UK George Floyd protests: Police and demonstrators clash outside Downing Street as thousands across UK join Black Lives Matter march
Follow developments in the protests as they happened
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Your support makes all the difference.Thousands of people gathered in UK cities to stand against racism and demand change after the death of George Floyd in US police custody.
Demonstrators filled London‘s Parliament Square holding placards reading “black lives matter“, “white silence is violence” and “the UK is not innocent”, while thousands also turned out across Cardiff, Bristol, Manchester, Sheffield, Leicester, Bath and Birmingham.
Government ministers urged people not to gather in large groups to protest, with police warning that protests could be unlawful under coronavirus lockdown rules. The demonstrations were largely peaceful apart from a clash between protesters and police near Downing Street on Saturday evening which saw a police officer knocked from a horse and graffiti daubed on the Cenotaph in Whitehall.
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Protester Claudia Jones, taking part in the rally in central London, has raised concerns about black history and the national curriculum.
"We haven't really been educated about our history," she told the PA news agency. "You have to do the research yourself, that's what I've had to do. It should be in schools.
"And it shouldn't just be about our race, it should be all races. I was raised in a white family, so my family didn't teach me, the school didn't teach me, so I grew up without a sense of identity."
Asked about any concerns over protesting during the coronavirus crisis, the 37-year-old said: "People have been gathering on the beach, people have been gathering in all sorts of places and the numbers haven't risen."
Gemma Fox/The Independent
Gemma Fox/The Independent
Gemma Fox/The Independent
'No justice, no peace, no racist police'
With protesters on the move, some reportedly in the direction of the Home Office, chants of "no justice, no peace, no racist police" are filling the streets.
The UK police has previously faced accusations of racism, with the 1999 MacPherson report published after the murder of Stephen Lawrence concluding the police response was "institutionally racist".
Former Equality and Human Rights Commission chair Trevor Philips said a decade later that this was no longer true. Black people in the UK continue to face disproportionately high rates of stop and search, arrests and use of force.
Vast crowds have turned out in Manchester for a second day of peaceful protest.
Here's some footage of the action from social media and images taken by photojournalists, some showing demonstrators taking the knee in solidarity, and others scaling the square's Queen Victoria statue.
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images
Jason Cairnduff/Reuters
Danny Lawson/PA Wire
Here's some more footage of the Manchester protests in Piccadilly Gardens.
Rough estimates would suggest the number of people turning out across the UK is possibly reaching the tens of thousands.
Thousands of people protesting in central London have passed over Vauxhall Bridge and are walking in the direction of the US embassy.
The majority of those marching are wearing masks and face coverings, and appear to be adhering to social distancing by walking in small groups.
While law enforcement appear to be keeping a distance from protesters today, here's one surprising encounter with the law at Wednesday's protests.
A woman wearing a “F*** Boris” T-shirt was stopped by British Transport Police in central London and told her clothing was against the law, Samuel Osborne reports.
Footage uploaded to YouTube on Thursday claims the unidentified woman was leaving the Black Lives Matter protest on Wednesday when she was approached by two officers.
In the footage, filmed at Oxford Circus, the woman asks: “You think it’s illegal for me to have this T-shirt on? Based on what law?”
One officer replies that it violates Section 5 of the Public Order Act, which states it is an offence to use “threatening words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour” or display “any writing, sign or visible representation which is threatening” while “within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby”.
The woman asks incredulously: “Why would that cause harassment? To who?” The officer replies: “To other people. People will find that offensive.”
British Transport Police said: "Our officer approached the individual in a courteous and professional manner and legitimately challenged them for wearing an item of clothing that contains an obscene word that could cause alarm or distress.”
Protesters have been highlighting the names of black people who have suffered or died at the hands of UK police forces, such as Mark Duggan and Julian Cole.
While 163 people have died in police custody in England and Wales in the past decade, no officer has been prosecuted concerning the death of someone in custody since 1969.
When looked at in relation to the population as a whole, black people are twice as likely to die in police custody, however this is likely due to higher rates of incarceration, and deaths in custody are roughly proportional to prisoner ethnicity in England and Wales, official figures show.
However, research has found that black communities face disproportionately high rates of stop and search, arrests and use of force.
The director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct, Michael Lockwood, writes that while the UK has a strong – and very different – system of accountability to that in the United States, but the police service must be open to change.
Our video team has compiled this footage, taken by our correspondent Gemma Fox.
Cars horns can be heard blaring in support of protesters, while some chant "UK is not innocent" and "black lives matter".
Bristol protesters highlight 8 minutes and 46 seconds in lead up to George Floyd's death, as hundreds turn out in Bath
While a larger protest is planned in Bristol tomorrow, hundreds have still come out today. The SWNS agency has captured this tribute to George Floyd, who was pronounced dead in hospital after the now former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into his neck for nearly 9 minutes, removing it from an unconscious and handcuffed Mr Floyd only after paramedics asked him to.
Meanwhile, a documentary photographer specialising in protests describes a demonstration in Bath as "absolutely phenomenal", forecasting Bristol's event tomorrow will be unlike anything seen for some time.
Author Phil Chamberlain has an image of the demonstration.
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