Chaos as Black Lives demo shuts down roads
PROTESTERS copying a US campaign against the killing of black people by police brought parts of Britain to a standstill yesterday by blocking major roads and transport hubs.
Scores of ‘Black Lives Matter’ agitators chanting ‘no justice, no peace’ chained themselves together on approach roads to Heathrow and Birmingham airports, causing chaos for hundreds of people trying to catch holiday flights.
There were scuffles between trapped motorists and protesters, some of whom used cement to prevent themselves being moved.
Police arrested ten demonstrators at Heathrow, five in London and four in Nottingham before the protest fizzled out at lunchtime.
But before then the action had delayed an ambulance taking a patient to a Birmingham hospital.
In Nottingham city centre four protesters lay across tram tracks, bringing major disruption at the height of the morning rush hour.
Holidaymakers and commuters were left angry or simply bewildered by the co-ordinated demos, with many pointing out on social media that Britain does not have a problem equivalent to the spate of killings in the United States.
Oxford University research student Adam Elliott-Cooper, who helped organise the protests, claimed on Radio 4’s Today programme that there was a ‘serious issue’ in immigration centres and at borders – although he acknowledged that no relevant figures were available.
But David Malley said on Twitter: ‘I’m all for equality, but how does stopping hardworking people from going on holiday at Heathrow help?’ Paul Embery said: ‘Blocking thousands of families from flying off on their holidays is no way to win public support for your cause.’
Lady Durrant wrote: ‘How utterly selfish! Why ruin innocent people’s holiday or work? Every life matters, not just #BlackLivesMatter’.
The protests were held on the anniversary of the start of riots in several English cities after gangster Mark Duggan was shot dead by police in North London five years ago. An inquest jury concluded that he was lawfully killed.
Black Lives Matter UK tweeted: ‘We call a nationwide #Shutdown: 05.08.16. #Shutdown racism. #Shutdown violence. #Shutdown borders. #BlackLivesMatter. We stand in solidarity with the families and friends of all who have died at the hands of the British state.’
The demonstrators are part of the British wing of a campaign set up in the US to protest about the deaths of black people there.
But Dr Tony Sewell, of the Youth Justice Board, said they had missed a trick and the focus should be on the ‘scandal’ of the disproportionate number of young black people in custody in Britain.
‘We should be looking at this as a UK matter, not just following the US, which is a different context, a different matter entirely,’ he told the BBC. He also argued that the greater issue was that nearly 200 young men had lost their lives to knife crime since the death of Mr Duggan.
‘There should be a real notion here of black lives matter, really does that matter for some of our black, young men?’ he said.
‘Really, do they value those lives themselves, do they value their own lives?’