Diehard of extreme Left Movement for Justice co-founder

Tony Gard, 76, right, set up the Movement for Justice by Any Means Necessary (MFJ), the group behind the ‘Day of Rage’ protest, in the midnineties.

The primary school teacher turned revolutionary agitator of the hard-left set up the protest group alongside impressionable young students from Kingsway College in central London.

Mr Gard was elected to the Young Socialists national committee as long ago as 1965, then joined the Workers Socialist League, a Trotskyist group. He went on to set up the Revolutionary Internationalist League. The MFJ bills itself as a civil rights group, campaigning against injustice, racism and bigotry. Its name derives from a famous speech by Malcom X, the human rights activist, who said in 1964: “We want justice by any means necessary.”

The MFJ was infiltrated by Scotland Yard’s controversial Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), which was set up to spy on Left-wing protesters. Peter Francis, a former officer with the SDS, has claimed he helped to found the organisation – meaning police resources will be monitoring a demonstration by a group that an undercover officer helped to establish. The MFJ described Mr Francis as a peripheral figure. Key figures include Karen Doyle, who along with Mr Gard was convicted of an attack on Lord Mawhinney, inset, who had paint tipped over him at a Queen’s Speech protest in 1995. Miss Doyle describes herself as a revolutionary and an artist.

Another organiser is Antonia Bright, 40, above, a research assistant at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Asked if she was concerned the protest could attract violence, she said it would be nothing compared to the “violence” suffered by victims of Grenfell Tower. Robert Mendick