I was standing 10 yards away when that incident happened, and I didn't see any collaboration with the SWP, nor did I hear anything from SWP members (many whom I'm friends with) about any sort of colloboration with the Police to have any Wombles arrested.

What evidence do you have of this assertion?

What *exactly* did you see? Who, *exactly* did what? How do you know they were SWP members and not undercover cops?


To me this sounds more of the same SWP bashing / propaganda that we see on uk.indymedia so often...

Thats not what I saw, oh i can't be arsed. It was very wet put the mood was suprisingly good. The people who I went with had never been on a demonstration before and loved it, despite the rain. Thats two more converts at least.

SWP members were also arrested in Brighton, one for wearing jjust a Palestinian scarfe, I suppose you're going to claim that the stewards, a lot who were not SWP members, collaborated in this as well.

Get a life, stop carping from the sidelines, and help build the widest colaition against war. Your problem, mate is that you start from what makes you different from everybody else, not what you have in common with the movement.
The day you, yourself, actually book a coach, produce the tickets, sell them and fill the coach, rather than bring just your sectariatian attitude you might be taken a little more seriously.

The SWP/IS have been organising demos for years, and have had many, many members arrested, jailed, and injured, over the years. Blair Peach was SWP member murdered by the cops.

It would be a very strange organisation, that would throw this all away on a wet rainy afternoon in Brighton.
I think you're suffering from an acute case of SWPphobia

Next you will be claiming that it was the SWP's fault that is was raining.

It was a great march, far more important than your sad,sectarian comments

I was walking across the park after visiting the pub, I saw the cops marching down the side of the end of the march still in the park. The cops then cut into and through the march and then around a part of the march and back through the crowd. The cops had surrounded a section of the march and then started pulling out activists in white overalls (there were only a few, maybe 6), The immediate crowd did react but bodies were still being pulled out. I went to the front of the march to try and raise awareness to what was happening, but no-one was bothered or did not believe it. I mainly announced this to groups gathered behind banners, Unison, Globalise Resistance, Socialist Alliance. This is not an attack on these groups but there was no interest from the crowds gathered around the banners to what was happening to fellow activists behind them. This really frustrated me, only a little while earlier we had heard a speaker from Ya Basta, cheers rang out to there style of direct action and confrontation, and now no-one seemed to give a fuck about the few Wombles (started after being inspired by Ya Basta) getting dragged off and arrested for being part of end of a march.
I went back to the area were the Wombles had been (without anybody showing interest from the rest of the march), I did see stewards of the march incouraging people to not get involved and to get back on the march. I don't know which group the stewards are involved with but I was not impressed.
The whole incident left me feeling totally annoyed and powerless, there was no unity on this march, if the Police can infultrate and arrest activists for no reason, and the majority just walk on by there is something very wrong. The use of language like 'building on from the demos in Seattle and Genoa' is total bollox. Those demonstrations produced massive shows of solidarity, this demo was a joke in terms of unity. I am not pointing the finger of blame at any group, because I don't know who the stewards were with, but to allow activists to be treated in that way and to then, in my opinion help the Police, by moving the crowd on, Shame on you, and shame on whoever you are part of.

At genoa, marching with the SWP,

Very nice and subversive, walking past the police and pushing police lines to the fence etc,

Lots of revolutionary rhetoric.

Until that is the police surround us, though we did seem to out number them, no one really wanted violence.

The conclussion of the story is that the SWP negotiated with the police for our release.

"stay on the pavement"

"do not provoke them"

Then comically enough five minutes down the road.....

"one solution- Revolution"

A bit hollow really.

Didn't see any collaboration between swp and cops during the arrests, but then I arrived as they were already happening.

BUT THE MAIN STORY IS THAT THE POLICE SENT IN WELL OVER 30 RIOT POLICE INTO THE PARK AT THE START OF THE MARCH TO ARREST PEOPLE AS THE BBC REPORTS A POLICE SPOKESMAN SAYING:

"there had been seven arrests, six of which had been intelligence-led to prevent crimes by suspected troublemakers".

THE POLICE JUST STEAMED INTO THE CROWD TO MAKE ARRESTS AS PEOPLE PREPARED TO MARCH. SURELY THIS IS THE RAISING OF THE TENSION THAT MANY HAVE SUSPECTED WILL UNFOLD AFTER THE ATTACKS IN AMERICA. I DID SEE DEBATE BETWEEN PEOPLE AND STEWARDS AFTER THE ARRESTS AS POLOICE WERE DRAGGING PEOPLE AWAY WITH THE STEWARDS CALLING ON PEOPLE TO GET BACK TO THE MAIN GROUP OF PEOPLE MARCHING OUT OF THE PARK.

THE OTHER ALARMING FEATURE OF THE DEMO WAS THE HUGE NUMBER OF POLICE CAMERAS - I HAVE NEVER SEEN SO MANY SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS OUT ON THE STREETS - THEY WERE THERE TO FILM ANYONE WHO MAY BE OPPOSING THE US/UK WAR MACHINE.

I saw the five arrests at the beginning of the march on Sunday in Brighton. I have heard people say that the stewards cooperated with the police but I didn't see this and have no evidence that they helped the police arrest anyone.

But that's hardly the point, is it? These stewards were there, supposedly, to defend the march but did nothing - physically, verbally, with legal defence or otherwise - to defend the people (two or three of them teenagers) from assault and arrest on conspiracy charges for doing nothing but waiting to go on a march. Other people tried to restrain the police but the stewards just let it happen. So much for the SWP's 'centralised organisation' being a great strength.

I also heard Chris Nineham of the SWP/GR/SA/stewards/whatever give the last speech of the day where the buses were leaving. He said the march had been a great success and didn't even mention the arrests.

First they came for the wombles...

It is ridiculous to suggest that the swp were collaborating with the police, and the stewards were not all swp, so stop blamomg everything on them!
But i think they do need to take a bit more notice of the police just wading into the demo and trying to pick people off, a group of cops tried to arrest me for the terrible crime of wearing a tony blair mask, they just came in and grabbed me and tryed to pull me out of the crowd. Luckily i made a bit of noise and a couple of friens (incidentally swp members) dragged me away from the police, others shouted at the cops and amazingly they retreated and left me alone. However moments later they arrested someone else for wearing a scarf over part of his face - so now its illegal to wear a scarf on a cold wet windy day in brighton? noone seemed to notice what was happening until the police had already nicked him.
But the point i want to make is that most of the crowd, who seemed to be predominantly swp, were oblivious to the police trying to pick people out of the crowd. the stewards too didnt seem to realise that it was happening. But i found it worrying that the vast majority of people on the march werenot keeping an eye on the cops and seeing situations develop. it is a fault of the swp that they dont seem to think things like nvda training are of any worth whatsoever, if more people on the demo had had more of an awareness of the police tactics and had some even basic knowledge of how we can defend the demonstration from the police then people probably wouldnt have been arrested. One of my big problems with the swp is that on big demos they just expect members to follow their leader, so if theres someone at the front leading the march, everyone has to follow, almost blindly. if that leader says "through the teargas comrades!" everyone is expected to follow, but that doesnt really empower people on the demo to do anything for themselves.
in genoa i only saw one swp member at any of the nvda training, the rest were outside selling papers to each other, there is certainly no encouragement from the swp leadershhip for members to empower themselves with basic self defence relevant to demos, instead members are given papers to sell to people who dont want them or petitions to be signed that they are never going to send off to tony blair or whoever. when it comes to the demo, members have little choice but to follow the orders of their leaders.
Perhaps some time the swp will actually listen to groups like say earth first when they try and inform people of police tactics and how to defend ourselves, maybe some of them will abandon their paper selling for a while and join in, they may learn some very useful things.
but just because the swp leadership might be a bit misguided about stuff there is no need to claim that everything was their fault and that they collude with the police, that is just sectarian bullshit! I know the swp wastes energy on paper selling, but if it hadnt been for the swp there wouldnt even have been a demo in brighton, by all means criticise them, but dont try and blame them for everything.

Is this one of those situations where 'anarchist' fools who want to shock mummies and daddies by "taking on the state" in situations where they obviously have no hope of acheiving anything start bursting into tears when other folk don't jump to their defence (why should they - don't you usually condemn trot 'policing'??) OR Is this swp 'rara-revolutionaries', unable to organise a pissup in a brewery when it comes to serious stewarding (although it does not sound as if much was possible given the type of crowd)giving the rest of the left a bad name as usual OR is this police provocateurs doing thier bit to divide this bunch of idiots still further (obvious target - shouldn't be to difficult). Both sides in this bun-fight sound like complete wankers.

Frankly ... jesus h cristos - stuck in between the lot of you - no wonder no one can hear the voice of ordinary folk.