Bristol for Ukraine

In my younger day, I was a bit of a one for going on protest rallies and marches. These days, not so much. Until last night when I attended Bristol’s pro Ukraine event.

I’m not good with numbers but there were a lot of people next to College Green, showing their support for Ukraine. There were several speakers who struggled to operate a megaphone so the likes of me, increasingly hard of hearing, struggled to hear what they were saying. But the atmosphere was warm, friendly and quite emotional.

It was largely a non-political rally, with only the occasional Trotskyist parasite handing out Trot literature. I firmly admonished one of them but perhaps I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t a sectarian night. And at least the pro Russian Stop the War traitors failed to make an appearance, as they were in London at a rally led by – who else? – Jeremy Corbyn, where a Ukrainian gentleman was manhandled out of the room by Corbyn’s security goons. It’s easy to see which side Corbyn is on.

Vladimir Putin will not have seen the rally and march in Bristol so he will not be aware of the anger his murderous invasion of Ukraine is causing. These was not the usual rent-a-crowd you see on many occasions. Just regular folk who wanted to do their small bit to stand up to fascism. I was proud of my city.

I didn’t join the march but I was so impressed with the fact that it did not block the roads, as so many rallies have done in recent times. It was arguably more effective given it didn’t negatively impact on the lives of the public. In any event, if you were annoyed art getting home a few minutes late because of a protest against the invasion of an independent sovereign nation, maybe you need to give your head a big wobble.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said this morning, “our objective in Ukraine is not just to demilitarise and denazify” and he was right about that in a roundabout way.  Russia’s objective is to militarise with Russian weapons of war and to nazify Ukraine. Even Putin apologists like Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn would struggle to deny that, although they would probably give it a good go.

Last night in Bristol wasn’t about politics but just about everything else surrounding the invasion is, not least the government’s disgraceful reluctance to allow refugees to come to the UK and actively turning them away and its abject failure to apply powerful sanctions against the friends of Putin. For today, we will go back to watching TV unable to help the people of Ukraine other than by charitable donation.

There was some light in Bristol last night, but we’re back to darkness today. At the moment, the bad guys are winning.