More May Day


May Day partying outside the ‘Rich Door’ at One Commercial St – F**k Parade 4

I left while the talking was still going on in Trafalgar Square and the audience was getting thinner and thinner to make my way to the East End. The first event there was a May Day Rally & Gonosangeet organised by the Bangladeshi Workers Council together with Red London, trade unionists, labour movement, political and community activists. I had to leave early while the speeches were still taking place, but I understand there was to be music later.

They did have a rather nice banner, and among the speeches was an interesting historical one by East End activist and historian David Rosenberg of the Jewish Socialist Group, and I think there was to be music later.

But a rather more active event was due to start, with F**k Parade 4, the fourth in a series of anti-capitalist street parties organised by anarchists in East London returning to its origin at One Commercial St, the venue for over 30 protests by Class War against social apartheid in housing, and where last year’s May Day event was the first of this series of roving music and dancing protests.

I met up with a few of them sitting outside a nearby pub, wiaing for the cycle-hauled sound system to arrive, and then walked down with them to ‘Poor Doors’, where the party was already starting to become lively.

Everyone was in party mood, and even the large number of police who were standing around seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Soon the party-goers decided to move off, and with a few smoke flares and lost of red flags the went south.

But I’d been on my feet and taking pictures for too long, and decided it was time to go home. There were plenty of other photographers on hand to take pictures. But then I changed my mind….



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