AN UNJUST CASH GRAB

This is what thousands of campaigners consider London mayor Sadiq Khan's expansion of the ULEZ to be. John Evans meets their leader

-  John Evans

“They call me the cat herder - the person who brings together people heading off in different directions share but who fundamentally the same aim."

With four days to go before the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) was expanded to cover all of Greater London, Phil Elliott was doing a lot of herding. The founder of UK Unites, a 3000-member campaign group that aims to "unite as many people across the UK to stand up against unjust, undemocratic and unnecessary political interference", was talking to me at his home in Lincolnshire, fresh from organising a major protest against the ULEZ expansion and preparing for another in the capital on 29 August, the day it went live.

I had first met Elliott a few days before at Rykas cafe, near Dorking, Surrey. It's popular with bikers and I had ridden there to enjoy a coffee while admiring the machinery. To my amazement, instead of the usual clusters of bikers, there were hundreds of them gathered in front of an old London bus. I quickly saw why. On its side, banners and signs read: 'Stop ULEZ', 'Stop Khan', 'No 2 ULEZ', 'Our Roads, Our Freedom'.

Arranged around the bike park, I counted 12 vans covered in such political slogans. One of them had a coffin on its roof bearing the name 'Khan'. On one side of it was an image of a missile bearing the message: 'To Sadiq Khan and the BBC, with love from the anti-ULEZ groups'.