On Saturday 7 June, the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) joined the first national anti-austerity demo since Starmer’s election last summer.
With a bloc of over 400 members and supporters of the RCP from all over the country, this was possibly the biggest mobilisation of communists on the streets of London for decades.
We were there with a clear message: that we have no faith in Starmer’s government, and that the only way to fight against war and austerity is with a revolution against the billionaires!
‘Chants of revolution’
The demonstration – organised by the People’s Assembly – follows on from a hail of austerity cuts and attacks inflicted by ‘Sir’ Kid Starver and his government of cronies – from refusing to scrap the two-child benefit cap to slashing winter fuel payments, disability benefits, universal credit, and 10,000 civil service jobs.
The size and energy of the communist bloc was impossible to miss. A layer of radical young people and trade unionists joined our bloc.
This included Palestine activists who were drawn towards our speeches, which called out this Labour government’s complicity in genocide and linked together the increasing cuts at home with ramped-up militarism abroad.
The sea of red flags and the calls to expropriate the rich, and for a revolution against the billionaires, caught the eyes and ears of people in Central London.
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Our chants of “Nationalise the banks, seize their wealth, spend it on the national health!” and “Day by day, hour by hour, we will fight for workers’ power” boomed through the streets of Soho and Westminster.
We sold over 300 copies of The Communist throughout the day – a big portion of which were bought by passers-by who wanted to know more about what we were saying!
Our bold slogans even made their way onto the pages of the bourgeois papers, with the Evening Standard and the Metro unable to ignore the “chants of revolution” that stood out throughout the demonstration.
The energy was infectious. There was an electrifying mood amongst the members and supporters of the RCP who were present, with many saying this was the best bloc they had ever joined.
A supporter of the RCP who came along to the demo was so impressed with our bloc that they decided to join officially as a member of the party right after. In their own words:
“As someone who’s felt quite stretched thin between multiple smaller organisations, I felt inspired to join after seeing a larger party with so many people who share in their frustrations towards the system of capitalism and its role in tying different crises together.”
The warm reception that our ideas and slogans were met with confirms that there is a growing layer of people out there who are radicalised by the crisis of capitalism, angry at the billionaire establishment, and looking for a revolutionary alternative.
Class anger
This developing class anger came across in conversations that we had with protestors throughout the day.
A student from King’s College London told us that she had never been to a protest before, but felt compelled to come to this one because of her disgust at the genocide in Gaza – abetted by the Westminster warmongers – and Labour’s austerity.
She told us she felt a glimmer of hope when the Tories got kicked out, but that she now feels that things are getting even worse under Labour and people can’t go on like this anymore. When we spoke to her about fighting for revolution, she completely agreed.
This anecdote expresses a broader trend in society. Recently, a Channel 4 poll found that nearly half of young people in Britain think that revolution is necessary.
‘Gen Z’ workers and students have seen nothing but capitalism in crisis, are faced with skyrocketing housing costs, a lack of well-paid jobs, and the prospect of a very bleak future – and many of them are looking for a way to fight back.
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The crisis of capitalism is pushing workers to take the fight to the bosses.
In Birmingham, bin workers have been on strike since January against proposed pay cuts by the local Labour council. Bus drivers in Scotland will be on strike for 6 weeks, as staff in several UK universities are also walking out. NHS strikes seem likely in the near future, and there are warnings of airport staff going on strike too.
It’s clear we are entering a period of radicalisation in society and heightened industrial action.
Left’s weakness
But unfortunately – despite the huge potential to build a genuine class-based alternative to this rotten Labour government – the organisers of this anti-austerity demo failed to connect with this radical mood.
Instead of a full-frontal attack on Labour’s austerity and militarism, the People’s Assembly put forward woolly, reformist ideas and slogans – making moralistic appeals to Starmer’s government to ‘tax the rich’, and in essence calling for a nicer, kinder capitalism.
As a result – combined with a lackluster attempt to build for the demo – no more than a few thousand attended the protest. This is a sharp decline from the tens of thousands that attended previous national mobilisations, even just a few years ago.
What’s more, the mood on the march itself – with the exception of the communist bloc – felt noticeably sullen and lifeless, reflecting the pessimistic perspectives of the left leaders.
At the Whitehall rally at the end of the march, the crowd thinned out to a few hundred after a handful of speeches. The chair even had to ask people to stay out of respect to the speakers.
At one point, the chair’s attempt to start a chant of “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn!” fell flat. This was an apt metaphor for the day itself: the consciousness of workers and youth has moved on since the Corbyn years; reheated Corbynism is not going to be enough to reflect and channel the burning, anti-establishment rage that they feel.
With the deep anti-rich mood that exists in society, the universal hatred of Starmer’s traitorous government, and tensions rising within the trade unions, it would have been entirely possible to mobilise hundreds of thousands of activists, trade unionists, and youth for this demonstration.
We must be frank: the left leaders squandered this opportunity, and the result on Saturday was a damp squib – a display of weakness for the left and the labour movement.
It is an indictment of these reformist leaders that many of the most radical people we met throughout the demo weren’t even aware that this protest was taking place until they saw it on the day.
This all confirms that there is a huge political vacuum on the left in Britain. If the left leaders are serious about building the movement against Starmer, and defending working people against austerity and attacks, they need to adopt a bold class programme, and a fighting attitude.
Revolutionary leadership
As communists, we do not sow any illusions in this Labour government, which is committed to carrying out the dictates of big business.
Therefore, we did not attend the demo to ‘ask’ these ghouls to reconsider their ‘political choice’ of austerity policies.
We were there to tell people the truth: that the capitalist system has nothing in store for us but poverty, war, genocide, climate breakdown, misery, and increasing attacks against us.
Austerity is a logical consequence of a system that puts profits above the needs of society.
As keen as Starmer is to oblige his masters in the City of London, austerity is not a choice from the perspective of the ruling class. It’s something that must be carried out in order to keep the capitalist system chugging along.
Instead of fixing our crumbling infrastructure or investing in the things that our communities need, Starmer’s priority is now to increase military spending to 3 percent of GDP.
This will require even more and more brutal austerity, supposedly for the sake of defending Britain against the threat posed by Russia.
But the real threat to workers and students in Britain is this Labour government and the cuts and attacks they are inflicting against the poor and most vulnerable – for the sake of the bankers, the billionaires, and the predatory interests of British imperialism abroad.
We, the members of the Revolutionary Communist Party, say: enough is enough!
Only by seizing the wealth owned by these parasites can we invest it on the NHS, on our schools, on our universities, on our communities, and on all the things that we need.
This should form part of a socialist plan of production which does away with the profit motive and puts the needs of society first.
But clearly, the official leadership of the British left is unsuited for this purpose. A new, revolutionary leadership is needed that can act as a reference point for our movement.
This is what the RCP is attempting to build, and we invite all those who want to fight for the interests of our class to join us in this task!
