Friday, 19 Apr 2024

Clashes outside parliament as hundreds protest Boris Johnson victory

Hundreds of protesters have descended onto Whitehall in despair over Boris Johnson’s landslide election win.

The demonstrators, brandishing signs that read ‘Defy Tory Rule’ and ‘Refugees Welcome’, walked at speed from outside Johnson’s Downing Street residence to Trafalgar Square.

The Mirror reports police had to separate some demonstrators who clashed with pro-brexiteers.

Videos on social media show a huge police presence trying to contain the crowds, who could be seen scuffling with officers.

One showed police with  batons drawn at the bottom of Parliament Street, striking out at people as they warned  ‘get back or you will get hit’.

Eyewitnesses at the scene described the protests as ‘chaotic.’

At least one demonstrator’s face was bloodied during the brief exchange, the Guardian reports.

 

Roads around Whitehall were closed as protesters made their way to other parts of Central London.

Damien Gayle, a Guardian reporter, said there have been confrontations between left protesters and right wing supporters of Boris Johnson outside Downing Street

One anti-boris protester told him: ‘I’m crestfallen and I’m p*ssed off. But this is day one, this is the start; I’m not going to be browbeaten.’

He said the police response ‘seems chaotic as protesters march at random around Westminster backstreets.’

Are you at the scene of the demonstration? Email [email protected]




Boris Johnson won a comfortable 74 seat majority as voters backed his promise to ‘get Brexit done’ and take the country out of the European Union by 31 January next year.

Despite making the biggest gains for the Tory party since Margaret Thatcher’s victory in 1987, protesters have taken to the streets holding banners stating ‘Boris Johnson not my Prime Minister’.

Other placards said ‘say no to racism’ and ‘vote Conservative to end the NHS’.

The chaos brought traffic to a halt in Haymarket.





Boris Johnson has urged the nation to ‘let the healing begin’ in his first speech as the UK’s re-elected prime minister.

Speaking outside Downing Street after his landslide election win, the PM said he hoped the results of last night’s vote will help ‘everyone to find closure’.

He said he will work to ‘unite and level up’ the whole of the UK under his ‘one nation Conservative government’ to lead us out of the EU by the end of January.

The PM thanked everyone who again voted Conservative and to those who did for the first time whose ‘pen might have wavered’ over the ballot paper.

He added that it had become clear to him during the campaign that ‘the overwhelming priority of the British people is that we should focus, above all, on the NHS’.

The Met police have said they are facilitating the protest at this stage. No arrests have been made and no restrictions have been placed on the demonstration.

Source: Read Full Article

Related Posts