They call him the cat herder – the person who brings together people heading off in different directions but who fundamentally share the same aim.
And in the days leading up to the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) expanding 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.
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’.
A group at the rear of the bus addressed the crowd. It included Howard Cox, Reform UK’s candidate for London mayor, who, to roars of approval, assured the assembled bikers that he would make London “the most motorcycle-friendly city in the world”; and Lembit Öpik, former Liberal Democrat MP and now spokesman for the Motorcycle Action Group, who stoked the crowd further with an attack on Khan and the ULEZ expansion.
“It could come down to the thousands of us here to stop him,” he said, and – aware that bikes must satisfy at least Euro 3 emissions regulations, in force from 2007, or face a £12.50 charge for entering London – the crowd again roared its approval. (Petrol cars must satisfy at least Euro 4, in force since 2005, and diesel cars Euro 6, in force since 2015.)