Reclaiming space on the High St – report from our stall

Thank you to everyone who helped organise the stall on Saturday and who turned up early enough to “jump the pitch” of the Info Hub who have claimed the spot outside Vodafone for themselves.

We had a successful day handing out leaflets and talking to people about the nasty content in the Light. Our leaflets and conversations covered The Light’s promotion of the far right, their consistent denial of climate change, their assertion of patriarchal values, homophobia and transphobia. All of our leaflets are available to download on this website.

Thanks to CSSD member Cammy Leon for the following write up:

There were a few interesting and disturbing interactions. One particular Light supporter (who proudly claimed that they read the Light and liked what was in it) spent a lot of time hanging around the stall, goading us and speaking loudly at us. They asked us questions but refused to listen to answers. When asked about the content in the Light they said “Well we’re being invaded aren’t we, by them (immigrants) on boats” some of their responses didn’t directly correlate with the question being asked but were repeated loudly at us like “a man can never be a woman” over and over. They also recommended we watch a Tommy Robinson video on YouTube. Their presence was bordering on harassment as they stood in front of the stall for long periods of time repeatedly shouting at us. One of our stall members tried to diffuse the situation by offering a biscuit from the stall to which they responded that they don’t know what’s in it and gave a list of possible poisons that could be in the biscuit. They asked one of us if we’d been vaccinated to which she replied “no” because she had an auto immune disease so chose not to. This led to the person attempting to shake her hand and congratulate her.

We were prepared for some negative responses from supporters of the paper, and most people were sympathetic to our cause and we had a lot of support from passers by. What I did notice though was that one of the info hub members came and stood next to us giving out the paper, which gave passers by the impression that we were part of the Light and they started to avoid the stall. We held up some “No to The Light” leaflets so people knew that we weren’t with them. The “Info Hub” had around 2 or 3 members then come and stand around and opposite the stall intermittently.

In one incident a man passed by and took a leaflet, and whilst doing so an “Info Hub” member came over, grabbed the man and said “Hi”, then immediately shouted “they think we’re raving homophobes don’t they?” to this man and kissed him on the face. The man looked horrified and angry and pulled away thanking us for our leaflet.

Thanks again to everyone who came out to support us.

Download copies of our leaflets to print via this link.