Anyone who’s ever listened to grime music will know that here in South London we don’t mess around.
BAE Systems and their landlords Blue Fin found this out the hard way first thing yesterday morning when at 7:50am, a group of 40 activists descended on the entrances to the building, blocking all doorways and stopping workers from entering.
The security inside tried to hide their embarrassment as a group of stranded workers from the different offices started swelling on the Southwark Street pavement. Most of them wisely took the chance to catch the morning sunshine, but some of the more unpleasant ones – the type that take umbrage at the idea of having the morning off work – tried to physically battle their way through the barricade, only to find that the security weren’t going to let them in anyway (having clamped the revolving doors shut), and neither did they manage to provoke any kind of physical reaction from us as we all stayed non-violent. Nice of the BAE workers to identify themselves for us, though, as normally they like to stay anonymous. Can’t think why.
Back they went to where many of the other workers were listening keenly to our speeches and even joining along with the chants. Unsurprisingly the local cafés were doing a roaring trade with at least one completely full.
It’s not like we never asked them nicely, you know? We sent polite e-mails and requested a meeting with the Blue Fin management, but it all fell on deaf ears. They must have thought – in their infinite wisdom – that if they ignored us we’d just go away and leave them alone. How wrong they were! The campaign was only ever going to be escalated and this was the inevitable result of Blue Fin’s indifference to their genocidal tenants.
The police response can only be described as glacial – perhaps they don’t like BAE much either, or maybe there have been too many panicked calls from Blue Fin security in the past when no crime was being committed? All we know for sure is that the half dozen local bobbies initially dispatched had absolutely no chance of moving us out the way – they hardly bothered trying to engage – and it wasn’t until much later that they had to bring down three vans of beefy TSG officers to provide a bit more in the way of intimidation and muscle power.
Eventually at about 9:50am, with arrests finally looming and comrades having left to go to work (yes, many of us have jobs!), we decided we’d had enough antics for one day and went round the corner for a debrief in the sun away from the dark shadow cast by Blue Fin.
Thanks to all those who came and all those who helped in the run-up to make it a success. We’ll be back!
BAE close down, pack your bags and leave town! Free Palestine! We will not stop until BAE Systems have been evicted from the Blue Fin building.
