Here, we publish an overview of the national pro-Palestine demonstration that took place last Saturday, and the impressive 700-strong communist bloc which was violently targeted by the Metropolitan Police. You can read our statement about the police attacks and arrests here.
We are pleased to announce that all eleven of the comrades who were arrested have been released on bail, without charge.
We will continue to publish material on last Saturday’s events throughout the week, including testimonies from the comrades who were arrested. We appeal to our readers to write to The Communist – inundate us with your experiences, thoughts, and reflections!
Stay up to date with our latest articles and activity by joining the RCP WhatsApp channel and turning on notifications.
On Saturday 10 October, tens of thousands took to the streets of central London once again – in solidarity with Palestine, and to protest against three years of Israel’s genocidal campaign against the people of Gaza, which has seen over 100,000 Palestinians killed, and millions displaced.
Marching under the banners ‘For Palestine to live, imperialism must die’ and ‘Down with Labour’s government of war’, the Revolutionary Communist Party organised our largest bloc to date for this demonstration, and what is likely the largest communist bloc on Britain’s streets for decades.
700 young revolutionaries and class fighters gathered from across Britain to oppose ‘our’ ruling class’s imperialist meddling in the Middle East, and its continued support for Israel’s slaughter. Many more demo attendees were drawn into our loud, energetic bloc as we set off along the banks of the River Thames.
Little did we know that we would wind up facing off with Met Police thugs for close to an hour, and becoming the target of a vicious smear campaign by the right-wing gutter press.
“Down with Labour’s government of war!”
The revolutionary communists were by far the loudest, boldest, most energetic and most youthful section of the demonstration.
Comrades talking with people and selling The Communist at the edge of our bloc reported watching people’s eyes light up as we arrived, and a sea of red flags engulfed the Victoria Embankment:
“One guy was recording our bloc and joining in all the chants from the sidelines. When he saw me with the paper he asked to buy one and told me that it was so inspiring to see the young people leading the way not only here in Britain but also in France, Spain, India, and more!
“He told me, ‘When I was your age, I was a student protesting on these same streets, though I was protesting the war in Iraq at the time. This is the best thing I’ve seen since!’
“He gave me an extra donation on top of the cost of the paper and joined right back in with the chanting.”
Our bloc especially stood out in a demo that was notably smaller, older, and more subdued than previous national marches for Palestine.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), the demonstration’s official organisers, stated that 250,000 marched on Saturday. But by our estimates, in all likelihood fewer than half of this figure turned out.
These are still huge numbers – showing that Palestine continues to be one of the biggest points of politicisation in British society – but it’s a significant drop compared to this time last year, when half a million came out to call for a free Palestine.
This change is not because of a drop in support for Palestine in Britain today. Far from it. It is because hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets almost 40 times over the last three years for these repetitive A-to-B marches – and now they are rightly asking, what has this achieved?
As we noted in the latest editorial of The Communist:
“For three years now, workers and youth in Britain have fought valiantly in support of the Palestinian people – all while facing scandalous repression from the state… Yet throughout this period, the situation in the Middle East – and across the globe – has only worsened. The people of Palestine are further away from freedom than ever.”
Without a solid perspective of what lies ahead – of what measures can be taken to escalate the struggle against genocide and imperialism – people aren’t going to keep on turning out in massive numbers, to hear the same tired-old speeches about the need for ‘peace’ and ‘justice’.
In addition, after years of opposing and ruthlessly attacking the Palestine movement, Labour has been forced to throw the movement a bone, in the form of a tokenistic ‘recognition’ of the Palestinian state.
And since Andy Burnham entered Number 10, Labour has been cynically trying to win back the pro-Palestine vote with equally empty gestures, while continuing to back the Zionists to the hilt economically and militarily.
The PSC has unfortunately fallen hook, line, and sinker for Burnham’s ploy, labelling the government’s latest announcements “a significant move, setting out intentions to hold Israel to account over its violations of international law and crimes against the Palestinian people”. This “significant move”, they argue, is a sign that “mass pressure must continue”.
But sowing illusions in a hated, repressive imperialist government – one that doesn’t bat an eyelid at locking up pro-Palestine protestors, or rolling out the red carpet for arms companies – isn’t going to appeal to the hundreds of thousands of workers and young people that have taken part in the Palestine movement over these past three years.
In fact, such weak, woolly, and aimless rhetoric – which embodies the liberal pacifism of the PSC – is actively demobilising and disorienting the movement.
To stand out from this confusion, and to try and arm the movement with the revolutionary perspectives that are missing, we marched under the clear banner of “Down with Labour’s government of war!”
“Tout le monde déteste la police”
As our bloc passed by the small Zionist counter-protest – conveniently staged right outside of New Scotland Yard, the Met Police’s headquarters – police officers grabbed one of our comrades, accusing him of wearing a face covering. They quickly dragged him away, slamming him face-first into the nearby Battle of Britain war memorial, before cuffing him.
Clearly, the Met weren’t expecting all 700 of us to follow them and surround the monument, demanding that our comrade be released immediately.
More police rushed in – trampling all over the wreaths placed at the memorial in the process – and proceeded to attack our bloc, shoving, kicking, and punching our comrades freely, with brute fury in their eyes.
As would be expected, these events have – ignoring a mountain of video evidence – been completely twisted in the subsequent, almost-instantaneous right-wing media coverage, to present us as violent provocateurs and “shameful” vandals!
‘Trampling on the memory of The Few’ rambled one Daily Mail headline, ‘Pro-Palestine thugs spark fury as they stamp on poppies and clamber over Battle of Britain memorial as march descends into violence’.
Such barefaced lies should hardly surprise us, coming from the same crooked hacks who have covered up Israel’s war crimes and justified the actions of British imperialism – all while finding time to whip up Islamophobia and anti-migrant racism to cut across the class struggle at home.
RCP comrades valiantly resisted the police’s violent aggression. Comrades bellowed “Who do you serve? Who do you protect?” as we linked arms to withstand the Met’s attacks. The discipline of our ranks stood in stark contrast to the fumbling aggression of the ‘boys in blue’ – who were clearly amped-up and raring for a scrap.
Stood high above the crowd, Fiona Lali took to the megaphone, and lambasted the disgraceful hypocrisy in the fact that – just a few weeks earlier – the police had calmly allowed crowds of masked right-wing thugs to march unopposed on the streets of Dover. She continued:
“We have been peacefully protesting, and this is how you treat us. This is disgraceful. They want to intimidate us, to stop us thinking that we can come out here and protest for Palestine. Well, we can and we will – against this state repression – because it is a sign of weakness and not strength.”
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Comrades were certainly not cowed by the police’s aggression, as they roared a popular chant amongst the students currently protesting in France: “Tout le monde déteste la police!” – everybody hates the police.
Visibly agitated and enraged by our persistence – and panicked at the scale of the response they had triggered – the police soon began arresting our comrades at random, and bundling them into police vans.
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Scandalously, it must be noted that throughout all of this, the stewards organised by PSC directed the protestors who had stopped to help us de-arrest our comrades away from our bloc and our standoff with the police – making sure that the march stuck to ‘business as usual’.
As one RCP member from Peckham commented, “as we took on the police and defended our democratic right to protest, the PSC effectively acted alongside the police to defend their right to oppress us. Where was the ‘solidarity’ here?”
Right now, as Palestine Action solidarity protestors are being arrested by the dozen, and political prisoners are languishing in their cells, the official leaders of the Palestine movement are turning a blind eye to the repression taking place right in front of them. Such toothless submission to the state can offer nothing but defeat and disorientation for the movement.
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“I’m in this fight until we win”
In total, eleven of our comrades were arrested and carted off to three different police stations across the capital – making up over half of the arrests made that day. We later found out that they were apprehended for baseless accusations, ranging from ‘suspicion of causing criminal damage’ to ‘obstructing the course of justice’.
RCP members quickly organised solidarity protests outside of the police stations where our comrades had been taken – in Walworth, Hammersmith, and Charing Cross.
In a particularly cowardly move in Walworth, when dozens of our comrades arrived with banners and megaphones, the police closed the station’s shutters on us!
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A few hours in, a couple of annoyed officers poked their heads out to threaten to arrest everyone there if we didn’t quieten down – and were laughed right back into the station!
Comrades stayed outside the stations for over seven hours, chanting and giving speeches denouncing these attacks on the RCP, until the last comrade was finally released at 2:30 in the morning to cheers and applause.
One comrade who was arrested, Owen, explained the difference this solidarity made:
“At no point during the demonstration or in the cell afterwards did I worry about what was going to happen to me. This is not due to any kind of personal courage, but because I knew that I had the backing and solidarity of my comrades in the RCP.
“I knew that when my comrades had been arrested before, I had raced down to the police station to protest until they were released – and I knew that they would do the same for me.
“No handcuffs or bail restrictions can halt an idea whose time has come, and it is in that knowledge that I say I am confident that we will win. I won’t let my arrest stop me from building the party of the future, the RCP.”
“The future belongs to us”
It would be easy to respond to last Saturday’s events with despondency and pessimism – at the unrestrained violence of the state’s thugs, the shameful smear campaign peddled in the press, and the toothlessness of the official ‘lefts’, who are afraid to wage a fightback.
But we, as Marxists, are revolutionary optimists – we understand that for every instance of police repression, for every poisonous lie spat out by a paid-for journalist, and for every sign of weakness from the reformist ‘leaders’, a new revolutionary is formed.
We know that events like last Saturday’s – which are taking place all over the world as we write these words – are churning up consciousness like never before, and are infuriating millions of radical young people.
In our own ranks, too, last weekend’s events have had an electrifying effect, galvanising and steeling our comrades for the struggles ahead.
As of today, at least 12 people have joined the RCP on the back of the demonstration – that’s more than one for every comrade arrested!
One RCP member from Liverpool, for whom this was his first-ever experience of a protest, commented that “if I wasn’t radicalised before, I’m definitely radicalised now”.
Another first-time demonstrator from Bradford reflected how “I could feel the determination of our bloc along with our strength. I feel very proud of our party, how we fought to get our comrades released, and how we could all trust one another in that situation. We are the real deal!”
“I only joined three days ago, but after today I’m ready to overthrow the state,” shared an RCP member from Birmingham. “I’m in this fight until we win and succeed in changing the world”.
As we concluded in our statement on the day of the arrests:
“The movements that have erupted in France and Spain are Britain’s future too. The ruling class can feel it coming and they are terrified. That is why these state thugs attacked us today. The future is coming, and it belongs to us, not them.”
We encourage our readers, members, and supporters to help us fight the state’s repression by donating to the RCP’s fighting fund, which will allow us to continue building the forces of communism on the streets, as well as helping us to cover any potential legal costs.
And lastly, if last weekend’s attack has made you realise what’s at stake, and the RCP’s response has made you realise what kind of fightback is needed for the movement to succeed – then demand the future, and join the Revolutionary Communist Party today!
The Met Police? Shutters down!
Sam H, Peckham
After the demo, a couple-dozen communists paid a visit to Walworth Police Station to peacefully request the release of our comrades.
When we arrived, did the police greet us with a truncheoned battalion of hardened officers? Or a charismatic old copper with a regional accent to help calm things down? Neither. They scrambled for the button that would slowly bring the shutters down on the front doors, preventing anyone from getting in and out – even in case of an emergency!
This is not how a strong and confident establishment operates. And it proves that the real emergency lies within the establishment itself. In their efforts to cow the RCP into retreating from the arrest of our comrades, it is the police who were cowed. In the face of organised, educated, and active communists on their doorstep, they hid in fear.
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Their ears will still be ringing with the same chant of “who do you serve? Who do you protect?” that they first faced at the demo, as we bellowed at them well into the night. No police vehicle could leave the car park without having to move through a wall of communists making ourselves and our demands known. And in the early hours of the morning, the last comrade held in Walworth was released.
The pro-Pals are STILL outside Walworth police station and shouting “Scum” at officers. I can’t believe they’re getting away with this. https://t.co/7K5ruDyLvL
— Heidi Bachram (@HeidiBachram) October 10, 2026
This goes to show what we are capable of when we act as a unified force. Yesterday was a political education many of our comrades will not have had before. Sometimes it is all we can do to study the state, learn how and why it oppresses the working class. But yesterday we got to experience what that feels like in reality. As the agents of the state rained punches on us and then ran scared behind metal shutters, we stood firm, looked them straight in the eye and chased them back to their desks.
We must prepare for bigger battles ahead, and continue to build, if we are to meet the demands placed on us by the future – with fists held high!
