About 100 of us – accompanied by about 100 police – got as far as Oxford Gardens within shouting distance of Cameron’s house before the police blocked us off from getting nearer. We then marched/were escorted back past a nazi saluting Rik Mayall along Ladbroke Grove to Meanwhile Gardens where after a brief rally we dispersed. There were three arrests – all released without charge later.
THE GOOD
Many thought we’d never get to march/all be arrested or kettled in for hours. We marched, we resisted attempts to intimidate us at the start,we put the anarchist movement back on the street again where it belongs, we had our own march rather than tail ending others. Meeting along Portobello Road market and not isolating ourselves at the start worked well preventing the police from surrounding us all and is a tactic worth developing. Met some top young comrades from Bristol and Cumbria. An encouraging sight was the number of youngsters on the march mixed in with enough old timers to refilm the Wild Bunch!
FITWATCH did some top work helping those the police grabbed. The banner carriers did a resolute bold job and generally people were up for resisting arrests.
THE NOT SO GOOD
Just about another 100 anarchists lurked on the sidelines/stayed in the pub/arrived late/were too scared to join in.If these 100 had joined the march we’d have been better able to stand up to the cops – not that we’d have broken out but we’d certainly have had a more combative presence.
Few locals joined in, the march was very quiet leaving people mystified as to what it was about, the cops mostly dominated the march through sheer numbers. Starting at the market worked well but still we’ve to devise a way out of the cop kettle tactic.
THE WANK
At the end of the march one of the Hackney women contingent asked me ‘CAN YOU BE ARRESTED FOR HAVING WANK ON YOUR ARM’ ….one of the more unusual questions it has to be said as I glanced nervously at my sleeve. Then she showed me she had ‘WANK’ in large letters on her forearm….she’d been carrying a placard with that arm exposing ‘WANK’to public view and copper had threatened to arrest her! One for FITWATCH!
THE FUTURE
This was a toe in the water, the first step in building again a combative anarchist street presence and direct action movement. We now know which comrades are up for it and which aren’t.We now know we can build an alternative to the world of virtual anarchy of the ‘anarchism on my parents computer’ variety. We aim now to keep the momentum going so that we escape the inaction of only annual events and bookfairs. We see the key area as affordable housing and need to see the return of the mass squatting movement of 1946-47 – already starting to happen in the USA. Ocupations of high profile yuppie/rich developments like the Centrepoint one in the 1970’s could spread from London across the country. We’ll also be taking an interest in Boris Johnson’s election campaign and be orgnising events on the Mayoral election day on May 1st……and much more. A group of us are meeting regularly in London and we welcome contacts throughout Britain who want to work with us. Comments welcome.
Putting insuurectionary anarchism back on the streets where it belongs. Class War.
Cheers to everyone who turned up.
Ian Bone 
The ‘wank’ thing happened to two of us. We had it on our umbrella, the filth snatched it off her and then followed us after our forearm protest and pulled me away and started threatening us. I’ve got a picture of the umbrella/copper who did it. It’s quite a flattering picture I must admit.
But the march was brilliant. It introduced some of my friends to anarchism for the first time and they were beyond impressed.
I was pleased to get value for money on my taxation (council and income) when I got a police escort when shopping in Tescos on Portobello Road on Saturday. But three coppers to make sure I paid for one bottle of water and a bottle of diet coke seems a little extreme. If they roll this scheme out country-wide the costs will be exhorbitant.
It still says ‘wank’ on my hand. I physically can’t wash it off. Good, good fucking times.
I saw the cops take the umbrella. Theft I’d say. Good to finaly meet you Ian and a fucking brilliant day. A report of it is now up on my blog too.
Oh, yes. And I forgot. The reason they didn’t arrest us? “You are obviously young and very silly”. I was going to be like “CAN YOU SPELL P-A-T-R-O-N-I-S-I-N-G?” But I was too busy being insulted to speak.
hey, just thought you should know that their where alot more people who turned up, i was in a group of about 10-15 people, but we got attacked by the police when tring to get out of the kettle, we spent a few hours evading the police, then when we couldnt get back to the march we did a small protest oposite bukingham palice, we chanted and held a banner saying “no war but the class war” and waved prodly the anarcho-communist flag for about 30 minutes before the police moved us on.
also something to note is that i think a few groups of people went home after nothing happened, in future we should work on getting people their on time.
hope this feedback will help you when planning future actions,
bob from “up north”
Aimee – Why not make it permanent but having WANK tattooed on your hand?
Ok – there may be one or two drawbacks, but the cop baiting opportunities are unlimited…..
They’d probably chop my hand off and take that. Umbrellas, hands, it’s all the same to them.
Have to say I was one of those lurkers on the outside looking in, thought that starting in Portobello Market was great, cops didn’t know what to do or what was going on! Admittedly myself and a couple of others were adamant on not getting kettled in by feds, too many bad memories from previous maydays, but in hindsight we should have all got stuck in to build numbers. There was definelty a considerable amount of people floating around and watching, it was a shame that we were unable to pull everyone together and either join the main group or organise alongside what was going on – which could have forced the police to spread their numbers? But lots of positives from the day – the main one being meeting in a very busy public place – as you say it is just a “toe in the water” but it was great to be back on the streets and not tagging on the back of some elses march etc. Hope fully this will build and we can finally beat the Police tactics of circling us all in. When is the next one??????