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I think there should be equality and everyone should stop hating one another because of the tone of their skin

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School dinners for me please!!

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Boris Johnson makes dramatic U-turn on free school meals for kids over summer

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Boris Johnson makes dramatic U-turn on free school meals for kids over summer

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Boris Johnson has executed a humiliating U-turn over free school meals for the poorest families over the summer, announcing a new £120m voucher scheme after pressure from footballer Marcus Rashford.

Just hours before Labour was due to force a vote on the issue in the House of Commons, risking a rebellion from Conservative backbenchers, the prime minister's official spokesman announced a new £120m "Covid summer food fund".

"Owing to the corona pandemic, the PM fully understands that children and parents face an entirely unprecedented situation over the summer," he said.

The U-turn came after ministers repeatedly rejected the idea of extending the scheme over the summer, as they did over the Easter break.

Asked if Rashford's pleas had helped to change the prime minister's mind, his spokesman said: "The prime minister welcomes Marcus Rashford's contribution to the debate around poverty, and respects the fact that he has been using his profile as a sportsman to highlight important issues."

He said families entitled to free school meals would receive a one-off voucher at the end of the school term, worth £15 a week for the six-week school break, which they can spend in supermarkets.

Rashford had stepped up his campaign to pressure the UK government into feeding hungry children during the school holidays.

Labour was seeking to maximise the government's embarrassment and force a U-turn, by using an opposition day debate in the House of Commons to hold a vote on extending the voucher scheme.

Several Conservative backbenchers, including former minister George Freeman, and the chair of the education select committee Robert Halfon, had urged the government to change course.

On Tuesday morning, the Manchester United player began tweeting about the UK's poorest families, who cannot afford to pay their water and electricity bills or put food on the table.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Halfon commended the government for helping vulnerable families by raising the living wage, cutting taxes for lower earners and extending the freeze on fuel duty.

But he said carrying on with the free school meals programme "would be the right thing to do" as the latest figures show "2.5 million children are not learning" while away from school and food insecurity has "nearly doubled".

Halfon added: "There are lots of food programmes across different government departments. If they just consolidated those programmes, they would almost have the money for the free school meals programme over the summer, which would cost roughly £110m."

Ruth Davidson, the former leader of the Scottish Conservatives, tweeted that she was baffled that the scheme had not been extended by Westminster. "I didn't have or need free school meals, but I went to a school where a huge % did. Food security during the holidays so important. It's basic. Feed the kids."

One cabinet minister was criticised after weighing into the debate to correct one of Rashford's tweets, in which he said: "When you wake up this morning and run your shower, take a second to think about parents who have had their water turned off during lockdown."

Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, replied: "Water cannot be disconnected though."

Rashford replied, noting: "I'm concerned this is the only tweet of mine you acknowledged. Please, put rivalries aside for a second, and make a difference #maketheuturn."

The shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, wrote: "Imagine having priorities so warped that this snarky comment is your response to Marcus Rashford's powerful campaign."

Rebecca Long Bailey, the shadow education secretary, used an interview on BBC Breakfast to argue that the issue "is about humanity".

She said: "There will be many Conservative MPs today watching this and having read Marcus' letter who will be agonising about whether they support the government or not in this because they will want what's best for children."

She added: "So, I'm asking all politicians, whatever party they're in, this is not about party politics, this is about making sure children don't go hungry over the summer holidays."

Rashford has received the full backing of Sir Keir Starmer and Labour.

The Co-op is one of the big businesses to support Rashford. The firm has pledged to extend its free school meals scheme throughout the summer holidays at its 25 academy schools and said that 6,000 students who normally receive government-funded free school meals would receive Co-op gift cards.
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Boris Johnson makes U-turn on free school meals vouchers

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Boris Johnson has executed a humiliating U-turn over free school meals for the poorest families over the summer, announcing a new £120m voucher scheme after pressure from footballer Marcus Rashford. Just hours before Labour was due to force a vote on the issue in the House of Commons, risking a rebellion from Conservative backbenchers, the prime minister's official spokesman announced a new £120m "Covid summer food fund".

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'People were like animals!' How supermarket staff watched the coronavirus crisis unfold

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'People were like animals!' How supermarket staff watched the coronavirus crisis unfold

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It was Thursday night, 8pm. Clap for our carers: the sound of applause rising in the air. Leila was doing her rounds of the Waitrose in west London where she works as a store supervisor, rounding up the stragglers. An expensively dressed young woman was browsing the aisles. Leila asked her to make her way to the tills, as the store was now closed.

The woman erupted in rage. "She said: 'There's a fucking pandemic, can't you have a little patience?'" Leila remembers. "I thought: 'I am working through this pandemic. You're just shopping in it.'" Shaking with anger, Leila fetched a security guard, who escorted the woman to the tills. Leaving work that evening, the irony of being verbally abused during the weekly celebration of key workers was not lost on her.

"The public has this sanitised image of what a key worker is," Leila says. "They think a key worker is a consultant in a suit, or a nurse in scrubs. They don't consider us key workers - they just think we're unskilled. There have been so many instances of people getting frustrated, angry, taking things out on us." She sounds fatigued. "You just feel kind of empty about it, I guess."

But supermarket workers are key workers, exempt from the lockdown restrictions that have kept so many of us at home over recent months. And as essential workers, they were there for the initial panic-buying through to our bread-baking mania and everything in between. No one is better placed to comment on how we, as a nation, responded to the coronavirus crisis than our supermarket workers.

"Oh man," remembers Alex Hogan, of those March stockpiling days. "The panic-buying was just crazy." Hogan, who is 22 and lives in North Ayrshire, works as a checkout operator at the biggest Tesco in Scotland, in the south of Glasgow. "People would be pushing past each other in the aisles, and they would become quite protective of their shopping, as well," Hogan says.

For about a fortnight, Britain became a nation obsessed with loo roll. And antibacterial hand gel. And soap. And pasta. And tinned goods. But mostly loo roll. "People were like animals," Leila says. "They were just going for the toilet paper the minute they saw it." In her branch of Waitrose, only managers were allowed to replenish the pasta and toilet paper during those initial weeks. "One of my managers told me that he didn't even try to put the toilet paper on the shelves - he just left it on the crate," Leila says. "People were taking it the minute it was out. There was such a swarm of people."

During this period, some shoppers behaved disgracefully - particularly after the major supermarket chains brought in restrictions on how many items shoppers could purchase in an effort to curb stockpiling. "Around the time they brought in the restrictions I had some of the least enjoyable shifts I've ever done," says Warren, a general assistant at one of the big four supermarkets (he prefers not to say which) in Gloucestershire. Like Leila and Hogan, he got in touch after a Guardian callout for supermarket workers. Warren had to tell one customer that he could only buy three tins of tomato soup, not 20. This did not go down well, and the customer demanded that Warren brought over his supervisor. When Warren's supervisor confirmed that, yes, he could only purchase three tins, he demanded to speak to the store manager, who said the same thing.

Had he behaved more respectfully, Warren would have told the customer that he could have circumvented the restrictions by buying tomato soup from different brands. But he was so rude, Warren didn't want to. "That's a weird feeling for me," says Warren, "because even though this isn't a great job - it's not well paid and you can't afford much, or any, quality of life, really, on the minimum wage - it's still a job. I take pride in what I do. I want to help people. But when customers are shouting and causing a fuss, you don't want to help them."

It was not just the customers piling on the pressure during those early days. "The managers were blasting out the orders," says Gavin, a warehouse worker and shop-floor replenisher at a big supermarket near Cardiff. "Especially because a lot of people were off sick, they hadn't recruited enough extra staff, so they were having to push a depleted workforce. They'd be pressuring staff on headphones to put more items on the shelves." For some of Gavin's colleagues, it was too much. "They'd be coming up to me, stressed out of their heads, because after an eight-hour shift the tensions and frustrations with customers and managers was so high."

Gavin's experience is not unique. "Even before coronavirus, there had been a rising problem of violence and abuse to supermarket staff," says Doug Russell of the USDAW union, which represents approximately 260,000 shop workers, including staff from Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Co-op and Asda. "Unfortunately, the Covid-19 crisis added to that, because it required shop workers to limit the numbers of people going into stores and enforce social distancing and restriction on sales of products, which can be flashpoints for abuse."

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Shoppers queueing at an Asda in Gateshead. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images

There is evidence that supermarket staff feel stress more acutely than other frontline workers. Dr Rachel Sumner of the University of Gloucestershire has been conducting research into the health and wellbeing of frontline workers during the pandemic. Of the 1,300 people who responded to her survey, about 86 were supermarket staff. "These workers had higher levels of burnout and lower levels of wellbeing than both other types of frontline workers, and population norms," says Sumner. Additionally, supermarket staff were less likely to think the government's response had been timely and effective than those from the emergency services.

Sumner speculates that the burnout and poor wellbeing are due to the fact that most supermarket staff didn't plan to be on the frontline in any conventional sense. Unlike medicine, nursing or police work, supermarket jobs are predominantly minimum-wage, without the higher earnings, benefits or sense of vocation enjoyed by many emergency personnel. "The thing is, these people never thought they would be on the frontline of a pandemic," says Sumner. "Your police officer or nurse, to a certain extent, they expect to be frontline. But a checkout worker or Amazon delivery guy, they never expected they would be getting spat on or shouted at."

But it has not all been abuse. After the stockpiling abated, and the restrictions were lifted, the British public settled into a kind of equilibrium. "When everyone was panic-buying, people were a lot more abusive," says Hogan. "But when clap for our carers came in, people stopped doing that as much." She's noticed customers are more talkative than usual. "I've had customers tell me they live on their own," Hogan says, "and they seem quite lonely. And then there are parents who tell me they're trying to home school their kids, and they're stressed out. I think people miss having that human interaction they'd have from seeing their friends and going to work."

But, with normal order being restored, physical distancing rules are starting to be ignored by some members of the public, as is the government recommendation to shop as infrequently as possible. "The majority of people are still social distancing," says Russell, "but many aren't. And the more we get confused messages about lockdown being relaxed, the more problematic it gets for workers in shops, because you get more people wanting to nip in for something quickly."

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Distancing rules are starting to be ignored by some members of the public. Photograph: Paul Childs/Reuters

All of the supermarket workers I speak to agree. "How do you stop customers coming right up to you and asking you for the frozen peas?" muses Gavin. "When they're in the store, they want to get out of there as quickly as possible. They take no notice of the signage, they ignore the two-metre rule ... There's a melee to get in and out as fast as they can." Now, when customers approach him, he holds out the palm of his hand, like a police officer stopping traffic. "My first instinct was to ask them not to come up so close," Gavin says, "but by the time you ask politely, they've already ignored you. All they see is a uniform, not a person, and all they care about is finding an item."

Inevitably, working in an enclosed space such as a supermarket will increase a worker's risk of contracting Covid-19. Recent data from the Office for National Statistics shows that male sales and retail workers have Covid-19 death rates that are twice the national average. Distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) varies among the major supermarket chains: Warren has been given rubber gloves, but they make it difficult to operate the self-scan tills, which ends up annoying customers.

One worker at an Asda in south Wales told me staff had been given no form of PPE whatsoever. "After about four weeks some bottles of hand sanitiser appeared in the rest rooms, but we've been given no individual hand sanitiser," he says. "I get paid £9 an hour to put my life on the line," says the worker, whose age (he is in his 60s) puts him in the higher-risk group for coronavirus. "That's not being over the top about it. We are putting our lives on the line, for £9 an hour."

In response, Asda commented: "We have worked with our colleagues to provide them with extensive support throughout this period and we are proud of the work they are doing every day to serve customers. Although colleagues haven't raised concerns with us ... we're doing everything possible to support them as they carry out their vital roles, such as providing gloves, masks and Perspex screens."

Of all the supermarkets, Waitrose appears to have been the best when it comes to offering PPE to staff. "They've given us masks and visors, gloves, loads of sanitiser, and we have protective screens at all the checkouts," Leila concedes. "I can't fault them."

Hogan's mother is in a high-risk group for coronavirus as a result of a kidney transplant. When she gets home from work, Hogan takes off all her clothes at the front door, and showers immediately. But she worries it's not enough. "My mum hasn't been going out," Hogan says, "so if she was to get symptoms, I know it would come from me. I'm a bit anxious. I have to make sure that doesn't happen, which is why I'm super-careful."

As for the wider public, what better indication of how they are coping than their shopping baskets? In the Waitrose where Leila works, the predominantly middle-class customers have sought comfort in familiar pleasures. "We sold out of Charlie Bigham's ready meals really quickly," Leila says. "Another hilarious thing we sold out of is manuka honey - I think because coronavirus has respiratory symptoms. Everyone's buying a lot of alcohol and fancy meat." One customer kicked up a fuss because they had purchased £3,000 of wine but couldn't get a delivery slot.

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Waitrose appears to have been the best when it comes to offering PPE to staff. Photograph: Guy Bell/Rex/Shutterstock

But there are more subtle indicators that all is not well. Shoplifting is up, for a start. "I think because security is so busy manning the queue, there are a lot more shoplifters," says Leila. "Two weeks ago, someone nearly got away with £500 worth of alcohol." In addition to the professional shoplifters, who target high-value items such as alcohol and meat, and steal to order, Gavin has noticed more "pilfering": shoplifting cheaper minor essentials. "I think it's people who are now suffering economically who are taking things because they can't afford to pay for them," he says. "People haven't been paid for a while, and they've come to the supermarket and for the first time in their life perhaps they've been hungry and stolen something."

The pilfering, the rudeness, the stockpiling and more: truly, the supermarket worker saw it all. And having a front-row seat during this period of national crisis has been a simultaneously heartening and dispiriting experience. "I've had people say: 'You're doing really important work,'" says Warren. "But as with life in general, you tend to remember the bad stuff - the customer who called you a twat, rather than the one who patted you on the back."

Hogan hopes that the lockdown will usher in an era of greater respect for low-paid workers. "Before, when people would ask what I do, they would be quite judgmental," she says. "They'd say: 'Why don't you do something else?'" Not any more. "People will come up to me and say: 'Thank you for being on the checkout.' I've never had that before." She sounds surprised. "I just hope it lasts."
Some names have been changed.
* This article was amended on 26 May 2020 because Dr Rachel Sumner's research measured workers for low wellbeing, not stress as an earlier version said.
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'People were like animals!' How supermarket staff watched the coronavirus crisis unfold

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It was Thursday night, 8pm. Clap for our carers: the sound of applause rising in the air. Leila was doing her rounds of the Waitrose in west London where she works as a store supervisor, rounding up the stragglers. An expensively dressed young woman was browsing the aisles.

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Skip to main content

It started with a warning. It turned into a pandemic that has transformed life as we know it

A turbulent decade had reached its final day. It was New Year's Eve 2019 and much of the world was preparing to celebrate.

The obituaries of the 2010s had dwelt on eruptions and waves that would shape the era ahead: Brexit, the Syrian civil war, refugee crises, social media proliferation, and nationalism roaring back to life. They were written too soon.

It was not until these last hours, before the toasts and countdowns had commenced, that the decade's most consequential development of all broke the surface.

At 1.38pm on 31 December, a Chinese government website announced the detection of a "pneumonia of unknown cause" in the area surrounding the South China seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, an industrial city of 11 million people.

The outbreak was one of at least a dozen to be confirmed by the World Health Organization that December, including cases of Ebola in west Africa, measles in the Pacific and dengue fever in Afghanistan. Outside China, its discovery was barely noticed.

Over the next 100 days, the virus would freeze international travel, extinguish economic activity and confine half of humanity to their homes, infecting more than a million people and counting, including an Iranian vice-president, the actor Idris Elba, and the British prime minister. By the middle of April, more than 75,000 would be dead.

But all that was still unimaginable at the end of December, as 11.59pm ticked over to midnight, fireworks exploded and people embraced at parties and in packed streets.

Day 1

Wednesday 1 January

Wuhan seafood market shut down

The Wuhan seafood market is ordinarily bustling, but this morning police are weaving tape between its metal frames and hustling owners to shut their blue roller doors. Workers in hazmat suits carefully take samples from surfaces and place them in sealed plastic bags.

Concerned messages are circulating on Chinese social media, fuelled by medical documents that have found their way online warning that patients have been presenting at Wuhan hospitals with ominous symptoms.

"Sars is basically certain, don't let the nurses go out," one message says. Another says: "Wash your hands. Masks. Gloves"

Authorities in Taiwan are watching with alarm. The island is already implementing health precautions: arrivals on direct flights from Wuhan are being screened for flu-like symptoms on the tarmac in Taipei before they can disembark. Within two days, Singapore and Hong Kong will be monitoring arrivals from the city at their borders.

In Wuhan, eight people accused of spreading "rumours" about the disease are summoned to the Public Security Bureau. Another who will be reprimanded is a Wuhan ophthalmologist, Li Wenliang, for showing a group of his medical school alumni an analysis of the virus he believed was Sars.

Phrases such as "unknown Wuhan pneumonia" and "Wuhan seafood market" are already censored on YY, a popular livestreaming platform.

Day 9

Thursday 9 January
Novel coronavirus identified

The mystery disease is identified: Chinese scientists say the sick patients in Wuhan have contracted a previously undiscovered coronavirus.

Two coronaviruses, Sars and Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (Mers), have already sparked pandemics this century. This new one is deadly too. Last night a 61-year old man died in a Wuhan hospital, the first known victim.

At this stage the official caseload is falling. Sequencing the virus has allowed doctors to strike off patients who were thought to be infected but who in fact only had ordinary pneumonia. No new coronavirus cases have been announced for four days.

The identification of the new virus is overshadowed by speculation over a plane crash on the outskirts of Tehran yesterday. Iran is blaming a technical fault but photos and videos circulating online are raising suspicions that it was shot down.

Later, a study will conclude that at this point the epidemic was doubling in size every week. Tomorrow Li Wenliang, the ophthalmologist, will start to show symptoms.

Day 13
Thailand reports first case

Monday 13 January

More than a week has passed since Wuhan health authorities last confirmed a case of the novel coronavirus. There has been nothing since the city began hosting an important annual meeting between state and provincial party officials.

But the virus has slipped the net. Thailand reports its first case, involving a 61-year old Wuhan resident whose high temperature was detected by a thermal surveillance scanner in Bangkok airport.

A committee of infectious disease specialists that goes by the acronym Nervtag meets in London to discuss the virus, and deems that the risk to the UK is "very low, but warrants investigation and testing".

The Chinese government says there is not yet clear evidence of human-to-human transmission, including any signs of medical professionals becoming sick. The official message is echoed by the WHO, which issues a news release saying it is reassured of the quality of the Chinese government's response.

Epidemiologists say the news is encouraging. "If there are no new cases in the next few days, the outbreak is over," Guan Yi, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Hong Kong, tells the New York Times.

Doctors in Wuhan are seeing a different picture. Studies will later show that for more than a fortnight, hospitals in the city have been dealing with "an exponential increase" in cases with no link to the seafood market.
Human-to-human transmission confirmed

Day 20

Monday 20 January

Zhong Nanshan, a trusted respiratory expert and the public face of the Chinese government response, goes on state television with bad news: two new cases of the virus have surfaced in Guangdong province among patients with no direct contact with Wuhan.

The conclusion is clear. "We can say it is certain that it is a human-to-human transmission phenomenon," Zhong says.

Having seemed to vanish in China for more than a fortnight, the virus is now appearing across the country. On Friday night there were four new cases. By Sunday, 139. By the end of tomorrow, cases will have been confirmed in Beijing and Shanghai.

It is spreading around the world: Japan, South Korea, and the US, where yesterday a 35-year old man who had recently returned from Wuhan presented to a clinic in Washington state with a cough and a high fever, becoming the country's first case.

Donald Trump received his first substantive briefing on the virus two days ago, during a session where he interrupted to ask when flavoured vaping products would return to the market, according to the Washington Post.
Virus arrives in Europe

Panic is growing in Wuhan. At 6am, more than 100 patients with coronavirus symptoms were waiting to be seen at the city's Xiehe hospital, a worker tells the Guardian.

Day 24

Friday 24 January

On the eve of the lunar new year holiday, as hundreds of millions of Chinese people are travelling to visit friends and family, Wuhan has in effect been sealed off. Most transport in and out of the city is suspended. More than 800 infections have been detected there and 25 people are dead.

The city is the first to experience the full glare of the outbreak: rapid increases in caseloads, hospitals under severe strain and an entire population quarantined.

The virus arrives in Europe, detected in two recent arrivals from China and a relative. The trio have had dozens of contacts and French authorities say they are racing to track down possible cases. "You have to treat an epidemic as you treat a fire," says the French health minister, Agnès Buzyn.
Outbreak passes milestone on Brexit day

Trump received his first media question about the virus while in Davos two days ago. Asked if he was concerned by a potential pandemic, he replied: "Not at all. And we have it perfectly under control."

Tomorrow, China's lockdown will be widened to include 56 million people. The president, Xi Jinping, will warn that the country is facing a "grave situation". And Liang Wudong, a physician at the Xinhua hospital in Hubei, will become the first medical professional to die.

Day 31

Friday 31 January

After nearly four years of agonising debate in parliament and across the country, at 11pm Britain formally exits the European Union. A virtual Big Ben beamed on to 10 Downing Street chimes for the milestone. Nearby, in Parliament Square, Nigel Farage leads a rendition of God Save the Queen.

It is also a milestone day for the coronavirus: by the end of day, the outbreak will be larger than Sars. It will be confirmed to have reached the UK. Spain and Italy will detect their first cases.

"The situation is serious but there is no need for alarm, everything is totally under control," says the Italian health minister, Roberto Speranza.

Nobody has died outside China, but in China the death toll is accelerating, now at 258, with more than 11,000 infected. The US announces it is banning foreigners who have recently been in China from entering.

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Coronavirus: 100 days that changed the world

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Skip to main content A turbulent decade had reached its final day. It was New Year's Eve 2019 and much of the world was preparing to celebrate. The obituaries of the 2010s had dwelt on eruptions and waves that would shape the era ahead: Brexit, the Syrian civil war, refugee crises, social media proliferation, and nationalism roaring back to life.

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'This is a historic moment': UK anti-racism protesters on what needs to change

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'This is a historic moment': UK anti-racism protesters on what needs to change

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Words from the some of the people who attended the Black Lives Matter protests

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Tens of thousands of people have protested across the UK against racism following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and there are growing calls for steps to address institutional discrimination. Here we speak to people about why they have been demonstrating, what needs to change and whether they will continue protesting.

'It was empowering and really motivated me to strive for change'

Seeing so many generations of black people was emotional. It was empowering and really motivated me to strive for change - specifically in education. What are we teaching our kids? We don't learn about migration and the British empire but if people realised that Asians and Africans helped build this country, and contributed so much to what we call Great Britain today, they might open their hearts more.

It makes some people feel uncomfortable, seeing black people protesting in this way. It's hard for people to admit their ancestors have done wrong and that society has to change. Sometimes we need to accept criticism because that's the way forward. I'm not impressed with the government. I think Priti Patel's completely ignorant and doesn't care about why we're protesting and is even telling us not to. All lives don't matter until black lives matter. Inara Andre, 16, Manchester

'We are not taught our own history'

I'm standing in solidarity with black people across the world. As a black race we've continually been subjugated to oppression and systemic racism and we are not taught our own history. We need radical change to policies that keep black people disproportionately in prison, excluded from healthcare and education, and suffering from mental health conditions. We need to be able to have our voices in prominent places but in order for that to happen ideologies have to change.

I feel completely obliged to attend upcoming protests. This is a historic moment and I want to be a part of it, show my solidarity and be able to tell my daughter about it. I want her to grow up in a society where we invest in each other, where the best isn't kept for the elites. A lot of people are getting behind the movement because they can relate to the disenfranchisement that black people have felt for so long. I want there to be a community again, so much has been torn down by this government. Chantelle West, 32 London

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Chantelle (centre, back) with her friends at the protest in London on Sunday. Photograph: Guardian Community

'The government needs to admit that racism is still a big issue'

As a British Asian woman, I know that racism is still a huge issue. BAME people have been silenced by society because people are blind to racism or are afraid of admitting there is a problem. People need to admit, especially in government, that racism is still a big issue in our country and they need to listen to the black community more. The diversity training in businesses is not good enough, we need harder conversations; and the curriculum needs to change, it's focused on American slavery rather than Britain's role.

If I decide to have kids one day, I don't want them to suffer because of the colour of their skin, to be harassed like I have been. I was always called a "paki". Even now if I walk down the street with my white partner, he has "paki shagger" shouted at him. But what I've experienced is nothing like what the black community has endured. Leitisha, 25, Manchester

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Leitisha and many others take to the knee in Manchester on Saturday. Photograph: Guardian Community

'I wasn't able to get a passport even though I was born here'

I was effectively imprisoned in this country even though I was born here. My mum came over with the Windrush generation and I wasn't able to get a passport even though I had a birth certificate and went to school here. My little sister went to Jamaica and couldn't come back to the UK for a year and a half. People have been deported because the Home Office scrapped our boarding papers and I had to do a citizenship test to get my passport, we learned about the Spanish armada and Winston Churchill.

Have you ever walked down a road and seen a woman hide her bag from you? Are you pulled over multiple times by police every week? Do you have security guards following you around shops? I've learned to deal with this because I've accepted it as normal behaviour. There's deeply rooted racism but it's been amazing to see how much people from different ethnic backgrounds have stood up for these protests, it's the start of change. We need to start building communities, respect and equality. Faron Paul, 34, London

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Faron with a police officer at the protest in London on Sunday. Photograph: Guardian Community

'I feel like it's my responsibility to raise my son to question the status quo'

Even though we're in the middle of a pandemic, there's too much at risk by not going out and protesting. I feel like it's my responsibility to raise my son to question the status quo when it negatively impacts the most vulnerable in our society. There is police brutality here in the UK. And look at the way black and brown people are dealt with by police and in the justice system.

In 2012 a judge cleared an officer of calling a man the n-word even though it was caught on tape. People go over and above to defend white people, but this is not extended to black and brown people. There really needs to be a move within mass media and more people of colour need to be represented in analysis, editorial and coverage. It's a whole system, the way the narrative is framed. There's no serious analysis about why people are burning things or causing disorder, it's often those who have been systematically deprived of owning property and access to capital. Manda Molina, 30, Edinburgh

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Manda and her three-year-old son Lorenzo in Edinburgh on Saturday. Photograph: Guardian Community

'I had never attended a protest before until Saturday'

I have always thought of myself as an ally to causes such as Black Lives Matter but I have done this from the comfort of my home in the safety that my white privilege allows. Events in the US have been a wake-up call to do more to highlight the serious issues within our own society. I had never attended a protest before until Saturday and I was quite nervous about the persisting risks of coronavirus but felt like I needed to go. Everyone was really respectful; the feeling and the energy was incredible. It was a very emotional experience.

Black history in British culture and especially in education is completely whitewashed. I came out of studying history at university and school knowing absolutely nothing about black history in the UK and it seems to be we will happily ignore the sins of our past and instead learn about those of other countries. I really think that needs to change. It's time to be anti-racist, not just non-racist. Rob S, 33, Milton Keynes
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'This is a historic moment': UK anti-racism protesters on what needs to change

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Tens of thousands of people have protested across the UK against racism following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and there are growing calls for steps to address institutional discrimination. Here we speak to people about why they have been demonstrating, what needs to change and whether they will continue protesting.