02.05.2001

May Day

?Officials? march

Just a couple of miles separate Islington from the Wesdt End, but on May Day they were worlds apart. While the lively, overwelmingly young, 5,000-strong?anti-capitalist? demonstrations converged onto Oxford Circus - to be trapped in various strategically located holding pens - around 1,000 participants in the official May Day demonstration gathered rather forlornly in the drizzle on Highbury Fields. Organisers with whom I spoke put the low attendance down to the fact that it was a working day and many people just could not get the time off to attend.

With their fervent music and chanting, the Turkish and Kurdish leftist contingents - who this year dominated proceedings more noticeably than ever - did what they could to instil enthusiasm, but without much success. One was left reflecting once again what a tragedy it is that these comrades continue to isolate themselves from the British working class movement.

Under the auspices of the London May Day Organising Committee, the event brought together at most a couple of hundred representatives of the trade union movement (including contingents from the TUC?s south-east region, the Transport and General Workers Union, Fire Brigades Union and National Union of Journalists).

Such organisations as Haringey Trades Council, the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions and CND also mustered banners and a few marchers.

The left as such, like most of those marching behind union banners, was almost entirely of the ?official communist? variety. The largest group was the Communist Party of Britain (Morning Star) with perhaps 50 supporters, while the New Communist Party and Socialist Labour Party had just a handful each. The Socialist Workers Party took no part in the march, unless you count a few sellers of Socialist Worker.

Although there was quite a heavy police presence, there was, needless to say, no trouble. The coppers? attention was concentrated on photographing the Turks - with the exception of one young bobby who, for some unaccountable reason, made a long video film of an octogenarian NCP member in a floor-length rubber mackintosh bearing a home-made placard with the slogan ?For Cuba, yes; for anarchy, no?. The few placards carried by others concentrated on such demands as the renationalisation of the railways and full employment.

The demonstration eventually arrived at Clerkenwell Green, to be regaled by the socialist songs of the elderly members of the Workers? Music Association, whose conductor, complete with Russian hat, bore a surreal resemblance to Erich Honecker. At this point the crowd began rapidly to disperse and there were soon only around a hundred left to listen to speeches from the platform, introduced by comrade Anita Halpin, chairperson of the CPB. The main speaker was Aslef general secretary Mick Rix.

All in all, it was a pretty sombre experience, emphasising only too vividly the weakness of the labour movement at this moment in time. It comes as no surprise to find that the occasion was entirely ignored by the mainstream media, for whom the events at and around Oxford Circus provided much more interesting copy.

Michael Malkin