Thanks for the spectacular photographs (Report, 22 October) of last Saturday’s great anti-Brexit march, but there is another story to be told as well. I spent six hours in Parliament Square. There was no room to sit or even stand, but so many youngsters laughing and pointing from their parents’ shoulders as they were carried along. I observed circles of young women around the graceful new statue of the great suffragette Millicent Fawcett, a young man with a sign reading: “I am 16, Save my Future!” and scores of friends, both old and new, meeting. After all the recent bitterness, the sourness and the dismissal of the young and the idealistic, were not these the people who deserved to be heard and who could not be disregarded and dismissed?
As the march came to an end, with hundreds blocked by crowds in Whitehall and Green Park unable to join us, I came across seven big police vans parked off Great Peter Street, their drivers dozing in the evening sun. I thanked each van driver and asked them all, separately and one by one, if they had encountered fighting, drunkenness, swearing or arrested anyone. All said they had not, and several of the police told me they had never encountered so peaceful and so happy a demonstration.
In the days that followed, the television and radio breakfast programmes had little to say about it, and we have resumed our absorption in finance, football, crime and what, if anything, will come of Brexit. We still haven’t committed ourselves to a customs union as a way of saving Ireland and ourselves from going back to the Troubles of the recent past. But before we go back to these obsessions, let us not forget that in Parliament Square last Saturday democracy – the voice of the people – asserted itself and declared that it must be heard.
Shirley Williams
Liberal Democrats, House of Lords
• As a non-participant, I cannot comment on the social demographics of the People’s March but have attended many demonstrations in recent times that have certainly not been “largely middle-class” (Ian Bullock’s letter, 26 October). It’s worth remembering, however, that when protesting at the anti-austerity policies of the government, many of those most affected cannot afford the time or the train fares to get to London. In spite of that, there have been some sizeable turnouts – up to 200,000 in support of workers’ rights (May 2018) and the NHS (June 2018) – and these are more often than not complemented by parallel actions nationwide. The difference between these and last Saturday’s event is in the media coverage. I was struck by the amount of pre-march build-up the BBC gave the “People’s” demo and although the numbers obviously merited coverage, there appears to be a highly selective and partisan process in determining whose voices get heard.
Karen Barratt
Winchester
• Not all demonstrations are the middle class turning out. Can I refer Ian Bullock to the Criminal Justice Demonstration in London in the 1990s, where the new age travellers, squatting movement and outreach workers like myself turned out to appeal against the injustices of the Criminal Justice Act upon those who were homeless and nomadic. I myself spoke on their platform about what was happening to the travelling communities while doing a report for the European Social Fund commissioners. If pushed and marginalised, people will eventually make a stand.
Jenny Smith
Bristol
• Regarding Ian Bullock’s letter on when the last non-middle class national demo was. They are easily identified: they are the ones much of the British media adds the word “riot” to.
Ed Collard
West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire
• Paul Reizin (Letters, 23 October) wonders if there are any relevant chants for the people’s vote movement. We’ve been singing this re-working of the original (1745) second verse of our national anthem – after all, everyone knows the tune:
“Remainers now arise,
Scatter those Brexiteers,
And make them fall!
Confound May’s politics,
Frustrate her knavish tricks,
On people’s vote our hopes we fix,
Europe save us all!”
Michael and Pam Miller
Hugglescote, Leicestershire
• Further to Paul Reizin’s letter about the remain narrative being essentially a call to inaction: one reason this tragedy has happened is that “remain” is a word no one uses and if they do it sounds as if they have plums in their mouth or are imitating Celia Johnson. It should have been leave or stay – the latter is both clear and classless and a word people actually use. Remaining on? Of course not, it’s staying on.
Nicola Beauman
London
• “What do we want? A people’s vote! When do we want it? Now!” I suppose it must have been the constant clattering of the helicopters that prevented Paul Reizin from hearing the snappy, future-oriented rallying cry that my wife and I managed to hear so loud and clear.
Paul Tattam
Chinley, Derbyshire
• “We are the people” would serve to remind the government and the Brexit press of something they delight in overlooking, and echoes of the fall of the Berlin Wall would only reinforce the message.
Roger Woodhouse
Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands
• If Paul Reizin is looking for a snappy chant for marching remainers that contains a positive call to action then I suggest “What do we want? Remain and reform!”
Karl Gehring
Sheffield
• “Exit Brexit” is very chantable.
W Paul Wilkinson
Atherstone, Warwickshire
• How about “Take back control”?
David Lane
London
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