Last Saturday, 21 June a bloc of a hundred communists joined in with hundreds of thousands of people who came out onto the streets of London, furious at the crimes of the Israeli state.
This latest national Palestine demonstration took place amidst the heat of rising tensions between Israel, the US and Western imperialism on one side and Iran on the other.
The overriding mood of the demonstration was anger at the British government.
As the mask of British imperialism continues to slip, anger at the Labour government is palpable. Many signs said ‘stop arming Israel’ – a direct demand to the British government, who are still sending jets to Israel and helping train IDF soldiers.
A development in the mood
The RCP’s communist bloc drew attention to the pernicious role played by the Labour government and British imperialism in the Middle East through chants like:
“Keir Starmer, what do you say? How many kids have you killed today?”
“David Lammy, you’re the terrorist.”
“From the belly of the beast, hands off the Middle East.”
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These chants were very popular with dozens of marchers joining our bloc. At one point, a young girl (around the age of eight) asked for our microphone to chant “Keir Starmer’s a wasteman” – a chant which hundreds around her then picked up.
The demonstration also clearly showed that people are not buying the hypocritical claims of Western media that Iran has been the cause of the current escalating conflict. Hundreds of signs called for “Hands off Iran”, which was also a slogan regularly raised in the crowd.
It is particularly noteworthy that no signs were held, and no slogans were chanted, calling for a ceasefire. Those marching on Saturday saw what happened with the ceasefire at the start of the year; they are starting to draw the lesson that a rotten peace is no peace at all.
Police crackdown
The anger directed towards the British government is not just limited to Starmer and Lammy, but rather flows into all facets of the state.
The Metropolitan police were very visible around the edges of the demonstration. This time they even came into Russell Square, the park next to where the demonstration began, to ‘check in’ on groups preparing to march.
In front of the small Zionist counter-demonstration, multiple arrests were made – not of the reactionary cabal, who were having a party as if in glee at the escalation of the war – but of pro-Palestine marchers!
Between the sham trial of Kneecap’s Mo Chara and the plan to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, a trend of increased clampdowns on the Palestine movement is emerging.
Whilst marching, Fiona Lali spoke in support of Kneecap, with their music playing in the background. To massive shouts of “shame!” she explained that what has happened to Kneecap is an outrageous, conscious political attack: “Over 100,000 dead, and they’re arresting us instead!”
Today, 23 June the Metropolitan police banned a protest against Palestine Action’s proscription from gathering outside of Parliament. Instead protestors were instructed to move to Trafalgar Square, in a blatant attempt to lessen the impact and hush things up.
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Searching for direction
The current uptick of the Palestine movement is not an exact replication of the mood in October 2023. In particular, people have learnt in the last 20 months that whichever face represents Western imperialism, the latter’s bloodthirsty interests remain the same.
Those marching are increasingly aware that A-to-B marches are not enough. They understand that Starmer and co. cannot be reasoned with. These thousands who have turned out on the streets month in, month out are asking “where next?” – and receiving no answer.
This explains the dip in the Palestine movement seen over the winter. And even now with the movement’s re-emergence, the striving for more radical solutions remains.
This was shown on the demo by the small number of people who stayed to listen to the speeches at the end. Clearly, those marching did not feel that the official speeches gave direction or reflected the radical anger that they felt.
Speeches harked back to the anti-Iraq-war movement, but offered no lessons from that tremendous movement. Hamza Yousaf, former leader of the SNP, expressed this aimlessness plainly: “we say today to Keir Starmer what we said to Tony Blair in 2003.”
Unsurprisingly, those marching on Saturday were clearly not satisfied to merely repeat the actions that were unable to stop the Iraq war twenty years ago!
While the official speeches were happening, many groups broke off to give their own speeches and talk amongst the crowd. The RCP was there in numbers, raising a communist programme to bring down the warmongers at home and fight for liberation across the Middle East.
Those who were not already organised were desperate for answers. RCP members sold around 200 copies of The Communist, and multiple marchers came up to comrades on our bloc and our stall to ask how they could get involved with the party.
There is a yearning for radical direction in the Palestine movement. We as Communists are here to link the dots together: the same ruling class that is supporting wars abroad, is the same ruling class that attacks the working class in this country. And we are building the party to overthrow them!
