for this would have been Bozo.
Way too duckin risky.
Worth also noting that nothing got smashed up as happens every time there is a BLM or climate change March
Oh, indeed. Until the lefties got out of bed this evening.
Notice the ‘soft uniforms’ worn by Police in Anna Brees’ Twitter video.
I happened a little while ago on a short bit on the BBC News channel. The thrust was that it is all conspiracy theorists, covid-is-a-hoax people, etc!
The BBC’s Marianna Spring, “award-winning specialist reporter covering disinformation and social media”, had this to say on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/mariannaspring/status/1385925560631705600
By now we are in alternate universes.
Hard to believe that Marianna is a real,or single person. Sounds like a nom delivery plume for a 77 cadre.
Philomena Cunk!
there are gangs of vile anti-vaxxers there.
Thousands? only? while it is great to see so many people all united, for this madness to end, we need more support… where is everybody?
Loads of people wanted to be there but couldn’t. No hotels, trains off or strangely suddenly too expensive etc.
BBC rotten to the core
Just submitted my pennyworth to BBC Complaints . . .
https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints/make-a-complaint/
There has apparently been a large demonstration in Central London today, Sat 24 April 2021, demanding the return of many basic human rights, taken from us all this last year with parliamentarily undebated edicts. I have seen and listened to BBC news reports and if the BBC was my only source of information, the event DID NOT HAPPEN. Throughout the Pandemic the BBC appears to have been the voice solely of what effectively became last year a totalitarian regime. It has offered no opportunity to hear opposing views to those of No.10 and its small cadre of ‘advisers’. To ignore a large demonstration about issues that effect EVERYONE OF US in the heart of the country’s capital is inexcusable.
I too have submitted a complain but I have accepted they are a disgrace to journalism. I have not watched the BBC for a couple of years. They should be defunded..
Defunding the BBC (in its current format) is fortunately not for the government to decide but for each and every household.
I made my decision to defund the BBC 15 years ago, about the same time I defunded British Telecom though for different reasons.
No solution. Baby and bathwater issue. The BBC is not just its news and current affairs output. And its not just the BBC involved in outright propaganda.
The problem stems from too much (and increased) political control, with the current DG a Tory Party funder.
Without the BBC, we would lose much of the possibility of variety and an alternative to commercially-driven pap in broadcasting.
From London, Saturday.
Courtesy Daily Mirror.
Me too. I was there. Here’s what I wrote:
It was reported that the BBC took down its complaints page about their blanket coverage of the death of the Duke of Edinburgh when it reached 10,000 but that the eventual total was 100k.
Where is such information found since it would be good to know how many complaints like yours they received ?
I suspect that’s very internal BBC info unless there’s a leak.
Non-coverage of the protest won’t upset as many as the near blanket suspension of TV and radio schedules to bring us non-stop coverage of how a royal corpse is getting along though.
What I’ve seen and heard has been largely the same on commercial TV and radio as well, it has to be said. Result is most won’t know there ever was a protest.
Was brought up in Wembley Park close to and been to many matches at stadium so have a good idea on size of crowds. On 20 March wellover 100,000 and today much larger, Oxford Street and extensions Holborn etc. full from Marble Arch to Old Bailey, so between half a million and a million. Myself and my wife over 70 but felt we should do more than just write letters, and give some money. So uplifting the number of people opposing totalitarianism
good work wished I could be there.
Why? You are pro lockdown and pro vaccine.
It’s worth noting that today’s march was a peaceful affair. No private property got smashed up as happens everyone there is a BLM or climate change march.
I was there – cycled forty-five miles to get there but I was determined to be a part of this protest after missing the last one – it was a huge gathering regardless of what the msm tell you. Didn’t meet anyone famous but had a chat here and there with fellow protestors – seeing all those smiling happy faces was worth it – met some fellow cyclists also protesting – good atmosphere and no trouble at all – I hate to say it but the police were ok too (well, from what I saw of the protest where I was anyway) – looking forward to the next one.
This is growing now – we must keep the momentum going – this government must be defeated on this issue.
“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
― Thomas Jefferson
It was brilliant – fantastic atmosphere. I couldn’t believe the numbers. Oxford street was a river of people.
Was it the onset of good weather that finally got the numbers up ?
Was only asking, it bodes well for a lively Summer if the weather stays fine.
Of course sunshine had something to do with it! Nothing wrong with that either.
Absolutely Vitamin D in spades!!!
Sad to see all the idiots on twitter having a pop at the marchers, one even accused them of having a ‘low IQ’! It seems to me that they themselves are the ones with a low IQ. Just do what TPTB tell them – no brains and certainly no common sense.
It’s easy for them to slander people by suggesting they/we have a low IQ.
Personally mine is in the top 4% of the population. So if I’m stupid by their standards then so are most of the country, probably including themselves!
I was there and we were probably in the middle of at least a 5km queue. More like 10km. People were 1m away from the person in front and there were 20-30 people across, so roughly that makes at least 100k people – at minimum. One photo from a helicopter would tell us, but that will never be available, given the news blockout. Anyway I felt at home amongst a middle aged, calm and concerned crowd. A very pleasant day!
Perhaps drones should have been organised.
No idea, but I am guessing that there are all sorts of restrictions on flying drones over central London
There was a drone over us at one point, probably a police drone as you cannot fly drones in London.
There is some drone footage from the march going around on Telegram, looking west along Oxford Street
https://www.instagram.com/p/COEKzZ4AGjk/
Well done! From your mates down under:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-5F2twDSgk
Nothing on the BBC?! Well blow me down – maybe I should give them up entirely!
I was on the march in Glasgow yesterday. By comparison, it was absolutely tiny. Scotland has no back bone to stand up against totalitarianism, it would seem. In 2019 I attended an Independence March in the city, as an observer with a camera, and there were 10s of thousands at it. Part of the issue with yesterday’s march in Glasgow was how hard it was to find info on it. It truly felt like an underground movement. Anyway, it seemed like the march was starting at various points around the city. I met up with it on the south side of Glasgow in Queens Park. The only hint that something might be happening in the park was the relatively large numbers of police officers. I asked one of them why there was such a heavy police presence and was told it was because there’s apparently going to be a demonstration. The Telegraph app alerted me that we were to gather at the tennis courts. Standing on the periphery, it was interesting to watch lots of small groups of people who’d been sitting chilling on the grass suddenly get up and start heading towards the tennis courts. The police, including two… Read more »
Thanks for this. A Postcard from Glasgow – Toby?
Damn all about the protest march in this morning’s online Sunday Times. Instead it offers us alarming news of the “crushing second wave” in India. They are quite shameless in harvesting the commercial rewards that come with promoting the fear narrative.
noticing all the comments about lack of BBC coverage.
sunday morning just checked . Still nothing
BUT . prominent on the main news page
“A man has been arrested in Spain on suspicion of assault after allegedly infecting 22 people with Covid.”
Everyone knows the broadcast media (RT excepted) are corrupt and will not relay the truth let alone what’s right infront of them. That is why most people who actually think for themselves (majority of people) choose to go to the new media to keep informed. The coverage yesterday was just amazing by UNN, Truthfinder, Ruptly etc. Not to mention all the individual streamers. A great pity that they were being attacked and interferred with by Silicon Valley and their paymasters.
The brainwashed (academia, students etc) will stay with the brainwasher.
The BBC are a disgrace. They are wilfully ignoring a large sector of those paying the license fee, in their absolute bias towards the narrative. Doubtless they would try to report it as people not adhering to social distancing and masks and therefore likely starting a third wave. Funny that all the protests last year, including even the BLM ones, never caused a spike in infections! I am certainly not paying my license fee ever again.
My wife and I were there. We walked 4 miles or 6.5km from HPC to TCR, started at HPC at around 1.15pm. We could never see where the front was, nor the end anyway. 6500 meters length x 10 meters width suggests 65.000 people at least if TCR to HPC was packed completely at one time, which it must have been, and that is much lowballed, so hundred(s) thousand(s) is not a stretch, tens of thousands a certainty. The Express story starts out fairly, although they couldn’t help to use thousands in the headline and tens of below. It was an amazing, joyful, peaceful, friendly, tolerant atmosphere and a the crowd was totally representative of the country without the thugs. I even saw a person in the 90s who could barely walk and several wheelchaired ones as well. There was absolutely no need for the police to get involved, and as long as we were there, they weren’t and just stood by (the DT obviously just fishes out a separate incidence afterwards elsewhere and choses to report on that one only). Yes, people who stood by were addressed by some to ditch their masks, but this was in no way… Read more »
And still the BBC, ITV and Sky ignore yesterday’s massive protest in London… You can only ignore it for so long you know, and it only confirms people’s opinion of you
It can’t be very nice working for an organisation, such as the BBC, ITV and Sky, where you are expected to lie and deceive on a daily basis. It can’t be good for the soul and your mental health. I could not do it.
Yesterday’s non-reporting of events in London will surely make even more people aware of the bias and corruption within the mainstream media.
Yes I wonder how they look at themselves in the mirror of a morning. But even worse how do they do the mental gymnastics of having to spout the stuff they do while they must KNOW it is at best biased and at worst untrue.