I once crossed the busy road to have a chat with Barbara. Despite the fact that I think her chosen method of political action (endurance camping) is a poor use of her time, I was keen to be friendly, say hello and see how she was doing. Anyone sleeping out as a protest for that length of time in central London has got to have some conviction and a few good stories to tell. I assumed that, while our methods differ, her heart's in the right place and we're basically on the same side. Nope!

I said hello with a smile, introduced myself and asked her how it was going. Almost immediately, and quite out of nowhere, she started ranting at me about the "genius man" David Icke. I remained polite, but said that I thought the man was not such a genius for a number of reasons. Cue Barbara laying right into me, saying that I was either with (in her words) 'Us' (presumably her and Dave) or 'Them' (as she gestured to parliament).

I'm not with 'Them'; I'm a fucking anarchist. As the poster of the article says, this woman needs help, but I truly believe -- if at all possible -- that that help should be in finding her somewhere safe to live and getting good people around her who support her rational political dissent, not encouragement for her pointless protests (in terms of praxis, not aims) or loony David Icke occult bullshit.

All due respect, but ACAB is right here. Since before Bruan Haw died, the parliament protest was riddled with conspiracy strangeness as well as an unhealthy mix of sanctimonious 'holier than thou' attitudes co minded with evident mental illness. Without speaking ill of the dead, it was pretty obvious that BH himself was not 'all there'. The account above sums up perfectly what I have heard if Babs and how we should interact with her and that wider 'campaign'

October 2011

It was pioneer activist Brian Haw who first sat down on the green in Parliament Square in June 2001, initially to protest sanctions against Iraq. Maria Gallastegui was one of the first to join Parliament Square Peace Campaign (PSPC) as the situation heightened from sanctions to invasion and war. She became Brian's campaign manager. Among other supporters who joined later, however, was Australian Barbara Tucker, who became a close influence on Brian Haw. She called Maria “the Bitch” and accused her and other people camped out on Parliament Square of being secret police agents. As a result Haw stopped speaking to Maria, and disassociated himself from the 'Peace Strike' campaign which she set up. Since his death from cancer earlier this year Tucker has taken over the running of PSPC, and the enmity she shows to the 'Peace Strike' campaign is deep.

"It would be easier to solve the conflict between Israel and Palestine than it would the issues between the protesters on Parliament Square, ” sighed Maria.

I know what she's talking about. When I was first given permission by Maria to move into a vacant tent on the side of the square facing Westminster Abbey I had little contact with the handful of veteran Brian Haw members on the side facing Parliament. Barbara Tucker was serving a sentence in prison at the time, but the others looked with disdain and suspicion on the mostly homeless unemployed campers I lived among, and never had a word of greeting. We were in Coventry as far as they were concerned. However, after police arrived early one morning on 31 August to dismantle and cart away tents and structures which had belonged to the deceased Brian Haw on the grounds that they were 'litter', and saying that they would be coming the next morning to evict those camped on the Abbey side, me and a couple of others decided to move our tents into the vacated space at the front. Into a hornets' nest. The Haw clique were irate, saying we were desecrating ground sacred to his memory and threatening us with violence if we didn't move. My friends disappeared but I remained, adamant that I had as much right to be there as they did. It wasn't very comfortable. They wouldn't let me to attach any pictures to the wire fence behind my tent, I heard them saying nasty things about me as they sat outside in their conversation at night, and I found a hole had been punched in the side of my tent.

I had no contact with Barbara Tucker on her release from prison until she suddenly appeared at my tentside one evening a couple of weeks ago and seized a giant silver plastic and cardboard sickle which I had propped against the fence. I had found it in the street on the other side of town (possibly used in a Harvest Festival ceremony in a church) and carried it back propped against my shoulder prompting many a fearful or amused look, me looking like the grim reaper, what with my black garb and skullcap. Tucker took the scythe and moved it several yards away down the fence, saying "This has nothing to do with our protest!" I called her a bully. The next day I saw it had been tossed over the fence and was lying on the green. I asked one of the wardens inside to pass it over and I took it to the park next to Parliament, tossed it ceremonially over the embankment into the Thames and watched as it slowly floated away.

Arriving back at the camp at 2.30 am and drained after our incarceration in the police station, Maria and I wished each other goodnight and retired to our quarters. As I unzipped my tent I heard a radio playing in the one next to me, usually but rarely occupied by a burly man from the Haw group. A strange woman looked out and began chatting to me. She said Barbara had let her use the tent for the weekend, and wasn't she incredible? I agreed that I thought her incredible, but in a negative way. I crawled into my tent and got ready for bed, but the woman (who reminded me of a younger Maggie Smith in looks and manner) lingered at her opening, asking if my tent were fireproof, expressing timidity at the mice scampering around, and commenting on a drunken argument going on between two young men on the other side of the road in front of Parliament.

"I hate violence."

Suddenly Barbara Tucker was standing there between us, bloated and tousled.

"Don't speak to this guy. He's not part of our campaign. He's just a little piece of shit who pushed his way in here and took over our space with no respect for Brian. Don't talk to him. He's not on our side. He's just a little piece of shit!"

My neighbour glared at me as she disappeared into her tent and zipped up the flap. Babs stormed off. Angry at her words, but grateful for some peace at last, I closed up my own entrance and went to sleep.

The next day, Sunday, after my morning trip to the internet cafe I went to Westminster Bridge where the UK Uncut organization were staging a sit-down protest about the cuts being planned in the National Health Service by the Coalition Government Bill. There was a carnival feeling as over 2000 people, including many dressed as medics, brandished banners and placards, shared picnics and stories and made their opposition heard. Remembering the result of the previous day I decided not to sit down on the bridge, but walked around displaying my collage of Cameron on the toilet, listening and talking to others, and collecting the leaflets and flyers being handed out by activists.

Deciding to take a break and have a smoke in my tent I went back to the nearby Peace Camp to find a large number of lemon-jacketed policemen in pairs standing along the curb. One of the Haw group, an aggressive Arab named Akil, approached, filming me with a video camera and saying: "You shouldn't leave your tent unattended or it could be removed. Did you not know that? Naughty, naughty!" Others including Barbara Tucker surrounded my tent as I unzipped to enter, telling me to get lost, and that I was going to be forcibly removed. I lost patience and raised my voice. I told Ms Tucker that I would never address another human being as a "little piece of shit", and that if she really wanted to remove something it should be the banner attached to the fence above her tent which proclaims; 'FREE POLITICAL PRISONER BARBARA TUCKER'. She has been out of prison for nearly a month and yet it still hangs there.

"I might be re arressted," she retorted.

"But you're free now, so it's a lie. Take it down!"

They went back to their little circle, saying that my tent would be removed by the police if I left it unoccupied. I approached two policemen who were standing nearby and asked if it were true. They said they were only on duty in the square because of the demonstration on the bridge and it was not their duty to remove tents. I told them that I was going to go out again for about half an hour and asked them if they would keep an eye on my tent and stop anyone from moving it. They said they would. I went back to Westminster Bridge to catch the end of the protest. Police vans were blocking access as best they could but I managed to get through. Protesters were holding a "general assembly" in the middle of the bridge, similar to those organised by campaigners on Wall Street, where they discussed future demonstrations against the government's cuts. At the other side of the bridge a loudspeaker with a big 'A' on it was blasting out some excellent music so I had an energetic dance to get rid of my tensions and then went back to the camp.

I was shocked to see that my tent was gone. It had been carried and dumped unceremoniously in a vacant place at the other end of the pavement from the Haw settlement. Some of them approached.

"So sorry to see your tent has been moved!" simpered a long-haired European with a scant beard, his arms raised in a camp pose. I copied him. I'm a good mimic.

"Fuck off!" said he.

"Fuck off!" said I.

"Racca!"

"Racca!"

They retreated, their task over, the thorn removed from their side. The police said they hadn't witnessed the move, but if I wanted to complain I should go to Charing Cross Police Station. I decided against it. What would be the point? When I inspected the tent I found it had been damaged. One of the supporting metal beams had become crushed and bent, so it now leans over crookedly. And when I went inside to rearrange my belongings I found a long gob of phlegm on my sleeping bag. Someone had spat on it.

The Haw group were sitting in their circle. I went to congratulate them.

"I will have to accept my new place and live in it. You don't speak to me. I shall follow suit and not speak to you either. But first I would just like to say that I consider you all to be hypocritical snobs and bullies. You have nothing to do with peace. And if Brian Haw knew about your behaviour he would be turning in his grave!"

Now, a few days later I feel much better to be out of the vicinity of their paranoid poison, and even have the freedom to hang a exhibition of my political collages on the fence behind my tent, including the one of Cameron on the toilet, but one thing is for certain, the name 'Peace Camp' is certainly a misnomer for this bitterly divided place. It's more like a war zone.

>>Having endured the raw end of British imperial policing over the last 7 years, Babs persists. However, it is impossible to contemplate that this hasn't had its toll on her. In increasingly cold weather ... how long can the body of this brave woman hold out?

I'm not being funny here, but no one is forcing her to do this.
She can leave or do something else any time she wants.

People who do something and then moan about how terrible it is are their own worse enemies.

"how long can the body of this brave woman hold out?"
I dont know, if i sleep out in the open all the time, i'd probably not last as long.
Hence i dont

A lot of the comments here are true enough. Barbara Tucker is extremely confrontational which has its benefits of course when it comes to getting in the faces of the heirarchy encamped in parliament, but she is just as confrontational with other activists who actually show up to support the campaign for peace. I think she seems unable to actually tell the difference between the campaign for peace, and her own campaign. She certainly does seem to be very self centered and very very closed to other ideas that don't fit in with her own feeble reality.

I hae spoken with here over the years and some of her views don't fit well with the bog standard views of other activists I have met oer the years. She doesn't believe in publicly funded welfare, instead believing in privatisation of the public sector. She doesn't like big government, and believes instead in small government, she also claims to be descended from English nobility. If you talk to her and get her onto subject matter away from activism, she's actually a staunch conservative.

A year or two back, I also found she was dissapearing from Parliament Square and trundling off to some place at the back of Trafalgar Square for some unknown reason, She does this regularly.

The one thing that Barbara Tucker is known for, is preventing other campaigns from setting up in Parliament Square. She has done this not only by personally harrassing others who go to Parliament Square, but also by creating a conflict based environment which facilitates the police. Both Brian Haw and mostly Barbara Tucker have been the seed that the police and local authorities have used to advertise their power to prevent peace camps from establishing themselves in Parliament Square, which in antiwar terms, is the number 1 real estate site for actions against the war. A very effective press and media campaign has existed and been facilitated in Parliament Square to steer public opinion into beleiveing that Parliament Square is a no go area for the peace movement. As a result of that, Parliament has been able to build tremendous crimes against foreigners and Muslims all over the world. Barbara Tucker has facilitated and helped bring that about.

I cannot recall a single time, in which Barbara Tucker hasn't been routinely smearing others with the accusation that they are 'undercover' police. This has been her most regular tactic since she first appeared.

Of course she could just be an inefectual person who didn't achieve much, she could just be misguided and not good at coping with pressure. She could just be somebody who is reaping what she sowed. It wouldn't be the first time.

The point is, as far as we are concerned, is that the space directly in the heart of the criminal and warmongering government that purports to be representatives of the people, has been thrown away and handed freely to politicians, local councillors and police. They ahve used it to facilitate general and widespread damage against the antiwar movement, the movement for democracy and other movements in order to prop up their diseased and feeble heirarchy.

Big opportunity lost.

no frontline in the picture

As to the DNA inserted into the tent, caution should be maintained with regard to the assumption of infighting. This might be external, it is even plausible that it could be third person DNA. In the early stages of the Occupy movement awareness people found many instances of such tactics. Rule of thumb, infighting makes external attack more likely not more unlikely.