Royal wedding planners powerless to evict Parliament Square protesters David Cameron wants Parliament Square cleared for big day, but police say protesters are not breaking any laws
The prime minister, the home secretary and the mayor of London have all vowed that the ramshackle tented peace encampment yards from Westminster Abbey in Parliament Square will not become a backdrop to the perfect royal wedding tableau in on 29 April.
But the sound and fury emanating from the politicians belies an embarrassing powerlessness, the Guardian can reveal.
Despite numerous legal attempts, no one – from No 10 down – has been able to come up with any legal power to move the ragtag band of peaceniks, campaigners and eccentrics from the pavement between the Houses of Parliament and the abbey, where Prince William and Kate Middleton will marry on 29 April.
As the countdown to the wedding begins, Tory politicians are venting their fury at Scotland Yard, piling the pressure on senior officers to do something. The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, is understood to have made it clear in private to the Metropolitan police that he does not want anything – not a tin of paint, a placard or a tent flap – to spoil the wedding day.
David Cameron told the Commons that he could not understand why demonstrators were being allowed to sleep in the square, and stressed at prime minister's question time that he wanted the peace camp removed before the wedding.
The home secretary, Theresa May, even created an amendment to the police reform and social responsibility bill, which outlaws the erection in Parliament Square of "any tent, or any other structure that is designed, or adapted... for the purpose of facilitating sleeping or staying in". The legislation is about to enter its second reading in the House of Lords and will not be law in time for the big day.
At Scotland Yard, there have been high-level meetings to scour legislation and identify a clause that would give police the power to act. Given the level of political pressure, there have been conversations about the possibility of using emergency powers but, after a meeting at the Yard this week, it was concluded that there was nothing the Met could do. A senior police source said: "They are putting us under huge pressure, but … They made the laws and to date there doesn't seem to be one we can act on. If there was we would have done it by now."
Hopes had been resting on attempts by the Greater London Authority and Westminster council to remove the inhabitants of the camp, their 14 tents, placards, montage pictures of war victims and two home-made police boxes, by taking action through the courts. But most protesters have permission to stay on the Parliament Square pavement under a clause in the Serious and Organised Crime Act 2005.
There is a small chance that the GLA – which is responsible for the grass on Parliament Square – might be able to move two tents pitched on a patch of lawn at the edge of the square next week if an appeal by peace campaigners Brian Haw and Barbara Tucker fails in the high court. However, all Haw and Tucker need do is move their tents three feet on to the pavement.
Westminster council – which is responsible for the pavement – has more chance of success by arguing in the high court that the peace encampment is an obstruction under the Highways Act. But the case has is not due in court until 9 May.
"Unfortunately, we have no grounds to clear the camp away for the royal wedding, and, yes, it looks like they are going to be there on the day," said a spokeswoman for Westminster council.
Meanwhile, some inhabitants of the camp – which was first settled 10 years ago when veteran peacenik Haw pitched his tent on the grass of Parliament Square – are making what they see as a generous gesture in a spirit of compromise.
One protester, Maria Gallastegui, has written to Buckingham Palace offering to cover up her placards for the day.
She received a noncommital reply – delivered to her police box. The Prince of Wales, the letter said, "appreciated" her offer and "careful note has been taken on the points you make".
For their part, Cameron, May and Johnson seem unlikely to accept the olive branch. A Home Office spokesman told the Guardian: "We are still working with the police and other agencies to address this issue and find a solution to ensure that Parliament Square is in a fit and proper state for the royal wedding."
LONDON — Brian Haw, a peace campaigner who sat outside the Houses of Parliament for a decade in protest at the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has died aged 62, his family said. The former carpenter died Saturday after a long battle with lung cancer, for which he had finally to give up his vigil on Parliament Square.
Haw became a symbol of the anti-war campaign and of civil activism with his round-the-clock protest, which began on June 2, 2001 against sanctions imposed on Saddam Hussein's Iraq by his government and other Western nations. His anger grew when Britain joined the US invasion of Afghanistan later that year following the September 11 attacks, and then the war in Iraq in 2003.
Sitting in his makeshift camp on the pavement opposite Big Ben, surrounded by banners and horrific pictures of war victims, the father-of-seven was passed by MPs and thousands of tourists every day. The authorities tried numerous times to get rid of him, including introducing a new law to restrict demonstrations within half-a-mile of parliament, but they failed. Haw's efforts were even immortalised in art -- Mark Wallinger won the 2007 Turner Prize for his exact replica of the encampment, entitled "State Britain".
"It is with deepest regret that I inform you that our father, Brian, passed away this morning," his family said in statement dated Saturday on his website. "As you know he was battling lung cancer, and was having treatment in Germany. He left us in his sleep and in no pain, after a long, hard fight."
A separate statement from his fellow protesters said he had been "relentlessly persecuted by the authorities, which eventually took its toll on his health". As an evangelical Christian, Haw said he felt compelled to leave his family to campaign for the rights of ordinary Iraqis, Afghans and Palestinians.
"I want to go back to my own kids and look them in the face again, knowing that I've done all I can to try and save the children of Iraq and other countries who are dying because of my government's unjust, amoral, fear- and money-driven policies," he once said.
Haw was beaten up several times during his protest and the British authorities repeatedly tried to remove him, but succeeded only in limiting the size of his encampment and the hours he could use a megaphone to attack government policies. Haw had distanced himself from other protesters in Parliament Square, who were removed earlier this year for the wedding of Prince William and Catherine.
Haw under arrest before the State Opening of Parliament in 2010
this article from telegraph is pretty good, with info on his early life that i didn't know before;
Brian Haw Brian Haw, who died on June 18 aged 62, became famous when he set up home in a tent in Parliament Square in a quixotic peace vigil and, despite heavy-handed efforts by the authorities to silence him, he remained there until last March.
Initially Haw, a former carpenter who began his vigil in June 2001, was protesting about the economic sanctions imposed by the West on Iraq, which, he claimed, were responsible for the deaths of 200 Iraqi children per day. For months he sat on a chair, fasting and praying. Not only were his prayers fruitless, but in the meantime Britain and America invaded first Afghanistan, then Iraq.
Initially Haw was regarded as something between harmless eccentric and damn nuisance, but as public opposition to the war in Iraq grew and as the authorities embarked on attempts to silence him, he acquired the status of a folk hero, symbol of protest and thorn in the side of an unpopular government. In 2006 he was voted the most inspiring political figure at the Channel 4 political awards.
Brian William Haw was born a twin, by 25 minutes, on January 7 1949, the eldest of five children. The family lived for a while in Barking, Essex, and then moved to Whitstable in Kent. They were involved in an evangelical church; Brian found his faith aged 11 at Sunshine Corner on the shingle beach next to the Oyster Company.
His father had been a sniper in the Reconnaissance Corps during the war and was among the first to enter Bergen-Belsen after its liberation. Afterwards, he worked in a betting office. Twenty years after seeing Bergen-Belsen, he gassed himself in the kitchen at the back of the church. Brian was 13.
Apprenticed to a boatbuilder at 16, he joined the Merchant Navy, sending home £4 a week. He worked as a deckhand and eventually received his certificate to steer 27,000-ton ships. He passed through the Suez Canal, climbed the Pyramids and toured the ports of the Middle East and India. He returned from one voyage to do six months at a college of evangelism in Nottingham, after which he decided to embark on a freelance mission to bring peace to the world.
Northern Ireland during the Troubles was his first port of call. At Christmas 1970 he took himself and his guitar to Belfast, singing carols in the streets round the Shanklin and Falls Roads and handing out white peace balloons in Republican pubs.
Having, by some miracle, survived this adventure, he moved to Essex where he started a removals business, also working part-time as a carpenter. He married Kay, the girl across the road and they later settled on an estate in Redditch, Worcestershire.
But family commitments did not dampen Haw’s missionary zeal and in 1989, powerfully affected by the films of John Pilger, he set off for the killing fields of Cambodia. He stayed there for three months, but when he returned he found that people did not want to hear about it: “My church gave me 10 minutes in a midweek prayer meeting to talk about genocide,” he recalled.
He decided to refocus his crusade closer to home and in the 1990s continued his missionary work by taking disadvantaged local youngsters on family jaunts in his minivan. He was repaid by those he sought to help with bricks through his window and fireworks through the letterbox. When he sent a dossier on his problem neighbours to the CPS, his minivan was smashed up beyond repair. Parliament Square was a safer option.
On June 2 2001 he set up a makeshift camp on the grass but was soon moved off by the Greater London Authority. He then took up residency on the pavement opposite the Houses of Parliament, which falls under the jurisdiction of Westminster City Council. In 2002 the council applied to the High Court for an injunction to remove him, claiming that he was obstructing the pavement. But the court ruled against the council, on the grounds that Haw’s obstruction of the pavement was not unreasonable.
Subsisting on tobacco and food brought by well-wishers, Haw stuck it out through wind, hail, sleet, baking sun and torrential rain, haranguing the passing world through a megaphone while fielding the verbal bouquets and brickbats of passers-by. Meanwhile a rickety 40-metre-long wall of banners, placards, knocked-together information boards, handmade signs, peace flags, photographs (bloated Iraqi children and Tony Blair with a Hitler moustache), slogans (“murderer Bush”, “You Lie Kids Die BLIAR”, “Christ Is Risen Indeed!” etc), mushroomed around him and the local mice established new colonies amid the detritus.
Haw’s continuous use of a megaphone to get his message across led to objections by MPs and in 2003 the House of Commons Procedure Committee recommended the law be changed to prohibit unlicensed protests in the square on somewhat dubious security grounds. Although at first the prime minister Tony Blair had cited Haw as a symbol of Britain’s love of free speech, come 2005 he was desperate to get rid of him.
The Procedure Committee’s recommendation was implemented in 2005 in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) in a provision which came to be seen as one of New Labour’s most symbolic attacks on liberty and led, among other things, to the arrest of a woman for reading out the names of the Iraq dead at the Cenotaph.
It made little difference in the short term, however, to its target who, in the 2005 general election stood as a candidate in the Cities of London and Westminster to oppose the Act which was yet to come in to force. He received 298 votes. Subsequently he won an application for judicial review of the Act on the grounds that it required all protests to have authorisation from the police “when the demonstration starts”, a provision which would not apply in his case as his demonstration had begun before the passage of the Act.
The High Court agreed, but the Court of Appeal thought differently and the judgement was reversed in 2006.
In the meantime, however, Haw had applied for permission to continue his demonstration, and received it on certain conditions, including a limit on the size of his placards to no more than three metres wide. He was unwilling to comply and in May 2006, 78 police arrived and removed all but one of his placards, charging Haw with a breach of the conditions of the 2005 Act.
In January 2007, however Haw was acquitted on the grounds that the conditions he had been accused of breaching were not sufficiently clear, and that they should have been imposed by a police officer of higher rank.
Meanwhile Haw had become an internationally recognised figure. He appeared on CNN — both English and Spanish versions — and for a while had his own daily 45-minute slot on Mexican radio. In Britain, tour guides included him in their itineraries and he featured in documentaries and docudramas about Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war.
In January 2007 the artist Mark Wallinger recreated the protest banner confiscated by police in its entirety as an exhibition entitled State Britain at the Duveen Gallery. It attracted wide publicity and won Wallinger that year’s Turner Prize, the judges declaring the work to be “visceral and historically important” and combining “ a bold political statement with art’s ability to articulate fundamental human truths”.
Although rumours that Haw would stand as a candidate in the 2008 mayoral elections proved unfounded, he remained determined to soldier on: “On June 2 2001, the police came along and said: 'How long you going to be here, Brian?’ I said: 'As long as it takes.’”
Brian Haw had recently been receiving treatment in Germany for cancer. With his wife Kay, he had seven children, but his Parliament Square vigil tested the marriage to breaking point and they were divorced in 2003.
Brian Haw, whose death was announced yesterday, was a stubborn eccentric in the best English tradition. The one-man peace camp he pitched on Parliament Square 10 years ago soon became a place of pilgrimage for thousands and something of a tourist attraction in its own right. Mostly, though, it was what he had intended it to be: a mighty irritant, slap in front of the seat of national government, and a noisy, scruffy and colourful challenge to the war-waging tendencies of three prime ministers.
Haw's camp survived dozens of eviction efforts, most recently the Mayor of London's vain attempt to have this piece of pavement cleared in time for the royal wedding. But although his followers diligently kept the flame alive after he himself left for cancer treatment in Germany the encampment increasingly appeared to be running out of time. It is perhaps fitting that it was Haw's own time that ran out first.
His supporters now have the chance to give both Haw and his camp an honourable send-off together. And if Oliver Cromwell can have a statue in the precincts of Parliament, surely a small space can be found at the edge of the square opposite for a modest memorial stone to Brian Haw – an old-style rebel who got under the thick skin of the establishment.
Brian Haw: Veteran peace campaigner who occupied Parliament Square for a decade in protest at war
Brian Haw thrust himself into the public eye as an anti-war protester in 2001, living in a tent outside the Palace of Westminster for almost a decade in a vigil that was brought to an end only by his illness and death.
A heavy smoker, he died of lung cancer, for which he was being treated in Berlin. Supporters blamed the establishment for his death, saying he had been "relentlessly persecuted by the authorities which eventually took its toll on his health".
Some viewed his campaign as an expression of public conscience. Others regarded him as a public nuisance whose collection of banners, placards, posters, teddy bears and other impedimenta lessened the dignity of Parliament Square.
But everyone – supporters, critics and observers in general – marvelled at his persistence, whether they regarded it as splendid or excessive.
Despite his extraordinary commitment he never became a folk-hero: in fact he never sought to, concentrating on individual protest rather than broadening his campaign.
His rhetoric, often delivered via a megaphone, was emotional and uncompromising, particularly stressing that children were being injured and killed. He declared: "I've been witnessing against the genocide our murderous greedy country has been inflicting against the most helpless. We're killing each other – dropping bombs on our children."
Born in Redbridge, London, Brian William Haw was brought up in Worcestershire but lived in and around London for most of his life, working as a carpenter, boatbuilder and merchant seaman. His father, who as a soldier entered the Belsen concentration camp, committed suicide 20 years later. "My dad gassed himself," Haw once told a journalist.
He first set up camp outside Parliament in 2001, initially in protest against British support for UN sanctions against Iraq and before Britain became involved in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Many such protests have petered out in weeks or months but at no stage did Haw appear likely to abandon his campaign. He maintained it over the years, not even leaving on Christmas Day, displaying a persistence which came at a high cost to his family.
His wife filed for divorce after his first year in Parliament Square, and after a time he rarely saw any of their seven children. The loss of family life added an extra layer of bitterness to his views.
He told Jerome Taylor of The Independent in 2009: "I have effectively lost my family because our nation doesn't care enough.
"I love my wife and children so much, but I blame the Government for losing them because I shouldn't have been here eight years. I didn't want to be here eight bloody years but, while the killing and murder continues, I'm staying."
A play based on Haw's story, entitled The State We're In, examined the effect on his family. Its author, Zia Trench, said: "There is a messianic illusion around him, something so Jesus-like about him.
"He has taken on our fight but what has this cost him? The play looks at the man behind the protest and how battles fought for liberty can cost a man his wife, home and sanity."
In 2007 Haw was delighted when he was the runaway winner of the Channel 4 news award for Most Inspiring Political Figure. He attracted 54 per cent of the votes cast by viewers, compared with 8 per cent for Tony Blair and 6 per cent for David Cameron.
"Yeah, that felt damn good," he said with satisfaction. "Ordinary Joe Bloggs on the street being voted ahead of Blair and Cameron – felt great."
Another distinction came when an artist, Mark Wallinger, recreated his camp as an exhibition which went on to win the Turner Prize. Wallinger described him as "the last dissenting voice in Britain, waging a tireless campaign against the folly and hubris of our government's foreign policy".
A spokesman for the Tate Gallery, where it was displayed, said Wallinger "raises challenging questions about issues of freedom of expression and the erosion of civil liberties in Britain today".
Just as Haw harassed authority, so did authority harass him. His years in the square were marked by continual legal attempts to have him shifted, and by numerous arrests on charges such as "suspicion of obstructing police".
After one early-morning police raid, the civil rights group Liberty accused the government of "intolerance which has surely reached a fever-pitch".
At one court hearing, counsel for the Metropolitan Police said it was not suggested that Haw posed a terrorist threat, but police were concerned that "his unique position in Parliament Square may be exploited by terrorists wanting to strike a devastating blow to the heart of democracy".
Counsel added: "To set off a terrorist device within Parliament Square would reverberate around the world."
Later a senior police officer, explaining in court why he had not reached an agreement with the protester, said plaintively: "The problem is that whenever I do speak to Brian Haw, he stands and shouts at me."
Legislation designed to expel him from the Square turned out to be badly drafted and failed to budge him, although police curtailed the amount of space he occupied.
Although he had many opponents, The Independent called for three cheers for his activities and chided David Cameron for saying: "I'm all for demonstrations but my argument is, enough is enough."
The newspaper declared: "The right of protest and the issues of peace and war are far too important to be dismissed in a prissy preference for order. That's not the British spirit. Nor should it be of anyone who aspires to power in a country that values freedom."
Haw claimed he had supporters in unexpected places, maintaining: "There are good judges who are horrified and outraged and there are good coppers who are horrified and outraged."
As the years went by his health deteriorated, perhaps not surprisingly for a man who lived in a small tent with primitive cooking facilities, rudimentary hygiene and the din and fumes of traffic. His brushes with the law were never-ending, his anger palpable.
His face became deeply weathered; he had a thick bronchial cough; he smoked cheap cigarettes; he was described as visibly skeletal. He was treated for his lung cancer in Germany, which meant he had to leave his camp, so that Parliament no longer had him as an enemy at its gates.
Brian Haw, peace campaigner, born Redbridge, London; married Kay (seven children); died Berlin 18 June 2011
Death of Brian Haw prompts rallying to the peace cause
Grief mixed with anger yesterday as protesters marked the death of Brian Haw, the campaigner who for a decade resisted police and politicians to maintain his peace camp on the doorstep of the Houses of Parliament.
Mr Haw, 62, whose anti-war placards on the pavement at Parliament Square have become a London landmark, died of lung cancer on Saturday morning. He died in his hospital bed in Germany, where he had been receiving treatment for several months. His family said in a message on his website: "He left us in his sleep and in no pain, after a long, hard fight."
Yesterday in Westminster Mr Haw's supporters rallied to his cause while expressing bitterness towards the authorities. Relations remained strained, meanwhile, in the often fraught tented community that has grown up around a one-man mission.
Chris Lemin, a teacher who had cycled down to the square to pin an affectionate cartoon of Mr Haw on its perimeter fence, was immediately asked to take his tribute down in an irritable exchange with a protester.
Michael Culver, a 73-year-old actor who has long been a prominent co-campaigner with Mr Haw, acknowledged that personal rivalries had troubled the camp. "Brian got bogged down in internal politics, which was a shame because his anger should have been directed at the politicians as they're the real criminals.
"Brian said 'I'm staying here forever', but none of us could believe it would last that long, or what that lying psychopath Blair would lead us into. They must be clapping their hands and opening the champagne over there," he said of MPs.
It is not clear what will become of Mr Haw's camp. Much will depend on Barbara Tucker, who has deputised for the campaigner during his illness. She said in a message from Germany: "In every way Brian had the strongest heart of anyone we will ever know."
Though Mr Haw's campaign took on added significance with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, he first took up residence in Parliament Square three months before 9/11 to call for the lifting of sanctions preventing delivery of medical supplies to Iraq.
Viewed by the authorities as an affront and an eyesore, his camp quickly became the target of ministers, Westminster Council and the Greater London Authority, and has survive repeated eviction attempts.
His resilience made him a hero in the eyes of many. In 2007, he was was voted the Most Politically Inspiring Figure of the Year in the Channel 4 Political Awards. But his vigil contributed to his poor health and took him away from his seven children.
Yesterday a message from supporters on his campaign's website said: "Brian showed great determination and courage during the many long hard years he led his peace campaign... [He] showed the same courage and determination in his battle with cancer. He was keenly aware of and deeply concerned that so many civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine did not have access to the same treatments that were made available to him."
Mark Wallinger: Brian Haw was the conscience of a nation grown quiescent
Brian showed us what a quiescent and supine country we've become. After two million came out to protest against the Iraq war it was as if everybody decided to give up. But Brian never gave up. Then they brought in laws trying to curtail his/our right to protest outside Parliament and very few lifted a finger to do anything about that.
He was a unique and remarkable man. Earlier, I was asked how to describe him and the first words I came up with were tenacity, integrity and dignity. And then Michael Culver, an old colleague of his, said rage, and I think that is absolutely right. That's not to say he wasn't a funny man. He was self-aware and could be ironic or sarcastic. What Brian was saying was never really reported properly, nor was the depth and heroism of his struggle. People who should know better would describe him as a crank and wouldn't bother to hear what he had to say.
I first met Brian six or seven years ago. I started taking photographs of his protest, not for any real reason, just because I was so impressed. But his achievement went beyond protest. He documented the horrific birth defects suffered as a result of depleted uranium from the first Gulf War; and the lies and evasions of Bush and Blair, which were emblazoned on banners as their words turned to ash. These images and the facts were overwhelming.
Over time, Brian has been proven wholly right. It's pretty obvious to everyone now that we went to war on a lie. In many ways he was the guilty conscience of all the complacent, lazy people who hadn't taken a stand or examined their views at all. I think people often felt threatened by that. You would spend time with him and people would drive by, shouting abuse, and I think it's because they were threatened that they'd never taken such an adamant stand about anything.
He was a Christian and there was a sense that he was bearing witness to what was happening in the world. But what angered him most was the death of the innocents: the children who lost their lives to warfare and sanctions. That angered him more than lies, stupidity and self-serving politicians. Brian Haw stood for peace and love. What are we going to do now there is no one there?
Artist Mark Wallinger's 'State Britain' was a recreation of a display which had originally accompanied Brian Haw's peace protest
Parliament Square anti-war protester Brian Haw, 62, dies Campaigner loses fight against lung cancer
He had been receiving treatment in Germany
Veteran protester dogged UK authorities
High-profile support: Although many politicians condemned Mr Haw's tactics, he did win the backing of veteran Labour MP Tony Benn
An anti-war campaigner who spent ten years camped outside the Houses of Parliament has died of lung cancer.
Brian Haw, 62, set up his ramshackle site in June 2001 as a one-man protest against British military action in Iraq and, later, Afghanistan.
He became a familiar face to MPs and a hero to civil rights campaigners, but his tent and collection of horrific pictures of war victims, accompanied by slogans such as ‘baby killers’, offended many.
But Mr Haw and his followers fought off all legal attempts to remove the camp from Parliament Square, although he was limited in the hours he could use a megaphone to attack government policies.
It began as a response to economic sanctions and British and American bombing raids on Iraq, but his angry messages daubed on hand-written posters grew after the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.
This month he marked ten years living on the square.
The protester died in Germany on Saturday where he had been receiving treatment.
Yesterday his devastated family paid tribute to the father of seven, releasing this statement: ‘It is with deepest regret that I inform you that our father, Brian, passed away this morning.
‘As you know he was battling lung cancer, and was having treatment in Germany.
‘He left us in his sleep and in no pain, after a long, hard fight.’
Supporters and MPs flocked to Twitter to pay tribute.
The Speaker’s wife, Sally Bercow posted a number of Tweets, saying: ‘Sad to hear Brian Haw has died.
‘His peace camp in Parly Sq was a good thing (in my humble opinion-- many here would beg to differ).’
She added: ‘Hoping Westminster Council might put up a blue plaque: Brian Haw, peace campaigner, lived here 2001 - 2011.’
Haw was the son of a soldier who was one of the first to enter the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after it was liberated from the Nazis.
Haw spent time in the merchant navy and worked as a carpenter, but his evangelical Christian faith drove him to seek out suffering.
He visited Northern Ireland during the Troubles and travelled to the killing fields of Cambodia.
Haw also worked with troubled youngsters in Redditch, Worcestershire where he lived with his wife Kay and their seven children.
Haw told journalists that he had left his family to campaign for other families suffering in war zones.
‘I want to go back to my own kids and look them in the face again, knowing that I’ve done all I can to try and save the children of Iraq and other countries who are dying because of my Government’s unjust, amoral, fear- and money-driven policies,’ he said.
‘These children and people of other countries are every bit as valuable and worthy of love as my precious wife and children.’
In his long fight against the Government, Haw became a beacon for civil rights campaigners.
In April 2002 Westminster City Council began legal action to remove him under the Highways Act, but the case never came to court.
The council later limited the hours he could use a megaphone to attack Government policies.
In 2005 the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act restricted the right to protest in designated areas within 1km of the Houses of Parliament
But the High Court ruled that Haw could apply to the police for permission to continue his demonstration.
This was granted - but only with a series of conditions limiting the size of his protest site.
In 2006 police seized 90 per cent of Haw’s placards overnight on the grounds that he had breached these restrictions.
However, a judge later found that there was no case to answer.
This year the Greater London Authority successfully got permission to evict Haw from the grass area at the centre of Parliament Square.
Westminster Council is due later this year to go to court to try to get the demonstrators moved off the pavement too.
His protest was immortalised in January 2007 when former Turner Prize nominee Mark Wallinger recreated his camp at the Tate Britain gallery.
Haw also won a Channel 4 News award for Most Inspiring Political Figure in 2007.
Yesterday his collection of bleak war photos remained untouched.
Fellow members of the Parliament Square Peace Campaign said his legal battles had taken a toll on his health.
They released this statement: ‘Brian showed great determination and courage during the many long hard years he led his Peace Campaign in Parliament Square, during which it is well documented that he was relentlessly persecuted by the authorities which eventually took its toll on his health.
‘Parliament, the police, and courts etc, should forever be ashamed of their disgraceful behaviour towards Brian.’
Anti-establishment: Mr Haw's political position often led to run-ins with the law
HAW'S BATTLES IN COURT TO STOP HIS CAMP BEING MOVED ON
Sucessive attempts to move Brian Haw frim his makeshift camp failed afterthe High court said it would be a breach of his human rights.
In 2002, Westminster City Council tried to prosecute Mr Haw for causing an obstruction, but the case was thrown out after it was ruled that camp banners did not impede the public.
And even when politicians amended the law to outlaw unlicensed protests, Mr Haw was able to keep up his campaign thanks to a legal loophole.
In the 2005 general election Mr Haw stood as a candidate in the Cities of London and Westminster in order to further his campaign.
He won 298 votes, making a speech against the ongoing presence of UK troops in Iraq at the declaration of the result.
Last year, bailiffs moved on a number of other protest groups from Parliament Square Gardens, but again Mr Haw escaped eviction because he was camped on the pavement, not the lawn.
He was also arrested last year when police carried out security sweeps in the area ahead of the Queen's Speech.
And in April Mr Haw faced another battle when officials tried to evict the huddle of tents, tarpaulin and placards - described by some as 'an eyesore' - ahead of the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton at nearby Westminster Abbey.
Tony Benn: Brian Haw sacrificed his life for peace The death of Parliament Square's longstanding Iraq war protester marks the end of a historic enterprise
'Brian Haw did not stop the Iraq war, but he will be remembered as a man who stood against it.'
Brian Haw was a man of principle and a man of action who took his campaign against the Iraq war to Parliament Square opposite the House of Commons and stayed there for years, talking on his loudspeaker, and to many people throughout the world who came to see him.
His little encampment, which included his tent and many placards, became for a while the real alternative to the view expressed in parliament. Every MP on the way to work would pass Brian and know he was always there and understand what he was saying.
He felt passionately about the war and the children who would die if it took place and he was so effective that it frightened the establishment into trying to stop his campaign. The government even introduced legislation to make demonstrations in Parliament Square illegal but he disregarded it and was taken to court. The court upheld the argument that his protest had begun before the law was passed.
The police harassed him and the local authorities also tried to remove him, and he disregarded them too.
The remarkable thing about Brian was not only his principle, but his determination, alone, to be effective as indeed he was; for millions of people must have seen him there or on television, and came to know of his campaign.
He had a few friends who shared his long hours on the square and he must have done endless little broadcasts with TV crews. Film units from all over the world who were in London reporting on the likelihood of an Iraq war would also come to Parliament Square to see Brian, who they described as "the man of peace in Westminster", and thus he presented to the world a message of reconciliation that was certainly not coming from the two backbenches at the time.
I got to know Brian by meeting him and talking to him, and hooting in my car as I drove past his camp, and was deeply touched by his sincerity and passion, which are not always so obvious in the House of Commons when questions of peace and war are discussed.
Brian sacrificed his life in his work for peace and against the Iraq war, and although he did not succeed in stopping it, what he did and said and the many hours of the day and night he devoted to it kept alive a flicker of hope in the hearts and minds of people who shared his view.
Brian did not stop the Iraq war, but he will be remembered as a man who stood against it and put his life at the disposal of those who were against that hideous operation.
He will be sadly missed and his death marks the end of a historic enterprise by a man who gave everything to support his beliefs.
Sad news indeed. From this day forth, I nominate June 19th Brian Haw Day.
Though it could be argued we already have an appropriate holiday on which to celebrate his sacrifice: Remembrance Day -- It's not supposed to be about the glorification of war.
Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:38 am Post subject: Fitting Tribute
50 years from now the name Haw will have the same resonance as Pankhurst in England and Rosa Parks in the US. He gave physical expression to his conscience by exchanging home comforts for a tent and a hostile environment outside that House of Criminals call Parliament.
Moreover, the names Straw, Blair, Hoon et al will be synonomous with shame, treason, and betrayal. The majority of those criminals were not fit to tie his shoelaces.
RIP Brian, may your soul shine as did your physical presence on earth.
Will MPs vote for a permanent memorial in parliament to Brian Haw? MP Jeremy Corbyn, who is an officer of Stop the War Coalition, has tabled a motion for MPs to vote to establish a permanent memorial in parliament to anti-war campaigner Brian Haw, who held a protest for peace outside parliament from 2001 until he died on 18 June 2011. Contact your MP urging support for Jeremy Corbyn's Early Day Motion No 1945 when it is debated in parliament.
Early Day Motion 1945
That this House notes with sadness the passing of Brian Haw, whose protest camp in Parliament Square, initially against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and then all wars, has stood for a decade and resisted all legal and political challenges to its existence; supports the principles behind the protest camp and regards its existence as a formidable example of the possibilities for peaceful dissent at a time when civil liberties are being eroded and military power is being employed over negotiated peace; further notes Mr Haw's relentless discipline in ensuring that he be seen by hon. Members going about their business every day as a constant reminder of the consequences of their decisions for the lives of thousands of innocent people and subsequent generations; further notes the political inspiration that he was to so many, with his handcrafted placards about the innocent lives lost as a result of war; trusts that his inspiration lives on as an influence to those in Parliament who make the decisions, and to the public whose role it is to hold decision makers in Parliament to account so that they might work toward bringing about peace in their time; and calls for a fitting permanent memorial to be established in Parliament.
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