The middle-class backgrounds of the hard-Left student mob who stormed a Churchill-themed cafe can be revealed today.
A junior doctor, the son of a headmistress with an OBE and the daughter of an academic were among the 14 activists who protested on Saturday.
Staff – who include Jewish and Muslim workers – say they were terrified when the demonstrators burst in to the Blighty UK cafe shouting Marxist slogans and denouncing Britain’s wartime leader as a ‘racist’.
The students, who were led by members of London’s School of African Studies (SOAS), were later accused of behaving like ‘fascist thugs’ themselves for their heavy-handed behaviour.
Halimo Hussein (left) seemed to be leading the chants and kept repeating ‘we have nothing to lose but our chains’
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson condemned their actions on Saturday and said that Jeremy Corbyn should ‘denounce’ the group
They were branded ‘puerile and ignorant’ for denouncing the man who saved Britain from fascism.
But their students’ union simply issued a statement of ‘solidarity’ with Halimo Hussein, who led the protest in Finsbury Park, North London.
The widely mocked statement posted on the union’s Facebook page even branded Churchill a ‘war criminal’.
It said: ‘The protest involved reading out sections of Heathcote William’s poem Great Britain’s Greatest Beast followed by chanting “Churchill was a racist”.
The cafe exercises a concerted historical amnesia of British colonialism, which is offensive to those who continue to experience institutional racism.
‘The protest was targeted at the owner, calling for them to change the decorations and imagery of the cafes – and to the customer to boycott until the owner takes these actions.’
The statement also denounced reports in the Press – including the Daily Mail – about the demonstration.
The group read from scripts as they urged customers inside the packed cafe to boycott the Blighty UK
It added: ‘The SOAS students’ union continues to fight against colonialism and all manifestations of it.
‘We echo the protesters in their statement on Saturday, “You will never make colonialism palatable.”’
The union also said one of its ‘educational priorities’ this year was to ‘decolonise the education and the institution’.
Protester Nisha Phillips, who shared the statement on Facebook, is an officer in the student union.
Her mother Sango Mahanty is listed as an associate professor of the Australian National University in Canberra.
A giant mural of Winston Churchill was daubed with graffiti which branded the prime minister ‘scum’
Halimo Hussein (centre) led the chants inside the packed cafe on Saturday and repeatedly shouted: ‘We have nothing to lose but our chains’
Earlier this month, the academic praised her daughter’s ‘passion for justice’ on Facebook.
Also taking part were Hamish Anderson, who grew up in a £700,000 home in Northumberland.
His mother, a headmistress, was awarded the OBE. Activist Timesh Pillay, 28, is a junior doctor who works at a hospital in West London.
After the protest, police attended the cafe, which boasts a life-size Churchill figure, Union Flags, model Spitfires and a World War II air raid shelter, and viewed a video of the demonstration.
She also uploaded this photograph of Jeremy Corbyn and wrote online: ‘The moment we found out Jeremy was elected. The look on the rest of their faces has made my day
Cafe owner Chris Evans said yesterday: ‘Behind the counter we have Jewish English girls, a Muslim Turk and an Australian… When they walk in and scare them, it’s real people they are scaring.
‘They should email with their concerns, not jump on the bandwagon.
‘The strange thing about the ringleader is she used to be a customer.’
Mr Evans said he was trying to contact the people leading the protests, adding: ‘I want to talk to them about what it means to live in modern day Blighty and how can we celebrate our history and be respectful to the multicultural society. They’re students, they should be able to debate.’
The cafe’s signature dish is ‘The Winston’ – a traditional full English breakfast with Cumberland sausage and Yorkshire black pudding
Nine protesters stormed the cafe in north London on the weekend and were heard chanting ‘Churchill was a racist’
Boris Johnson (pictured) said that the group launched a ‘disgraceful attack on our finest ever wartime leader’ and described them as a ‘hard-left mob’
He has already scrapped a giant mural of Churchill after it was repeatedly daubed with graffiti branding the wartime prime minister ‘scum’, a ‘warmonger’ and ‘imperialist’ in apparently unrelated protests.
Cafe manager Kamuran Tekin, 36, who is from Turkey, added: ‘No one has complained before. I knew [Churchill] was a war hero. We celebrate the Commonwealth.’
The student union statement was ridiculed online. Tim Rigby said: ‘Do you morons realise you’d have no right to protest without Churchill?’
A group of protesters stormed the cafe and sang it is our duty to fight for our freedom
One of the diners said that Churchill fought for the UK’s freedom which resulted in the group chanting: ‘Churchill was a racist’
Ms Hussein (pictured with Russell Brand in 2017) is a student at the School of Oriental and African Studies University of London
Ms Hussein (right) left a scathing online review of the cafe which read: ‘Bland breakfasts and awful watery tasting coffee’
Joseph Rutter accused the protesters of behaving like ‘fascist thugs’ themselves.
Ironically Jeremy Corbyn has himself been a customer at the cafe, and even been pictured beside its owner.
Yesterday Tory MP Jack Lopresti treated two of his assistants to the cafe’s ‘Winston full English breakfast’ in a show of solidarity with staff.
He told MailOnline: ‘I wanted to support [the cafe] and sample what they have.
‘I think the place is great. Sir Winston Churchill is a hero of mine – he deserves our respect and gratitude.’
Junior doctor and school head’s son in rabble’s ranks
1. Dimitri Cautain
Dimitri Cautain (far left) is an officer for welfare and campaigns in the student union, and uses the alias Tain Caut on his Facebook page and posts rambling, pretentious poems on his blog
The social anthropology and politics student at the School of Oriental and African Studies University (SOAS) boasts online that he is ‘passionate about social justice’.
In one image he is seen pushing a police van and once said in union hustings material that he could be found ‘playing volleyball, crocheting, painting, marching and pushing cops off campus!’
In a previous manifesto he wrote: ‘I passionately oppose any injustice, power hierarchies, oppression and exclusion perpetuated by the status quo.’
The undergraduate, an officer for welfare and campaigns in the student union, uses the alias Tain Caut on his Facebook page and posts rambling, pretentious poems on his blog.
2. Halimo Hussein
A group of protesters stormed the cafe and sang it is our duty to fight for our freedom
A leader of the cafe protest, the politics student believes taxpayers should fund her disruptive lifestyle.
The 24-year-old has vowed to ‘live and embody the spirit’ of the #RobThisEngland anarchist group, which tries to avoid paying back loans for tuition fees or TV licences. Miss Hussein, whose family was given refuge in Britain from war-torn Somalia, was born in Ealing, west London, in 1993.
She is understood to live at the family home with her twin brother and mother.
She studied at William Morris Sixth Form in Hammersmith, west London, and is now a third-year politics student at SOAS.
An avid fan of Jeremy Corbyn and millionaire comic Russell Brand, she claimed David Cameron’s 2015 general election victory meant ‘another five years of austerity, snaking the poor, students, migrants etc’. She was elected ‘co-president of equality and liberation’ by her fellow students and declared, ‘I f***ing won!’ when the news was announced. Her Facebook page declares, ‘No Tories on my profile’, and she passionately campaigns for ‘decolonialisation’ of her university.
In one contorted argument, she says universities and prisons both ‘sort society into the desirables and undesirables’. Elsewhere, she calls the Government’s Prevent strategy – which aims to stop students being drawn into terrorism – a ‘hostile’ policy which ‘has no place on our campus’.
Miss Hussein tried to add insult to injury after the cafe protest by leaving it a scathing online review which read: ‘Bland breakfasts and awful watery tasting coffee, toilets filthy.’
3. Hamish Anderson
Since moving to London to study music and history at SOAS, Hamish Anderson has been an active member of the student union and a keen Labour supporter.
Describing himself as an ‘active and angry voice’, the student grew up in a £720,000 home in rural Northumberland, where his mother Maggie is the headmistress of a junior school and has been awarded the OBE.
Since moving to London to study music and history at SOAS he has been an active member of the student union and a keen Labour supporter.
He has been pictured alongside the capital’s Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan. During his canvassing for the position of campaigns officer, he wrote: ‘I have been involved with many forms of activism and campaigns both before and since being at SOAS.
‘Notably I’ve been involved in occupations, protests, petitions, negotiations, unions and co-ops from environmental issues to social injustice issues.’
4. Timesh Pillay
Timesh Pillay (left) is a 28-year-old junior doctor working in a west London hospital who studied medicine at University College London (UCL)
The 28-year-old is a junior doctor working in a west London hospital who studied medicine at University College London (UCL). Dr Pillay, who lives in South London, has researched epidemiology at the faculty of medical services at UCL and has published several papers. He went to the country’s leading selective grammar, The Latymer School in Edmonton, North London, and now lives in a house worth £700,000. The junior doctor is a member of Docs Not Cops, which campaigns against the introduction of passport checks across patients in the NHS.
He has actively protested against the policy and written on the subject in Prospect Magazine and the British Medical Journal.
5. Nisha Phillips
Pictured: Nisha Phillips
The undergraduate grew up in a middle class suburb of the Australian capital, Canberra – where her mother, Sango Mahanty, is an associate professor in human geography at the Australian National University.
Earlier this month, the academic gushed on Facebook about her 22-year daughter’s ‘energy for life and passion for justice’.
Since moving to Britain to study at SOAS, Miss Phillips has been pictured on social media with Jeremy Corbyn at a demonstration against the Government’s policy on refugees.
A frequent protester, she is also pictured online holding a placard reading: ‘For those who’ve come from the seas we’ve boundless plains to share.’
She is the SOAS student union officer for democracy and education.