to see now i think we have in england should have a referendum to see if the english what you with us and i think the answer would be no goo please just go back over the border where you belong rennie says westminster as a puppet parliament fiasco proves it and finally body says i think england should have a referendum for independence and let scotland wales i northern ireland sort themselves out now before the present even arrived he was courting controversy boris johnson either for or wishing for the invitation to tea and making marco was accused of making nasty comments for a preview of the suggestion that his massage knee may not make the present one of the great healers of politics however though tom does have the ability to bring people together the warring factions in the labor party lead the difference is the site to join in the anti trump protests while the problem cheerleaders of labor on the s. and p. link arms to boycott to state dinner but what was the aim of the mass protest and who was in awe at the audience at home or abroad alex as protest organizers should

be a lock of the key christians. now i'm delighted to be joined by should be one of the organizers of the stop the war coalition who've been behind the demonstrations this week shall be a welcome to the salmon sure thanks for having me i'm interested in this week's demonstration of who your target audience for who we trying to impress was that people in the u.k. or was it american citizens who or what was the target behind your anti trump demonstration yeah well our aim was to show visible opposition to donald trump and to say that he's not welcome here that things that he stands for are what we stand against and for that reason our target audience was the people of britain who came out to protest against them was against our government for colluding with trump and the things that he does and it was the sense alliterative to the american people who are resisting his policies domestically but you know 15 years or so and donald

trump famously says he was a. war to 15 years ago he may have been demonstrating a few against himself although he has said that in his eyes the solution was to just go to iraq and take the oil without any pretenses and you know i mean what we've seen even from his rallies before he became president was that he preaches this kind of anti war rhetoric because that's what his base want to hear but in reality we see him supporting saudi arabia's war in yemen pushing for war with iran increasing tensions with north korea and various other flashpoints across the globe and in effect he's made the world a much less safe place but on north korea let's say he brags of what he described as the greatest 11 secure demilitarization in the korean peninsula. the american president one of the world's greatest peacefully well i don't think it would be down to him primarily to be honest i think it would be the willingness of

the korean people to reach peace despite america's historic role in. hoping that but you know you have to contrast that with him pulling out of the iran nuclear agreement and sending warships and potentially 1500 more troops to iran to see that this isn't about peace this is about more geopolitics is about american imperialism well it's not a verb lose a cup of tea that's for sure but really did get elected donald trump who won a democratic election so a case that you should respect the office even if you disagree with him ah well i think we have to look at what he's done once he's come into office one of the 1st things he did was implemented muslim band this is a man who's been caught on tape bragging about sexual assault he's locked refugee children in cages and at least 6 of whom have died and thousands are said to not be able to be reunited with their families this is not the kind of person who elected

or not we should be legitimizing on normalizing looking up to in any way let alone maintaining close relations the way this tory government is doing and supporting in his wars abroad then in his foreign policy rhetoric we have to be opposed to that and primarily because we have this special relationship with the united states we are in a position to impact that relationship and what he's doing so you're a vet of. a young age but still a vet to love a range of protests but you don't want your big sweep the over sort of like oh my goodness you know we're here we're marching this is great solidarity but where will these folks get the work you know that we talk and offer cause because of the inconvenience well i think the aim of the demonstration is to stop business as usual and that unfortunately does mean that people can get to work and i delay that cetera but that is part of sending the message in is to show primarily to our government and those who will this country that we won't sit by and let things

carry on as normal while they behave this way in a way that we clearly oppose. but it does send a message to the public as well that there is a movement willing to take to the streets willing to disrupt the status quo to get our message had and they should join us what do you think with the balances between a reasonably conventional demonstration albeit one which says it's not business as usual but nonetheless pretty conventional demonstrations like you see in this week and and the elements of humor like the the trump blimp or the trump robot to does some rude things the balance between conventional demonstration and a touch of humor lives well i think the more ways we can show our opposition the better and i think it's a testament to the british people that humor can be involved in acts of resistance such as the trump baby balloon and other things but we can't discount the role of the demonstration itself the very act of

a mass mobilization on the streets with thousands of people many of whom have never demonstrated before we during the course of their demonstration here in new arguments meet like minded people have a raising of their consciousness a very active presence of solidarity i think it's very important and can you point to have been referring to a generation back again the iraq war. famously the war went and can you point to recent examples of of demonstrations was slightly changed the course of events or changed the course of history well i think looking at the iraq war demonstration itself although the war went ahead that demonstration had a fundamental impact on british politics we know that tony blair and politicians were looking to invade other middle eastern countries after the iraq war which they were then put off from following the mass show opposition we saw ed miliband in 2013 refused to go along with bombing syria for that very reason and to look at

other demonstrations which have had impacts you can look at the youth climate strike as an extinction rebellion and the impact. we've had of putting climate change on the agenda of making parliament declare a prime imagine c and all these things and you can look at other european countries in france for example you look at the. it's happening everywhere and you can see the impact of it with the late should have demonstrations in terms of the social complexity but most people watching the program probably would have been on many demonstrations so predominantly a young audiences of all sections of the community i did see some pretty old age pensions. belial so what children and complection of the demonstrations that you organize well i think it's very their vest and particularly the anti trump demonstrations we've seen people of all ages a lot of young people but also a lot of veteran campaign is from for example the anti nuclear weapons movement etc it's a reflection i think on the organizations that helped to call the demonstrations

where we see the biggest trade unions in the country resulting in a big show of the labor movement in the streets also most of the social campaigning organizations and mass movements their reach across communities who are being affected by various policies and i think that's really represented on the demonstrations. the extinction rebellion school strikes the outgoing prime minister was very upset about how much to some of the concerned as well it meant is that something you do in college we did demonstrations yeah absolutely i've been down to the school strikes against climate and what i've seen is young people who are incredibly clued on what's going on they understand the danger there is facing society and particularly their futures and they're fighting back against the patronising narrative that is present in the media and among politicians that these young people don't have a clue about what's going on that they should stay in school and leave it to the

adults all the adults haven't done anything about this and that's why they've taken a stand and they're very conscious. the fact that they're taking a day of school this is an act of resistance on the streets and i think it should be encouraged and replicated as much as possible with your experience of demonstrations of your favorite moment from from one of the big demos that you've been on as some some you can see above the blood that was there. well i think probably last year's demonstration against. you know with 250000 people was probably a highlight i think in seeing so many people who clearly have never been in a demonstration before who are out there you know making their voices heard in a very clear and the jets equate i think the role of chanting and demonstrations and i think that's a great thing to do so yeah i think that's kind of one of my favorite moments. a leap of the imagination was just for a 2nd imagine that donald trump and i'm the president and i think states about i'm

here i'm in a conversation with someone who is demonstrating against me but be the key message you'd want to get across to the president. you should step down. if i could secure a presidential resignation what i could certainly do is present you with the southern quickly the scots gullit for the loving cup you put a flute preferably whiskey but obviously a soft drink. in the quicken pass that word and your or your close friends have a venue so much that it's for the. one of the breakthroughs in the history of protest was in the late 1970 s. when i did the slogan love music racism some of the great rock bands of that you know were mobilized to fight the rise of racism in that day join us after the break when alex interviews the artist behind that initiative read thought and.

you know world a big part of the new lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the bath and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the troops the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. for the bridges was good for you the new birth birth we were like if you missed it or don't believe people what. was the response to move cheaper food in the north.

given our school says i should be a model which to me says that. this city for this new the nope must feel you've been easy in this loop i'm going you must feel the need i'm used to the both of us and us going at it may continue going to stay in both in inning there he's going to face it. you are nice to us because. you're going to critique your eyes be as good as you know that you know what or who are you more you would damage today because of. this the whole truth i'm doing is going to. do some good really only someone who knows the. star of the. winds and also way as.

some wise man once said currency wars lead to trade wars played the hot more. so we've had currency wars that's been going on now for 10 years 15 years you'd like to get away with china you know they artificially keep their currency low export their way to becoming a large economy and now this is led to trade worse with trump now pretty much declaring secession from the global economy as we go to neo mercantile ism days of globalization and lot of tourism and dollars ation is over and you know look at the globe we've got a few little hot spots there the encroaching hot war scenario is upon us. what hope do. we put themselves on the line. to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. i want. you to go on for

us which is what before 3 of them or can't be good. i'm going to sleep in the water . for soup. welcome back 40 years after its 1st launch rock against racism as a choir of folklore status and become the template for many a little movements mobilized in the music industry to promote great causes and i'm joined by the man behind that initiative red saunders to talk about protest and then no so rock against racism as we back to 176 what was the genesis behind the rock against racism is really simple thing it was an outburst by the guitar god eric clapton made a complete racist outburst supporting a not powered concert in birmingham it was reported in the music press i was an old

eric clapton fan i had all these records and everything and i was outraged because that music is based on black music so i wrote a letter i wrote a letter proposing that we started a campaign against racism in music to bring black and white musicians together who rock against racism and that was in the new musical expression which was that revival of of music and the only maker and sounds and black echoes and the left press so out it that was it you cover this mass movement started with a letter a letter and i thought i really thought not much about it i mean i was angry so i wrote the letter and it was done i don't write letters very often you know and i didn't really think about it much and somebody called me up a result friend of mine who's a journalist and he called up and said oh he organized a p o box to replies to be addressed to he said there's 400 letters here i want what you talking about and that was it there for the better for the viewers that this is long before the internet long before the meal we're is set up or

a post box to get the response to you know and i'll even cry yeah and he's you say in those days you set up a post box because you didn't put an individual address because if you did d.n.a. if would be far bombing your address these were dangerous times so we had set up a post box so we were stunned when we got an. the letters were just amazing so what was your message back to the well i really wanted the banner i remember one particular letter from a young. school student a young girl in aberystwyth and she wrote the shit out regina litter a melody maker and she said i've got a job graffiti choose a nazi and i hate racism i love music and you know what do i do and so i wrote a letter back to her as was the start of that time that was what has to happen i wrote a letter and it just said right susan you are rock against racism aberystwyth get on with it and one of the things that came out of it as well was the people who were at the center of rock all sixty's people who'd been through the sixty's it

been through vietnam solidarity love ins hippie dope everything we did so they had some experience of organizing things and putting on festivals and gigs so it wasn't totally new to them but they were sort of constantly puts a bear that you saw where the good look where we are having are having started well at are unbelievable i mean when we did the victoria park carnival with steel pass and came out dressed in the 78 i was 78 so we had the clash who were the leading political punk band of the time we had tom robinson was that time just had the hit with sing if you're glad to be gay so you had all the politics not just racism but everything about oppression was mixed up steel poles came on stage black regular band from hands with in birmingham came on stage dressed include klux klan outfits and sang this song klu klux klan i was just incredible and so had polystyrene who has passed away sadly who sang the incredible song oboe ndege up

yours as a young punk feminist and i remember running out and so i was comparing the gig and i remember running out on the stage and i just was overwhelmed with the amount of people and i just screamed this ain't no woodstock this is the carnival again. the nazis and the crowd just went for our and it just carried us through the rest of the day it's a it was a blur it was such an incredible moment in my life i look back and people say older member when you know i don't remember anything me it just went into vapor so raucous race as if it was about sexy years or so we just say it was the period of it it was really from it was like a shooting star really and when people tried to start it up again never said no you never can do that it was unique to its moment absolutely it was that time and that time only you know the train came in the station and on the platform was these regular musicians milling about these punks milling about and they all stepped on the train and off we went on this incredible journey busy was from 76 to 82 but

these 6 years these 6 short years had big affects them in terms of the well some groups are melds there's a dissolved of rock against racism but also in terms of making music and accept to be accepted medium to get a political message across out of all that fantastic kind of cultural activity came things like live aid and womad and peter gabriel's things all came after ron kuby the political activist or your days as well as. a photographer which issue of your profession and an interest in theater and when you kept the shooting at the come through the the aisle to trump protest of what was your view of the style of the protest against the american president state visit while i was on the protests myself and it was just absolutely one of most extraordinary demos i've seen in years because it was a beautiful the sun was amazing and the whole of trafalgar square was full and late

in the afternoon when the sun comes across trafalgar square and there was just i don't know 3 course of a 1000000 people it was absolutely incredible and the manifestations of all the little things that people had done like the baby trump and all rest of it and all the handmade banners. i remember someone had a picture of trump and it said you like comb over you so it was like it was just there so much going on over call your words it we should have a home and it reminded me like you know if i was an old geezer like i am now you know i'd have been on the streets doing our engine prop theater in the middle of that because there was people dressed up and people doing all sorts of incredible activities so you know it took me way back that let's talk about your career as a photographer just of a very substantial. for it is your photography politically or you have dated as well as would you describe photography as a form that you can get a message across absolutely now especially before know before i separated my

commercial life and my cultural and political life sometimes that overlap or i'd use my photographic skills to help political campaigns whatever but they were pretty separated out a young family to bring up and all rest of it but now in the last 10 years the better part of a decade now i've been doing my hidden project about hidden working class history in that is 100 percent tell us about the exhibition modeste of the i have an exhibition opening in manchester this week and it's about the peterloo massacre because it's 200 years since the peterloo massacre and all the commemorations are going on all year i've been looking at my project looks hidden working class history and basically very simply i just shine photographic light on these momentous events that have been overlooked and the hope of you photograph something which was just before the dawn the photography of the case well into lu what i do

is i used the method of the french tabloid type of the form where you you use all the props of art culture painting theater opera and you the victorian started this in the french at that time where they'd bring together these elements to make images. and then they'd cut out elements they cut out the negatives and they put them all together to make big images and i just do the same thing but i use the modern technology which enables me to do a group of 300 people for tuppence ha'penny because i shoot them all as friends everyone's a volunteer and i shoot them 3 at a time for the time some at 2 o'clock some 8 o'clock and i save money and put these events together and they have they've 100 percent political work and you think in terms of things like you to loose or something which unfortunately for many.