For five years the top-hatted maverick has roamed Westminster, shouting at leave-supporting politicians, heckling interviews, belting out songs. Why did he make this his mission – and will the law against noisy protests shut him up?
ars beep their horns as they turn off Parliament Square, tourists stop to chat and a protester with long white hair stands up on the railings at the end of a traffic island, as if on the prow of a pirate ship heading for Westminster. In the shade on one side of the street is Steve Bray, also known as StopMan, slightly pink-faced under his top hat, tapping an unlit cigarette on its packet. He is planning to get back to vaping, he says, “but let’s get these stressful days out of the way first”.
with Gareth [he of the long white hair] to wave the flags. I could see them coming down to seize the stuff. I’m trying to wrap my leg around one amp; Gareth is holding on as well. We were doing everything we could to stop them taking the amps.” He says there were “at least 20 officers in the end”, and his microphone got broken. Is he worried about the prospect of prosecution? “Not in the slightest because what I’m doing is right, and what they’re doing is wrong.
‘If you can’t be seen, you’ve got to be heard’ … With fellow protesters outside parliament, on the eve of Brexit, 30 January 2020.On the day we speak, in early July, Bray has another amp, “an old one, which is on its way out, but I’ve been using it. Today the police are ‘advising’ me, not warning me. So every time I play it, they come over and ‘advise’ me. They’ve changed tack. I’m not going to push it too far today.
What they promised, I knew there was no way they could deliver it. People were being cheated out of a better life, or shouting, during broadcast interviews. “We’re about getting the message out. I would always rather be silent and just stand behind with a placard. But my view is if you can’t be seen, you’ve got to be heard.
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