Members of Kent and Sussex

Members of Kent and Sussex Regional branch attended the Maidstone rally. About 500 workers from Unison, GMB and NASUWT marched from the High Street to County Hall shouting “save our pensions”. Comrades gave out around 400 leaflets and a number of back issues of the SS. The ‘left’, surprisingly or not, were highly conspicuous by their total absence.Reports have also come in from the Central London, Luton, Birmingham and Manchester rallies. 1) There were, according to one count, nine members present at the Central London rally, and around a thousand leaflets were cleared. The march was enormous, and comrades had to keep shifting pitch to avoid being at the static end of the march. 2) The Luton rally was smaller than expected. One of the stewards said there were 2000 marchers but it was probably nearer 1200. More leaflets should have been collected from HO as the one comrade present quickly ran out. People were stopping to read them on the spot, nodding in agreement with the contents and putting them in their pockets. Like the Maidstone rally the SWP and other assorted lefties were nowhere to be seen.3) Members were present at a march in Birmingham. They subsequently went into the National Indoor Arena for the rally and heard talks by Brendan Barber, the top man at the TUC, Dave Prentis of Unison and a young teacher from Dudley. Outside they were accused by a group called Socialist Resistance of ‘Abstaining from the Class Struggle’. Then one of them said… “I really like the SPGB. I used to admire one of your members – a fellow called Wally Preston from Manchester.” They then handed out leaflets to a surprising number of very eager and interested young people, many of whom were from non-white British backgrounds. 4) At least five comrades were present at the march and rally in Manchester who distributed 600 leaflets and sold a few Standards. The BBC website claims ‘up to 20,000’ took part in the march, but that would seem to be a considerable exaggeration according to the members present.