People Protested Against Everything at London's Million Mask March

By Victoria Turk: On November 5—celebrated in Britain as Guy Fawkes Night—people around the world protested in V for Vendetta-style masks as part of the Million Mask March, a series of demonstrations aligned with the Anonymous hacktivist movement.
Motherboard caught up with the London event, which had a turnout pegged at a 1000 by the Register, although I'd estimate it at a bit higher than that. The crowd of masked marchers gathered at Trafalgar Square before marching to the Houses of Parliament, the site of conspirator Guy Fawkes’ failed Gunpowder Plot that same night in 1605.

A press release linked to from the London event’s Facebook page a couple of days ago said the point of march was “a warning to all governments worldwide that if they try to fuck with Anonymous, or fuck with the internet that is our home we will fuck with them. The free internet is a place without governments, without states, without security agencies. It is an independent, self-governing, self-managing entity. Those who try to censor or control the internet will be defeated. Do not underestimate the internet. Do not underestimate Anonymous, its final boss.”
But while the group of protestors were united in their general anti-government sentiment and Fawkes-inspired costumes, internet freedom didn’t seem to be at the top of everyone’s priorities. There were signs protesting everything from welfare cuts to fracking, bankers, surveillance, and badger culls. The majority of the protest took place in front of the Houses of Parliament, with marchers stopping traffic and police blocking off some roads. 

At around 7pm, a few young guys set off some fireworks on a patch of grass opposite Big Ben, and for a brief moment things looked like they might kick off as a group of police attempted to make their way through the crowd to rescue a black cab that found itself stuck in the ruckus. Another firework was thrown into the crowd and a few barriers pulled down, but the cab soon worked its way out. For most of the night, the substantial police presence seemed more bored than anything, occasionally forming lines to block people from spilling into the roads, but generally letting the protestors get on with chanting, banging drums, and playing drum and bass.
I spoke to some of the masked attendees to see what had brought them to the march.

Neil, 54, wore a gorilla mask and a yellow t-shirt proclaiming “Labour Time to Wake Up," and held a sign advertising a web forum he was part of. “In that forum we discuss history, we discuss the Bank of England; we discuss police abuse; we discuss—and have identified—a clause in Magna Carta, clause 61, where we can have a lawful rebellion,” he said. Apparently, this would involve sending an affidavit to the queen. (I should probably mention that when I later googled the web address on his board—TPUC—the third result took me to a page on davidicke.com, the official site of the former footballer-turned-conspiracy-theorist known for his belief that we’re all controlled by a group of reptilian overlords.) 
Neil said he wanted to wake up the “sheeple,” and seemed pleased with the turnout that evening. “If everybody was like me, you can imagine there’s something bubbling under the surface,” he said. “And take it from me, I’d go so far as to say that there is a tsunami of political change coming to this country.” I later spotted him chanting against “badgercide” with a group protesting the badger culling in Britain.

Barry, a 25-year-old gardener, unicycled in front of a row of police, his Guy Fawkes mask fashionably set off with a suit jacket and tie. He explained he’d come to protest the “disparity growing between the people and the government,” and, more specifically, internet censorship. “Supposedly they’re now pushing net blocks to the ISP side, the internet service providers, and when I pay for the Internet I want the full Internet, not what they want to see,” he said. I asked why he’d brought the unicycle, and he said it was handy: “Fits on trains and buses with no problem.”

Near Barry and the police line were 43-year-old Emma and her friend, both dressed in white overalls. Emma said they’d come along “to protest about the government and the government cutbacks, and the divide between the rich and the poor, which is getting bigger and bigger.” They sat in the road in front of the police line for a while, she said, because they were “non-conformists” and thought it was unfair they were being told what to do.
“We don’t want to be herded like cattle and we noticed that way we were all being pushed into where it was fenced off, so we pushed out and came this way and the police had to move, so we were just sitting there and showing people that we can move the boundaries,” her friend explained.

Leon, 24, who just graduated from uni, held a sign promoting Bitcoin on one side and American broadcaster Max Keiser, who hosts a financial programme on Russian TV, on the other. “I thought I’d come down and take some direct action—I’m quite into the finance world and economics etc, and I felt that I wanted to take a stand against a lot of corruption and fraud and criminality that’s going on in the city of London,” he said. “Bitcoin is one of a few methods of emancipation from the current monetary system in my opinion. Free from government control, free from inflation, deflation,  etc, it can’t be stolen from you. That’s the gist of it really.” 
Leon was joined by 26-year-old Jay, who runs a gaming website and is himself the proud owner of 50 bitcoins. He saw Leon’s sign and wanted to join him in promoting the digital currency, which he said goes hand-in-hand with Anonymous’ aims. “If you look at the things Anonymous has supported, such as the Pirate Bay for example, and Edward Snowden, Bitcoin is paying towards both of those guys, that’s the only way they can get money.”

Shortly after 8pm, as police officers tightened up their lines to try to keep people out of the road, a group of protestors made a break down Great George Street towards St James’s Park. By this point, the march had turned into more of a casual stroll, still accompanied by a drum and bass soundtrack.
According to the Guardian, a smaller group of protestors ended up at Buckingham Palace, where a fire was started. But for the most part, it was a peaceful affair, with only 11 arrests made across the evening.

Photos by Derek Mead

Source