02.05.2001

They won the streets?

It started with bike rides along Euston Road and ended with 5,000 people being held without charge in open-air prisons for seven hours. The Metropolitan Police?s assistant commissioner, Mike Todd, promised ?in your face? policing - and that?s what we got.

It started with bike rides along Euston Road and ended with 5,000 people being held without charge in open-air prisons for seven hours. The Metropolitan Police?s assistant commissioner, Mike Todd, promised ?in your face? policing - and that?s what we got.

Six thousand police with initial orders to ?disrupt and disperse? were mobilised to ?isolate and contain? 3,500 demonstrators at Oxford Circus and a further 1,500 in two other key adjacent sites in Holles Street and Princes Street.

London mayor ?Red? Ken Livingstone spent the day hidden away - presumably for his own protection - in the bowels of his Westminster office with two Special Branch officers for company. Stating his full support for police actions, Livingstone echoed the media line that, ?Violence ? was the core objective of the organisers?.

The run-up to May Day saw numerous police and press reports of alleged anarchist plots to run riot through central London. Various empty factories were identified as organising points and makeshift barracks for anarchists, anti-capitalists and other n?er-do-wells - home-grown and imported - intent on bringing mayhem and destruction to the capital and various cities around the country.

As it was, actual anarchists of whatever variety or description formed a small, though significant, minority. The majority were a mixed bag consisting of seasoned activists - Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Alliance, Socialist Party, etc - but mostly those fresh to politics. Overwhelmingly young and eager to engage and learn about politics. After gathering at New Zealand House on Haymarket our comrades - following the SWP and Globalise Resistance - marched up a virtually deserted and unpoliced Regent Street and into their  well planned trap at Oxford Circus. We were penned in on all sides by row upon row of riot police: ?contained to prevent a breach of the peace and damage to property?.

For seven hours we were photographed, videoed, monitored and recorded. Without authoritative leadership of any sort passivity ruled - interrupted by occasional and totally useless acts of violence and vandalism. There was no speaking system, no speeches, no music, no information, no coordination, no claim that instead of being held in Oxford Circus we held it and forced the state to mobilise 6,000 heavily armoured police (estimated cost of the day ?20 million). So, as the weather deteriorated, so did the mood of the crowd. There were sporadic acts of resistance as the police sought to corrall demonstrators into an ever-smaller area. ?Move to the centre of Oxford Circus,? we were instructed by police tannoy system. ?We?re in the fucking centre,? the crowd repeatedly shouted back. Small camp fires were lit to keep warm and people had to urinate in the stairwells of the closed Oxford Circus tube station.

And, at nine o?clock at night, they finally released us. Not all at once, and not before some of us had been once again photographed then searched ?on suspicion on carrying offensive weapons? and our names and addresses taken. Everyone had to proceed through a gauntlet of riot police, and those suspected of committing offences - having been filmed and pinpointed from the control centre and New Scotland Yard - were cherry-picked out one by one. After being duly processed, the rest of us were allowed to go - we walked up Portland Place to Regent?s Park surrounded by police and with all side streets blocked off.

The police have learnt lessons since last year. It is clear from Tuesday?s May Day events that we have not. Under police chief John Stevens, the state conducted an awesome intelligence-gathering and enforcement operation. Former deputy chief commander of Manchester police John Stalker, writing in The Mirror, cooed about the Met?s brilliance in foiling what was a ?nuisance rather than a serious threat? (May 2).

The police may at some point be forced to apologise. There may even be successful legal action for unlawful detention. But the main point about the day was the beginning of what could be a mass movement.

Though we mobilised only 5,000 onto the London May Day Monopoly actions, the ideas of anti-capitalism - in however distorted and ignorantly reported a form - are now common parlance among millions of people. Our ideas are visibly making headway - applications to join the CPGB, mainly from young people, are now running at a very high level.

The left needs to address what happens next May Day and honestly assess our shortcomings this time. The trap set at Oxford Circus must have been obvious to those at the head of the march. Indeed, according to The Daily Telegraph ?hastily printed leaflets were distributed ? warning of police tactics to contain any demonstration at Oxford Street? (May 2).

However, the solution is equally obvious. Mass mobilisation. We must mobilise the trade union movement - Britain is far behind Australia, USA, Canada, Greece, Turkey and South Korea in this respect. We must mobilise youth. We must mobilise the broadest forces ? and equip the anti-capitalist movement with the communist programme of extreme democracy and global revolution.

If we get 50,000 or 100,000 on the streets on May Day 2002 then no tin pot police chief nor all the spy cameras, nor serried ranks of riot police nor anarchist hot heads will prevent us exercising our democratic right to demonstrate and protest against capitalism and all its associated evils.

Andy Hannah