![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Great Northern March
Mar. 25th, 2018 10:54 pmOn Saturday, we headed into Leeds to attend The Great Northern Anti-Brexit March, organised to coincide with the year anniversary of the triggering of Article 50. It was run by our friends at Leeds for Europe, an organisation of which I am a member but one in which I have been regrettably lax in participating. I had been promoting the march for the best part of a month though, and managed to corral seven furries to the event, namely Taneli, Stray, Wolfie, Burfdl, Seadragom and Patter along with myself. Avon and Sval were going to come, but due to road testing a Toyota Yaris and illness, they couldn't attend. Still, there was quite a nice group and this enabled us to have some social too.
We convened at the railway station at 10:30am, with Wolfie fortunately able to join me as his Mazda's MOT was rather short, meaning he got back home in time and was able to accompany me into town. Seadragom and Patter were already there, while the other three were running late so agreed to meet us at the Headrow where the march was convening. I feared it would be difficult to find us but the marchers were all quite diffuse and we managed to assemble everyone pretty swiftly. What we didn't realise was that we were going to be right at the front of the march, with a few of us carrying the giant EU flag around the streets as we proceeded down Park Lane, through to the Corn Exchange and back up towards the Headrow, before returning to our starting position in front of the Library where a small stage had been erected for the public speakers.
The March itself was about forty-five minutes in length, and was great fun, although I did feel a little more awkward protesting in my home city than in London this time last year. The weather was nowhere near as warm as it was in 2017, but at least it was dry, and the atmosphere was quite carnivalesque. We kept chanting 'Bollocks to Brexit/Breckshit' and 'Exit from Brexit' an awful lot, with one woman in particular rallying us all. I started a couple of chants too and it was great to see the generally positive reception we got. The places where you expected disagreement were the ones where you got it, but the vast majority of people were on board and it was a great morning of camaraderie.
Once the March was done, it was time for the speakers so the giant EU flag was laid on the Headrow and a number of the carriers sat themselves on the yellow stars. Wolfie and Stray were two of these, and they invited me up shortly afterwards as I was just behind the flag talking to a nice Lib Dem counsellor from Otley. When we were sat on the stars, in a circle, what was striking was the diversity of the people on the flag - young and old, male and female, white British and Indian. It was a good symbol for tolerance, which is one of the main advantages of the European project in my view. Shortly after, the talks began and we realised that we had front row seats, right in front of the stage with just the occasional photographer blocking our view. This meant we got to see the likes of Lord Adonis, AC Grayling and the wonderful OFOC, one of whose members admitted voting leave and has since regretted it. It took a lot of balls to admit that and later in the day, I was chatting to someone similar in Brewdog who asked me what we can do to convince moderate Leave voters towards backing Remain. Most of the speechers were rousing and well thought out, although I did disagree with some of them. Speaking of balls - there was one Leave supporter in the crowd holding up a crude cardboard placard reading '52% = Democracy' who spent some time heckling the speakers. AC Grayling destroyed him with rhetoric but I must admit I admire this Brexiters guts, even if I disagree with his message. And of course he has the right to protest against us, just like we had the right to protest against Brexit.
The organisers were great but the police - who were truly wonderful throughout - had only granted us four hours so by 2:15pm, it was pretty much all over. We helped them pack the flag away before heading to Almost Famous for some food. This was a really nice post-March cooldown, where we got chatting about a range of political issues including the sugar tax. The table was a little small for seven, but it wasn't a huge problem, and while we were here I noticed Bundobust congratulating us pro-Europeans for an excellent march on Twitter. This meant that I knew where we were heading next, so once we had said goodbye to Burfdl who needed to head off, the remaining six of us headed down to the bar. It was quite busy but we soon found a table in the Yard and shortly afterwards we were sampling the range of excellent drinks they have there. I got chatting to one of the bar staff who said he didn't like Wetherspoons due to his belief that businesses shouldn't spout their political views, which I thought was odd based on the pretence of us being there based on a tweet. Still, that was his view I guess. As it was Stray's birthday weekend - with the big day actually being tomorrow - we resolved to have a few beers and so this saw us visit Brewdog North Street after we had exhaused the options in Bundobust. As we had started drinking at 3pm, this obviously started to become quite messy, and by 9pm we felt it was probably best to wind things up. Seadragom had gone by this point while I had spoken to my Leaver friend, to whom I was introduced when his dog came over and started nuzzling my hand. His partner was a Remainer, he a regretful Leaver, so it was great to understand his different point of view. He was very much the sort of person we need to be converting if we are to get ourselves out of this. I'm still 50/50 on whether it's possible but my confidence is always strengthened after these displays of public action and this time was no exception.
We got back into Pudsey at 10pm, with Stray joining us. For some reason I wanted the night to continue so I persuaded everyone to go to Rudy's, where we enjoyed a pint of Dead Pony Club. Wolfie was gone by this stage though and wanted pizza, so after our solitary beer, we headed to the pizza place next door and back home. After eating, Wolfie slunk to bed while Stray and I stayed up for a while, sharing a four pack of Punk IPA and generally just chilling. He went to bed around 1:30am, with me staying up to 5:45am for reasons I'll explain in a later post, but all in all it was a good day.
We convened at the railway station at 10:30am, with Wolfie fortunately able to join me as his Mazda's MOT was rather short, meaning he got back home in time and was able to accompany me into town. Seadragom and Patter were already there, while the other three were running late so agreed to meet us at the Headrow where the march was convening. I feared it would be difficult to find us but the marchers were all quite diffuse and we managed to assemble everyone pretty swiftly. What we didn't realise was that we were going to be right at the front of the march, with a few of us carrying the giant EU flag around the streets as we proceeded down Park Lane, through to the Corn Exchange and back up towards the Headrow, before returning to our starting position in front of the Library where a small stage had been erected for the public speakers.
The March itself was about forty-five minutes in length, and was great fun, although I did feel a little more awkward protesting in my home city than in London this time last year. The weather was nowhere near as warm as it was in 2017, but at least it was dry, and the atmosphere was quite carnivalesque. We kept chanting 'Bollocks to Brexit/Breckshit' and 'Exit from Brexit' an awful lot, with one woman in particular rallying us all. I started a couple of chants too and it was great to see the generally positive reception we got. The places where you expected disagreement were the ones where you got it, but the vast majority of people were on board and it was a great morning of camaraderie.
Once the March was done, it was time for the speakers so the giant EU flag was laid on the Headrow and a number of the carriers sat themselves on the yellow stars. Wolfie and Stray were two of these, and they invited me up shortly afterwards as I was just behind the flag talking to a nice Lib Dem counsellor from Otley. When we were sat on the stars, in a circle, what was striking was the diversity of the people on the flag - young and old, male and female, white British and Indian. It was a good symbol for tolerance, which is one of the main advantages of the European project in my view. Shortly after, the talks began and we realised that we had front row seats, right in front of the stage with just the occasional photographer blocking our view. This meant we got to see the likes of Lord Adonis, AC Grayling and the wonderful OFOC, one of whose members admitted voting leave and has since regretted it. It took a lot of balls to admit that and later in the day, I was chatting to someone similar in Brewdog who asked me what we can do to convince moderate Leave voters towards backing Remain. Most of the speechers were rousing and well thought out, although I did disagree with some of them. Speaking of balls - there was one Leave supporter in the crowd holding up a crude cardboard placard reading '52% = Democracy' who spent some time heckling the speakers. AC Grayling destroyed him with rhetoric but I must admit I admire this Brexiters guts, even if I disagree with his message. And of course he has the right to protest against us, just like we had the right to protest against Brexit.
The organisers were great but the police - who were truly wonderful throughout - had only granted us four hours so by 2:15pm, it was pretty much all over. We helped them pack the flag away before heading to Almost Famous for some food. This was a really nice post-March cooldown, where we got chatting about a range of political issues including the sugar tax. The table was a little small for seven, but it wasn't a huge problem, and while we were here I noticed Bundobust congratulating us pro-Europeans for an excellent march on Twitter. This meant that I knew where we were heading next, so once we had said goodbye to Burfdl who needed to head off, the remaining six of us headed down to the bar. It was quite busy but we soon found a table in the Yard and shortly afterwards we were sampling the range of excellent drinks they have there. I got chatting to one of the bar staff who said he didn't like Wetherspoons due to his belief that businesses shouldn't spout their political views, which I thought was odd based on the pretence of us being there based on a tweet. Still, that was his view I guess. As it was Stray's birthday weekend - with the big day actually being tomorrow - we resolved to have a few beers and so this saw us visit Brewdog North Street after we had exhaused the options in Bundobust. As we had started drinking at 3pm, this obviously started to become quite messy, and by 9pm we felt it was probably best to wind things up. Seadragom had gone by this point while I had spoken to my Leaver friend, to whom I was introduced when his dog came over and started nuzzling my hand. His partner was a Remainer, he a regretful Leaver, so it was great to understand his different point of view. He was very much the sort of person we need to be converting if we are to get ourselves out of this. I'm still 50/50 on whether it's possible but my confidence is always strengthened after these displays of public action and this time was no exception.
We got back into Pudsey at 10pm, with Stray joining us. For some reason I wanted the night to continue so I persuaded everyone to go to Rudy's, where we enjoyed a pint of Dead Pony Club. Wolfie was gone by this stage though and wanted pizza, so after our solitary beer, we headed to the pizza place next door and back home. After eating, Wolfie slunk to bed while Stray and I stayed up for a while, sharing a four pack of Punk IPA and generally just chilling. He went to bed around 1:30am, with me staying up to 5:45am for reasons I'll explain in a later post, but all in all it was a good day.
