Scenes outside Birmingham’s Utilita Arena (formerly the National Indoor Arena) ahead of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK rally were reminiscent of the grass roots Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) marches of the early 1980s, with lots of heartfelt messages on both professionally printed signs and those scrawled by hand on pieces of corrugated cardboard being resolutely displayed. This carnival of signage came from a wide range of ideological standpoints not often seen standing together shoulder-to-shoulder. The message was clear: Racists are not welcome in Birmingham, however rich or popular they might appear to be.
Things have changed so much since the 1980s. Or have they? I recently re-visited an old school exercise book where I had been asked as a 12-year-old to note down similarities between the ancient Roman town of Pompeii and my own city of Birmingham. I had listed: multicultural, graffiti, public noticeboards, open air markets, disorder on streets, rubbish on the streets and varied places of worship. Sound familiar?
Farage’s Reform rally meets socialism
The array of flags and messages was impressive, as was the turn-out (several hundred in total) for this hastily assembled crowd representing a multiplicity of creeds. Even the striking refuse collectors represented by the trade union Unite got a shout-out. Farage and his supporters, on the other hand, must have been planning for months, booking a prominent city centre venue, leaking to strategic press outlets that thousands of tickets had been sold, and alerting the police that they would need additional resources for the evening.
I joined the crowd shortly after 6pm, and as I swept past a canal-side pub I noticed a flustered-looking man packing away handfuls of red, white and blue scarves, each portraying Farage’s features, into a black bin bag, accompanied from the direction of the arena back steps by lively chants of “No hate, no fear. Refugees are welcome here.”
The protestors had arranged themselves in an orderly fashion surrounding the steps leading to the back entrance of the arena. Most were standing completely still holding banners. One neon green banner caught my eye. It belonged to Rajan Naidu, who told me that he had made the sign on the kitchen floor and that it had been displayed at several protests. He gave me a quick guided tour of the impressive range of signatures on it, which included a somewhat faded Jeremy Corbyn.
Jostling and shouting
Speaking to a couple of members of the crowd, including representatives from Friends of the Earth and the Revolutionary Communist Party, people of all generations expressed nostalgia for the Corbynist years that we never quite had.
At around 6.20pm some arriving rally attendees met resistance trying to get up the steps, although police had already formed a protective gangway on one side. Standing at the bottom of the steps I was pushed out of the way despite not causing an obstruction. By 6.25pm more police in high viz had arrived to try and shift protestors who had formed a human chain, to rising shouts of “Who protects us? We protect us.”
There was a wave of jostling from the crowd, various members of the press darting around with cameras trying to capture key moments, and loud shouts from police urging protesters to move off the steps. A group of mostly masked young people with a large hand-painted “No borders, no binaries” flag were forced to yield their stance. I shared my quiet outrage with the woman next to me who was taking photos on her phone: “It’s not a private space. Why are they being asked to move?” I muttered between gritted teeth. “Right,” she replied, under her breath.
Advice on arrest
At around 6.30pm, I was discretely handed a small, printed leaflet headed “Advice on Arrest,” as it became clear that police now outnumbered the protestors on the steps, who were being pushed away with some force. The question of how many of these officers personally agree with Farage’s politics popped into my head.
By 6.40pm, following the planned route outlined on the printed leaflets, the protest turned into a street march and police facilitated safe flow of pedestrians. Protestors were heading to Centenary Square whilst rally attendees hurried past in the opposite direction. The street was wide open; I am a small woman who was walking silently at a regular pace not holding any signage or making any gestures, but a rally-bound man still saw fit to shoulder me with force as he walked past.
I was dressed like a ‘normie’ (except for my woolly hat!) in a camel-coloured tailored wool coat, and I wondered how this snap judgement about my political views had been made in that moment. Suddenly there was an atmosphere of polarisation: them vs us. A few seconds later I witnessed one man assaulting another using a wooden stick from a protest banner. This shocking outburst was over in seconds and resulted in at least one arrest. I hung around for a while, wondering whether it was worth the hassle of making an eyewitness statement amongst the chaos, but opted to walk on, this time keeping close to a representative from the National Education Union.
Speakers and performers at Centenary Square
At Centenary Square speakers and performers took to the stage, lifting the mood. Brummie-Rasta poet Moqapi Sellasie took the mic and regaled us with his wisdom and a rendition of his call-and-response inspired work “Concrete Jungle”. I stayed long enough to hear news from the stage that the start time of Farage’s rally had been delayed by 45 minutes, and to have a little shuffle about to the rhythms of Dal (Tabla Jedi) and guest accompanying artists, but I dashed off to the bus stop before the scheduled end time of 9pm, not waiting to hear news of protestors who were said to have infiltrated the rally venue to intercept the electronic banner system.
