Radical Protesters Shut Down London's Eurostar Terminal in Solidarity with Refugees

On Friday evening, hundreds of activists shut down the Eurostar terminal at London's St. Pancras station. Some of the city's radical protest groups —including Sisters Uncut, London Latinxs, and Black Dissidents—had put the call out online about a day of civil disobedience in solidarity with migrants and refugees, holding back details until just before the demonstration to keep police and security off their tail.

At 5 PM, in a park off London's Euston Road, 200 or so people stood talking. Nobody wanted to tell me what they had in store.

Slowly, small groups headed out of the gardens, making their way toward the King's Cross St. Pancras station. Following the activists inside, some headed straight to the departure boards, while others made a beeline for the MAC Cosmetics shop. For 45 minutes, nothing happened. I grabbed a beer; some trains arrived. Then, at 6 PM sharp, it kicked off. A handful of activists had been lining up at the Eurostar ticket barriers with no intention of traveling. Instead, they had glued themselves to the machines.

The guards caught on pretty quickly, dragging some of those intending to stick themselves down out of the terminal before they could pop open the adhesive caps. But by this point it was too late, as over 300 protesters descended from all over the station, blockading the entrances and shutting the place down.

Chants of "Who shut shit down? We shut shit down," echoed through the station.

As banners were unfurled, the Eurostar staff scampered to regroup.

I asked a protester named Bill why he'd decided to spend his Friday night glued to a ticket machine. "People are drowning off the coast of Lesbos," he said. "People are stuck in Calais, dying trying to get over here. We have these fucking arbitrary borders based on who is born where that dictate our life chances. The point is to show that if people can't come here, then people can't go over there."

On the other side of the terminal, around 250 activists staged a die-in, a form of direct action that sees protesters playing dead on the floor, made famous by the #BlackLivesMatter movement in recent years. With stories in the news of migrants/refugees/human beings dying on their journeys to Europe every day, all those bodies splayed out on the ground had a striking effect.

Two women with a megaphone began reading out the demands of the protest, with the crowds repeating each of them line by line.

"We demand that the UK and the EU open their borders to all migrants and refugees. We demand that the UK stops funding the killing of migrants and refugees. We demand that Theresa May shut down all detention centers and end all deportations. Colonialism still, your racist borders kill."

By this point, the station was heaving. More protesters had appeared from nowhere, some having arrived late from work, while others just passing through the station decided to get involved.

Predictably, the police weren't all that happy that a throng of activists had managed to shut down a train station, and didn't hold back with their jostling. As scuffles broke out, hundreds of activists shouted: "This is what a border looks like."

The travelers, of which there were many, didn't really know what to do with themselves. Some of them were trying to get home to their loved ones across the channel, while others were off for a night out in Brussels. Some, I think, had just wanted to grab a sandwich from Benugo before taking the tube home, and instead found their path blocked by hundreds of shouting people.

Of course, it put the whole issue into perspective: these guys were blocked from the Northern Line by lefty activists with placards; the people the lefty activists were there to represent were blocked by armed forces, barbed wire, and deportations in their quest for a better life.

I got chatting to Isabel, who was trying to get home to Belgium. "I agree that there is a bad situation—and people are angry; this is symbolic," she said. "As long as I get my train then I'm OK."

One French guy in a suit was less understanding, trying and failing to ram his way through the human barricades, before getting a bit mouthy and storming away.

As the pushing and shoving with cops continued, a handful of protesters glued their hands to a pillar while writhing around in fake blood on the floor.

"We are blocking the people coming in though the Eurostar to highlight how the government is protecting borders rather than people," a girl named Tatiana explained to me, as a police officer slipped up in the pool of liquid behind her. "The government here has made wars around the world, and have a responsibility to let people in. They have enough resources to protect everyone."

With the last Europe-bound train of the evening departed, the protesters made their way out the station, briefly blockading the main road as the police darted around behind them.

"I think actions like this will continue, because we're facing an urgent situation," a guy called Kwame told me. "We reject the border. But if it's there, the privileged and wealthy should feel it, too. Fortress Europe is a highly racialised project, which draws on longstanding ideas with a well-known history on this continent. It will continue to be resisted."

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More photos from the protest below: