How Peckham protesters turned migrant coach journey into political farce
- Coach was due to transport migrants from London to Bibby Stockholm ‘floatel’
- But protesters from SOAS Detainee Support staged a sit-in around the vehicle
- After more than six hours and 45 arrests, the empty bus drove away
The signs were ominous right from the start.
As the coach driver prepared to set off from London on a drive to the English coast, a sinister-looking group of black-clad masked protesters wandered up and surrounded his bus.
Looking a little nervous, he must have been relieved when a number of Metropolitan Police officers hoved into view.
A constable began by directing a polite question towards the demonstrators: ‘How are you doing?’ They ignored him.
The group of about a dozen activists calling each other ‘comrade’ soon swelled as others, all wearing Covid masks or bandanas, swarmed around the coach in a human chain and took up positions facing outwards.
![Protesters stopped a coach due to transport migrants from their Home Office-funded hotel in Peckham to the Bibby Stockholm 'floatel' moored in Portland, Dorset, on Thursday](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/03/02/84399269-13377951-image-a-112_1714698030965.jpg)
Protesters stopped a coach due to transport migrants from their Home Office-funded hotel in Peckham to the Bibby Stockholm ‘floatel’ moored in Portland, Dorset, on Thursday
![The group of activists calling each other 'comrade' soon swelled as others, all wearing Covid masks or bandanas, swarmed around the coach in a human chain](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/03/02/84399267-13377951-image-a-113_1714698053589.jpg)
The group of activists calling each other ‘comrade’ soon swelled as others, all wearing Covid masks or bandanas, swarmed around the coach in a human chain
They began singing ‘we shall not be moved’.
This was the peculiar scene at rush hour yesterday morning outside the three-star Best Western hotel in Peckham, the district of south-east London known to millions as the setting for Only Fools and Horses.
And it soon turned into an almighty farce worthy of the iconic BBC comedy series itself.
The coach was due to transport a selection of migrants from their Home Office-funded hotel to new quarters aboard the Bibby Stockholm, the controversial accommodation barge moored at Portland on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset.
The Bibby Stockholm is a 222-room floating hotel which the Government has chartered to house asylum seekers while they await decisions on their applications.
The Home Office says that, while living on the ‘floatel’, the men will be given a taste of British life including tending to allotments, guided hikes in the Dorset countryside, cycling and cricket.
But according to the protesters at yesterday’s sit-in, the barge is ‘unsanitary’ and ‘despicable’.
And so Gen Z put out a clarion call to action. A post on X by a group called SOAS Detainee Support declared: ‘Comrades have stopped our friends being taken to the Bibby barge – but more numbers needed!’
Before long, trickling out from the side streets around the four-storey Victorian hotel, marched forth the beanie-hat brigade.
They joined the chain around the coach and set in for the long haul.
Some hand-rolled cigarettes, while others gorged on Haribo sweets and swigged Magnum tonic wine.
A number were from a group calling itself The Movement For Justice By Any Means Necessary.
The poor driver was by now looking ‘shaken up’, according to onlookers.
His look is said to have turned to ‘terror’ when the mob began slashing the tyres of his coach and slamming Lime electric hire bikes underneath the vehicle.
![The crowd continued to swell and extra police arrived, causing a tense stand-off to ensue](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/03/02/84399297-13377951-image-a-114_1714698149410.jpg)
The crowd continued to swell and extra police arrived, causing a tense stand-off to ensue
![Police officers began to push back the crowd to regain control of the situation, resulting in 45 arrests at the scene](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/05/03/02/84399265-13377951-image-a-115_1714698156412.jpg)
Police officers began to push back the crowd to regain control of the situation, resulting in 45 arrests at the scene
Many protesters were wearing expensive vintage clothes and brands such as North Face, Nike and Adidas, while others draped pricey Beats headphones around their necks.
One, wearing camouflage combat trousers and a green hooded jacket, proclaimed: ‘The revolution is coming and it looks beautiful.’
Another man using a megaphone chanted: ‘Say it loud, say it clear…’, to which the crowd responded: ‘Refugees are welcome here.’
Extra police arrived and a tense stand-off ensued. Shortly after 11am, the London Ambulance Service dispatched two vehicles to the scene ‘in case the protest erupts into violence and people sustain injuries’.
Then the Movement For Justice By Any Means Necessary announced its demands.
Alex Shaw, one of its members, told LBC radio: ‘What we’ve done is we’ve surrounded the vehicle, stopped it from moving, so we’re not letting it go until we get confirmation from the Home Office that the remaining asylum seekers who are due to go on the bus, their removal has been cancelled.’
A band of four with steel drums and trumpets struck up the tune of Bella Ciao by El Profesor.
As one demonstrator warbled the modified folk song – an anthem for the anti-fascist resistance originally sung as a protest to poor working conditions in the paddy fields of northern Italy – those surrounding him cheered and whooped.
There were more choruses of ‘we shall not be moved’, before megaphone man took up with ‘no borders, no nations’ and the excitable crowd screamed back: ‘Stop deportations’ – followed by ‘No detention, no flights’, to which they rhymed back, ‘refugees have human rights’.
One protester explained: ‘We are here today to protect our friends. The Government’s migrant policy is desperate and probably unlawful.
‘The removal of people from this accommodation to an unsanitary environment on the Bibby Stockholm barge is despicable.’
When asked about the tyres of the bus being slashed, he said: ‘I don’t know how the tyres happened. Maybe the tyres are comrades and let themselves down.’
By now the protesters were three-deep around the coach. More police arrived.
A squad of around 20 tried to move the activists away. They linked arms and one shouted ‘we can’t hear you’, as drums banged in the background.
The ugly siege soon reached the ears of Downing Street, where a spokesman for No 10 declared that the Prime Minister ‘would urge people to allow Home Office enforcement officers to carry out their duties’.
In case this message failed to have the desired effect, another 30 police officers arrived around 1.30pm. The crowd chanted swear words at them.
Officers shouted ‘get back’ in return.
Eventually, the long arm of the law had had enough.
Several of the beanie brigade were arrested, while others tried to obstruct police vans taking them away.
Demonstrators were running up to officers and screaming in their faces before scampering away. Others sat cross-legged in the road blocking traffic.
At 2.15pm, Home Secretary James Cleverly issued a stirring vow, tweeting: ‘We will not allow this small group of students, posing for social media, to deter us from doing what is right for the British public.’
When the protesters chanted: ‘No justice, no peace, no racist police!’ one local had heard enough.
A passing lollipop lady, wearing her high-visibility jacket and carrying her stick, shouted back at them: ‘Shut up.’
One of the coordinators of the protest, Kojo Kyerewaa, told The Guardian newspaper that ‘our friends who are at a Home Office hotel’ had tipped them off that migrants were going to be taken to the ‘dangerous’ Bibby Stockholm yesterday.
A group of students from nearby University of Arts London sat in a trendy cafe sipping craft ales as they joined in the police abuse.
A local, retired baker Cathy Hawkins, 73, said: ‘There are two schools around – what are the kids going to do when they leave school?’
Her answer came shortly after 3pm when about 150 police officers arrived and stormed the crowd, pushing, pulling and dragging demonstrators out of the way of the bus – as activists bawled ‘shame on you’.
Finally at 3.17pm, more than six hours after the protest began, the coach flanked by a police escort was slowly driven away – empty of passengers.
Revealing that there had been 45 arrests, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan also said that several of his officers had been assaulted, but added: ‘Thankfully I’m glad that none of those are seriously hurt’.