Democracy Before Profit
Come and join us at Parliament Square this weekend says Lib Dem whistleblower DONNACHADH McCARTHY. Despite the best efforts of Boris Johnson and the police, we are determined to take back our democracy
Yesterday evening at 6pm, I returned to Occupy Tarpaulin Square Parliament Square along with many others for a weekend of pro-democracy protests and speeches.
I am an accidental occupier.
On Saturday October 18, as a former deputy chair of the Liberal Democrats who was drummed out of the party for whistleblowing on corporate lobbying corruption, I was invited to speak at the launch rally of the nine-day Occupy Democracy event in Parliament Square.
Green Party chair Natalie Bennett, respected Labour MP John McDonnell and Russell Brand were the other speakers. After the rally, I hung around chatting with the peaceful protesters who numbered about 60 people, sitting on a large blue tarpaulin.
Suddenly at about 6pm, we were surrounded by riot police and kettled. The outer boundary of the square was sealed off with another cordon of police and outside them the entire square was blockaded with nose-to-nose police vans.
We were told no press were being allowed into the square to witness the brutal removal of the protesters from the tarpaulin.
Seemingly sitting on or even the possession of tarpaulin is now a major national security threat in Britain but not in Hong Kong. Thus, we renamed the square Tarpaulin Square, due to the absence of a genuinely democratic Parliament in Westminster.
Inside the kettle, we remained totally non-violent as London Mayor Boris Johnsons private security firm AOS instructed the police to physically remove and arrest people for sitting on the tarpaulin.
Having experienced his brutal suppression of this protest, I felt a line had been crossed for me.
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Democracy Before Profit