UK protests over US travel ban: 'we felt it was important to make a stand'
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Version 0 of 1. Stephen Fletcher, 35, actor, Liverpool It was about 8.30pm on Sunday when I looked to see the list of marches around the country. I noticed there wasn’t one for Liverpool and I thought, well, I’ll just create one on Facebook. I’m not a longtime activist, I’m just a local Liverpool actor. I suppose I’ve got a bit more involved with politics in the last year or so, not in any big way, but enough to make a bit of noise about what is happening at the moment. Quite soon after I posted on Facebook, someone involved with Momentum and a couple of others had similar thoughts, and because they are more used to doing this sort of thing I said you take the reins and I will bring my group, which wasn’t political, just lots of likeminded people. We had around 1,000 people at the end, at St George’s Hall. One thing that will really stay with me was an Iranian refugee who spoke really emotionally and said thank you to the city for “protecting us” – that was her quote. Yes, Liverpool is a long way from the US, but nothing changes if everyone has that attitude. My main feeling was that Liverpool was left out and it shouldn’t be, and I thought someone has got to do something. Also, Liverpool in recent years has proven that unless you say something, nothing gets changed. I mentioned the example of the Hillsborough families in my speech – there’s a lot to be said for standing together in the face of adversity, despite lots of other people saying “let’s keep our mouths shut, what difference does it make, move on”. Vicki Powell, 33, body piercer, Wolverhampton I’m part of a group who are planning a women’s protest next month, and when we found out about the protests against the Muslim ban, some of us thought we really should do something in Wolverhampton. There was a protest in Birmingham, but it’s not always convenient for everyone to get there, so we just thought, sod it, we’ll see if anybody wants to join us. We felt it was important to make a stand, even if it was only a little stand, because if you don’t stand up then you are basically complicit with these people. I organised it on Monday afternoon while I was at work, and asked people to meet by the Prince Albert statue. Overall we had about 30 people, but we also spoke to some passersby and hopefully spread the word a bit. When I was a teenager I was very vocal. I’ve not been so active in the last seven or eight years, but I’ve really got back into [campaigning] because of Brexit and now this. It’s really too much. I felt this is important to do, because Wolverhampton is such a multicultural city, and it’s awful that people are being divided because of this asshole. Perhaps on a wider scale people might see it as a little bit pointless, but to those of us involved it’s not. We’re trying to do something, and something is better than nothing. Stella Rooney, 18, art student, Dundee I knew someone who was organising an Edinburgh event, and then we saw Glasgow pop up at the same time. And myself and a couple of others thought: no one is going to do one in Dundee, and we should. Why not? We just stuck it up on Facebook at about 3pm on Sunday, invited everyone we knew, and those people invited other people. It grew organically from there. We had about 500-600 who turned up at the City Square, and we were really surprised we had so many. I’m from Glasgow originally, but people were saying we’ve not had anything of this size of Dundee for years that was so spontaneous. I think Trump is only going to provoke more of a backlash as his policies become more damaging. Right now people are angry at the idea of these things, but once they become fully implemented I think there will be more people out on the streets joining us. Personally, I have been involved in a few protests, but a lot of the people I met out in Dundee had either not been to a protest since the Iraq war or had never been to a protest. It all felt a bit different to your standard demo. Liz Yeates, 39, stay-at-home mum and student, Leicester Just after Trump was elected we heard he was interested in visiting Leicester because there has been a suggestion he is related to Richard III, so we organised a small protest at the visitor centre, and out of that came the Facebook group Leicester Against Trump. On Sunday I had been hearing about the immigration bans and worrying about what else was going on when I heard [about the London protest]. I was kind of hoping someone else was going to do it, and they didn’t, so I just set up a Facebook event and started adding people. It grew from that. I’ve previously organised a local breastfeeding campaign, and one of the first groups of people I called on were my lactating people. They are really stroppy, cool women, and they were so quick to be out there and doing it. So that was a good start. We met at the clock tower in the middle of Leicester. The BBC said there were around 400 of us, and we had some really amazing speakers. It was important for us to turn out, firstly because of Leicester’s diversity. We have to show solidarity to Muslims who might be over there or have families over there. Also, we are so close to America, and what goes on over there really does affect what happens over here. But the most important factor was that I wanted to counteract all the negative messages my daughter is getting, to show her that she has got two strong mums and people who are willing to stand up for what is right. |