WEDNESDAY 9TH DEC – Seems like yesterday in the ‘sunlit uplands’ was just a respite as we descended into the depths of Mordor with the return of the yellow-vested Orcs, but more of that later.
We did also have one Evil Hobbit, who managed an early insult towards Raenim, calling her a ‘Nazi’ – rather bizarre as a you could not meet a more mild mannered and polite woman.
This verbal, vertically challenged woman was the one that had tried to burn little EU flags in an earlier demo and nearly set herself on fire. She is quite religious and often quotes the Bible, particularly the passages that say that the UK does not belong in the EU – extremely good prediction for such an ancient text.
We refrained from asking to see her feet to confirm our Hobbit theory.
Raenim was not bothered as she has worked with teenagers excluded from from school and so she says she has a very thick skin and a high tolerance level for personal abuse. I could sympathise having been involved in social work for over 40 years and it seems being a peaceful demonstrator is sadly now another activity where you have to put up with abuse.
The Leavers have a new wheeze with a small cart on pram wheels with loads of notices such as ‘Save Our Sovereignty’, a drum and a Liberty Bell which they were constantly ringing while banging the drum. This caused so much racket that Lord Roberts appeared mainly to complain about the noise. He did a quick TV interview and went back in.
We thought that this weird vehicle would be what we are left with to bring goods into the country after Brexit! I wonder if they know that the original Liberty Bell was completely cracked and could not be mended, not a good symbol for the UK after Brexit I feel.
It wasn’t long before there were more Yellow-bellies there and the first very noisy and offensive man started repeatedly shouting ‘Out Means Out’ which appears to be a truism that you don’t need a dictionary for.
It went through my mind that if he was in Yorkshire they would hear this as ‘Anything means Anything’ which is logically more accurate. In any case we added ‘Chaos’ on his second ‘Out’ which seemed to shut him up a bit.
The Yellow-bellies became more restless and frustrated and so upped their insult level by calling us ‘traitors’, ‘paedos’, ‘paid lackeys of the EU’ and the worst one they could come up with was strangely ‘social workers’ (I thought that estate agents were most hated).
They became so loud we had to ‘Jerusalem’ them with a rousing chorus of the whole hymn with the aid of Nicola’s smartphone. An interesting song based on a William Blake’s poem that posits a supposed visit to the UK by Jesus accompanied by Joseph of Arimathea; apparently he went to Glastonbury – I’ve heard of coming early to a Music Festival but that is ridiculous.
We then shouted consider yourselves ‘Jerusalemed’ and amazingly it made them go quiet for at least half an hour. It did start up again so we had to bring out the big gun and gave them a chorus of ‘God Save the Queen’ – mainly for the cameras as they were calling us traitors at the time. It is all about marketing these days.
During all this chaos and noise with the yellow-belly football chants, the Liberty Bell and drum we had Pietho standing on the steps with her little speaker reciting her thoughtful and challenging anti-Brexit poems.
Guess what the Police did, having stood by and watched us getting bawled at, the Leaver Liberty pram clanging away – yes, they told Pietho to turn off her tiny speaker as it violated the Westminster by-laws.
She continued to recite but was straining her voice – I have asked her to send a poem through and will share.
We also had a Chinese couple in their wedding gear come along to shoot some pictures as it seems that a riotous demo is a good backdrop for your wedding photos in China.
The volume level went up a notch when the ‘Jesus man’ appeared (with his speaker) telling us that Brexit cannot save Britain only Jesus can. Optimistically, we felt that this was another heavenly argument to Remain.
Meanwhile, one of the yellow-belly female Orcs was constantly telling us the we were possessed by the Devil and this made us all child abusers. It was an interesting theological hypothesis I thought. This yellow-belly only became quieter when she did a fairly long interview with Portuguese TV. Goodness knows what she said and how she represented us as Britons to this foreign audience? At least her head did not do a 360 degrees.
We had to wonder at one of the incompetent Leavers with his beautifully made placard all shiny and colourful. Unfortunately he had written in bold lettering ‘Brusell Spouts Voted Leave’ instead of ‘Brussels Sprouts’ (photo attached) so he got zero out of two for spelling and nothing for history as they came from Brussels in the 16th Century.
He compounded his accident-prone impression by promptly tripping over the kerb and landing heavily on his placard, he immediately got up and continued on as if nothing happened – we politely averted our eyes but could not help having a little giggle.
I had to leave because of childminding duties, but I know things were hotting up with the arrival of more from the yellow-belly Orc army. Hopefully, it did not result in the Battle of the Two Towers! Please let us know if others can shed light on what the dark forces of Mordor were up to later in the day.
The Brexit bus was still appropriately going in circles around Parliament like some great polluting vulture circling the diseased body politic that is currently our Government.
It seems the politicians are more concerned with archaic Parliamentary procedures rather than making the most important decision for our country since the Second World War.
Our democracy is on life-support at present with freedom of speech and peaceful demonstration under threat from far-right thuggery while our police stand passively watching democracy die.
In ancient Greece, the best people to cure the body politic were thought to be the poets, so the highlight of the day for me was Pietho’s quiet voice reciting her powerful and impassioned poetry.
A Living Thing
Of the countless
The very worst of the lies
Was about the very nature of our democracy
Soundbites and catchphrases have indoctrinated the public
They think “the will of the people” is static
They’ve been fed such falsehood
That a democratic vote could damage democracy
I despair
This wall of rhetoric we must break through is high
It has proved an effective weapon
In this civil information warfare
The truth is simple
Democracy is a living thing
At the mercy of time like you and I
It must always move forward
Evolving with every vote
It is the current
The up to date will of the people
That will always trump that of two years ago
It is the denial of informed consent
That is the intolerable subversion of our democracy
A dagger called Brexit through it’s beating heart