Tourist: “What’s going on?”
Police Officer: “It’s an anti-democracy protest.”
Such is the grasp of politics of the average cop.
On Saturday I knew where I wanted to be: on the streets of London rejecting the notion of another 5 years of Tory rule. I got to Whitehall in the early afternoon and was pretty disappointed to see about a dozen people parading up and down chanting the usual and completely pointless slogans normally associated with Trot groups. They seemed buoyed when we turned up and handed them Class War material.
With many people on the far left at the counter-demo against the EDL in Walthamstow I suspected that this was simply the way the protest would go. Endless marching around and chanting. The last thing I expected was headline news about a “Hateful mob in No10 Rampage”. We did march around for far too long but when we finally settled on Downing Street (and this is important because the original call from the ‘leaders’ on this spontaneous protest was to go to Buckingham Palace).
Frankly most of us were knackered from marching between Parliament Square, Downing Street, Trafalgar Square and Tory campaign HQ. At Downing Street we could group as more and more joined the protest. The police were out in force. As people became more agitated I saw scuffles close to the gates to Downing Street and then the smoke bombs were set off and the police mobilised into formations designed to move the protesters.
I was attacked several times by the them. We all were. They were there to deny us our democratic rights to protest. This first video shows them pushing some of us back towards Downing Street.
Once we got there they pushed us back the other way. By this time they were raising their batons ready to hit people, like Officer Dibble from Top Cat.
The cops had kettled a small group of people and gradually reduced their numbers. Thinking it was quiet enough to see how the people inside the kettle were was a mistake. We were suddenly surrounded and in the melee that ensued a few of us got shoved to the floor.
We can expect more police action in the months and years to come. It is likely to get much worse than these minor scuffles as the Tories insist of ruling over us, waging a brutal class war.
Next stop: The Illegitimate State Opening of Parliament – disrupt their pomp and circumstance!
Trade Onion by Jon Bigger 
So, given that this is a protest against a political party being elected in an open and free election, the policeman you quote at the beginning does kind of have a point.
And before you whine about how more people voted against the Tories than for them, consider that there was a referendum on AV, which the electorate turned down. Also that UKIP did by far the worst out of fptp, and they wouldn’t exactly have been more socialist than the Tories.
“The Voice of Reason”? Really?
Consider that the Tories gained the support of less than a quarter of the population at the 2015 election. Consider that they will use that ‘mandate’ to govern in such a way that will increase suicide rates, evictions, child poverty, whilst selling off our most precious assets.
I don’t care that they got a majority of seats in parliament because I reject parliamentary democracy. I want real democracy where we can all take responsibility for our lives rather than electing people to rule over us.
Sorry, I missed the part where you said how terrible it was in 2005 when labour had a larger majority with 2 million fewer votes.
Seriously though, how does “real democracy” work. Do I decide how much tax I pay individually, what benefits I get, what laws I have to obey, what roads get built, foreign policy etc? How is it supposed to work?
I’ve been criticising the British electoral system since way before 2005. The UK has suffered minority governments for decades at a time.
A real democracy would be direct. You would participate in decision making. For decisions that need to be taken at a higher level than the local we could have delegates instead of representatives. They would be charged with the task of doing what the people at the local level wanted so decisions at the top reflect opinion below. There’s no point talking about tax and benefits because we’re ditching capitalism too.
And how many votes did class war get – 1500. Just appears you are just sad sad losers – go do something constructive rather than whine and expect hand outs for nothing
We wanted so many less but people seemed to like voting for us.
We are constructive. It’s the richest and most powerful that get the hand outs for doing nothing.
So go live in North korea boy
What? Is that meant to be a meaningful and insightful comment to show I’m wrong in some way? Come on, try harder!
According to your mate Bone u thought you were going to get more votes than the liberals and ukip combined. So stop trying to gloss over your pathetic loss in the election. You lost ur deposit –
It’s impossible to gloss over only getting 65 votes… except for the fact I wasn’t using the election to get votes, just to have a platform. The fact you keep interacting with me shows what a success that was.
lol, ffs.