The most poorly-organised protest I have ever been to

I'm going to talk about the most poorly-organised protest I have ever been to. It was so poorly-organised that I feel that this has rubbed off on me, as the demonstration itself was around two weeks ago and I am only just getting to writing about it now. (No, that's a joke - there are two reasons that I've been slightly lacking in this blog over the last few weeks. One is that I have been extraordinarily busy with Uni, and the other is that I knew that my next blog would be about this protest, and it was so depressing that I kept putting off writing about it. Stupid, I know. But I've now finished Uni, so I shall probably be able to make up for the last few weeks by updating quite a lot this week. Keep your eyes peeled!)

Perhaps in the title of this I should have referred to 'protests' (in the plural) because it actually took the form of three, and this was the biggest mistake of all which created a domino effect on everything else that went on that day. There were three protests in London, all at the same time, all within a mile of one another, focussing on slightly different things but generally based around the same principles - i.e. anti-austerity, anti-privitisation, pro-human rights, pro-socialism, pro-electoral reform etc. When I arrived in London, I met up with some colleagues that I had met on the previous demonstration, plus a couple of new people. We had agreed to attend the demonstration focussing on securing the Human Rights Act, but when we arrived, it became evident for several reasons that it wasn't for us.

The first thing that immediately turned my group off was that it seemed to be largely Liberal Democrat focussed. Now this actually didn't bother me that much, as I give the Lib Dems a little bit more credit than most left-wingers do, but the people I was with really did not want to be associated in this way. Also, the speeches being made were not very good, in all honesty - they weren't engaging people at all and the information given wasn't especially accurate. But the main reason that I was turned off from it was just that it didn't seem like we were achieving anything - the demonstration was very small, we were standing in a corner of the road with no one paying any attention to us. So we stayed for about half an hour, gave a couple of media interviews and then left for Westminster Bridge.

By the time we got there, however, the people there had already given up, as there was absolutely nothing going on. So with heavy hearts, we trudged over to the National Gallery. This was the only demonstration that seemed to be going anywhere, as we picketed the gallery protesting against privatisation for a while - it had clearly been successful, but was coming to a natural conclusion when we got there (I did get to see part of a speech by Kate Smurthwaite though, and I think she speaks very well, so that was a highlight!) Overall though, politically speaking it was a waste of a day, as by around 3pm all of the demonstrations were over. I stayed in London for a bit longer and it became a bit more of a social occasion getting to know my fellow protesters, which I enjoyed but it was not what I was there for.

I don't know how it was that three similar protests were organised in the same city, on the same day, so close to one another without combining all three. If all three had been combined, I think that there would have been a high chance of having a really successful day, but as it was, the people were spread so thin that I felt that little was achieved - with the possible exception of the National Gallery, but I arrived too late to really comment on that one. I'm annoyed about this, as I felt that this movement has lost a little bit of momentum. However, it is not over yet. This Saturday (20 June) is the big anti-austerity protest in London, which is expected to be big. As for what will happen after that, I'm not sure yet - I intend there to be more of these, and if no one seems to be doing anything, perhaps I shall organise it myself. I certainly have enough political contacts to be able to do that. In the meantime, let's focus on what is happening this Saturday.

Here is the Facebook event page. Please come everyone!

National Demo ANTI AUSTERITY NOW!

Thank you to everyone who was at the demonstration two weeks ago, and apologies that it has taken me this long to write about it. As I mentioned earlier, I now have a lot more free time, so I intend to write quite a bit between now and Saturday's demonstration, which I will be attending. Watch this space!