2015 Mayday Report

Some commented numbers were slightly down on the year previous when the RMT threw their weight behind the Mayday march after Bob Crows death. On the way to the rallying point people would have come across an SWP banner emblazoned with “Hands off Tower Hamlets”. They’re consistent, if nothing else, we should give them that.

Starting off at Clerkenwell Green, you were overwhelmed by the 57 varieties of Stalinism both overseas and domestic. When one looks overseas, you have serious militancy being shown on Mayday; there is a worry that the British equivalent is being turned into a historical re-enactment society being led by the bureaucratic trade union wing of the labour movement.

There were smatterings of union banners and housing campaigns, but alongside that you had ample banners with Stalin and even on one occasion Soviet-era style military formation marching with flags. Agh, working class regimentation, just what we…