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If protests didn’t work they wouldn’t try to ban them
As huge demos once again hit the streets of Britain in defence of Palestine, we must recognise that ours is an era where street politics is increasingly vital, explains socialist historian KEITH FLETT
Protesters during a pro-Palestine march organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign in central London. Picture date: Saturday October 28, 2023.
Trump’s economic adviser has exposed the actual strategy: forcing other countries to provide financial support for US world hegemony
Activist Angie Zelter has been arrested more than a hundred times. She’s not stopping now, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Natalia Marques looks at last week's ruling that Khalil can be deported and its implications
We are not here to advocate for the arms industry or its CEOs, writes STEVE HANDFORD, and that means we must take a stand against the government’s spending on war
Educators must fight for an inclusive, creative system that values all children
Although our sector is hearing better things from the current government, the recognition that what we do is education in its own right, rather than just childcare, is still not reflected in policy, writes LUCY COLEMAN
THE right to demonstrate was hard-won. It took a massacre at Peterloo in Manchester on August 16 1819, where soldiers on horseback cut down, killed and injured protesters who were demanding the right to vote, to remind that state that allowing political demonstrations was perhaps preferable to such confrontations.
It is a right that has required exercise in practice down the decades and centuries — and there have of course been times when demonstrations were banned or attacked by the police.
Since the 1960s protest marches have become a significant way of focusing on issues which official Westminster politics ignores.
More from this author
From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT
Facing economic turmoil, Jim Callaghan’s government rejected Tony Benn’s alternative economic strategy in favour of cuts that paved the way for Thatcherism — and the cuts-loving Labour of the present era, writes KEITH FLETT
Starmer’s slash-and-burn approach to disability benefits represents a fundamental break with Labour’s founding mission to challenge the idle rich rather than punish the vulnerable poor, argues KEITH FLETT
The formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 marked the beginning of interconnected and contested strategies — parliamentary and industrial — seeking ways to advance working-class interests, writes KEITH FLETT
