Workers' Liberty on the 20 October anti-Brexit demonstration

Submitted by martin on 15 October, 2018 - 9:41
20 October 2018

Workers' Liberty went on the People's Vote demonstration on 20 October with placards (see below), red flags, banners, stalls, and chant sheets.

Ours was the only organised left-wing presence on the demonstration. The full count is not yet in, but we must have sold about 300 copies of Solidarity on the demonstration, as well as books, pamphlets, etc., and collected contact details from many people who want to keep in touch.

We distributed the "Left Against Brexit" leaflet produced by the Nottingham and Sheffield Left Against Brexit groups.

We distributed chant sheets. We joined the “Left Bloc” organised by "Another Europe is Possible", and most of the bloc took up our chants. They were the only chants anywhere on the demo to go beyond “we want a people’s vote” and “bollocks to Brexit”, as far as we could tell.

The demonstration numbers are reported as 700,000, and it was certainly huge. The speakers at the end were more on a Lib-Dem, SNP, Plaid Cymru wavelength than left-wing: the middle-of-the-road Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was probably the most left-wing.

There was hardly any Labour Party presence as such. We came across many Labour voters and Labour members on the march. Like the majority of Labour supporters and members, according to many polls, they oppose Brexit, and are unhappy with the Labour leaders' fence-sitting on the issue.

There were very few banners from Labour Parties or union branches, or indeed from any organisations, on the huge march. The marchers were on average a more prosperous, more Lib-Dem-ish crowd than those who join other leftish protest marches, and non-white marchers were a smaller minority than they are in London's general population; but given the huge overall size of the march, it was also a big turnout of non-white marchers.

Our aim now is to expand and step up the activity of the network of local "Left Against Brexit" groups.

Download the placards as pdf:

Labour: oppose Brexit!
Free movement
Socialist Europe

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