Americans protest at city's Mayflower Steps

Americans For Action held a peaceful protest at Mayflower Steps to challenge Donald Trump's increasingly authoritarian government

- By CARL EVE

AMERICANS living in the UK who are aghast at President Donald Trump's increasingly authoritarian administration have said they intend to continue to publicly raise their concerns following a protest at what could be considered the birthplace of their nation - Plymouth’s Mayflower Steps.

Asmall but passionate crowd made up of members of Bristol-based Americans for Action and Indivisible South West, who are part of the larger US-based Indivisible group who came together as a social movement organisation, attended the steps last Sunday afternoon.

Valerie Russell Emmott, one of the co-organisers of the protest, said they chose the Mayflower Steps as it was a “symbolic” venue. Plymouth’s Barbican was the leaving pointwhich saw a group of English families - known today as the Pilgrims* - head towards the New World in 1620.

Valerie said the protest venue was also important to the two groups as it drew parallels between the suppression shown to the Pilgrims and people now, who were being targeted - and rounded up - by agents of the US government, in a manner similar to Europe in the mid to late 1930s.

She said a number of speeches were given, including a powerful one from Julie Paget, strategic manager of Plymouth and Devon Racial Equality Council.

Valerie said there were concerns among many Americans in the US and abroad about the “alarming rise” in authoritarianism in the States, with “unaccountable forces who are a law unto themselves, not badged, masked, offering opportunity for weirdos and vigilantes who are pretending to be agents of ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement].