‘Not everyone is pro-monarchy’: Newington Green Meeting House celebrates ‘radical spirit’ with alternative coronation day event

Steve White & The Protest Family perform. Photograph: Olivia Barber

Newington Green Meeting House raised a toast to “community, solidarity and radical spirit” at an alternative coronation day event last Saturday that brought republicans and monarchists together.

The celebration featured political music from East London artists Sophie Crawford and Steve White & The Protest Family, and poetry performances.

At a place famed for its dissenting past, much of the talk centred on the arrests of a number of anti-monarchy protesters under the controversial new Public Order Act.

The Metropolitan Police later expressed its regret for its actions.

Steph Goward, gardener and Citizen columnist, attended the Meeting House event and said: “A hundred and fifty years ago people were allowed to protest coronations, now they can’t.”

Her partner Kyle Baldock added: “It’s really scary that they were pre-emptively arresting people.”

The Meeting House’s general manager Nick Toner said: “It was wrong to arrest the protesters, it’s worrying that is happening and that protest laws are being tightened.”

For Toner, the reason behind marking the coronation was to celebrate Newington Green’s radical past and present, and “let people know that this history exists”.

General manager Nick Toner. Photograph: Olivia Barber

In the past, religious dissenters weren’t allowed to go to university or hold office, and “there’s a long history of them not being treated well by the monarch of the day”, he explained.

“Hackney is a patchwork of particular histories, there’s support for anti-colonialism and migration, and not everyone is pro-monarchy.”

Neil Carlson, a long-term Hackney resident, said: “I came because it’s a nice idea, and because I’m a republican and I’ve spent most of the day being angry about [anti-monarchy] protestors being arrested before they did anything.”

Steve White, lead singer and guitarist of punk folk band Steve White & The Protest Family, hoped his protest songs would remind people who don’t support the monarchy that “they aren’t alone, their opinions are normal, valid and mainstream”.

He added: “Music is collaborative and cathartic. Through our songs, we seek to trouble people in power and comfort those oppressed by the system.”

The group covers subjects such as the cost-of-living crisis in songs like ‘Welcome to Put Up Shut Up Britain’.

Deb Hirshfield, who travelled from west London and is a fan of the band, said: “I was 100 per cent going to ignore the coronation altogether, but then I found out about this event and knew there wasn’t a better group of people to spend it with.”

Sam Walters, who lives near Brick Lane, commented: “I kind of wanted to do something that expressed the way I feel and to meet people who are on the same page.”

Walters added: “I have heard a lot more backlash around the coronation than for other royal events in the past.”

On 13 May, the Meeting House will host The Festival of Dissent, a day of talks and music put on by and for the local community, with a fundraising collection for Hackney Community Food Hub.

Find out more at ngmeeting.house.