The first day of war in Iraq saw some of the largest and most militant activity that Newcastle has experienced in recent times. Events began at 8 a.m. at the Haymarket. At 8.20 the crowd of 80-odd that had gathered moved into the road and blocked traffic for three quarters of an hour. Some gave out leaflets explaining the action but most sat and chanted in the road. A banner was hung off a nearby church. There weren‚t as many of the usual suspects, due to some uncertainty regarding when the war had actually started. Fortunately there was a large group of school kids and sixth-formers from Heaton. Identified by their pink sashes, they were the most Œup for it‚ and they made it happen in the morning.

Eventually, the crowd moved on. Some went to work but the kids weren‚t finished yet. They marched to the Monument and spent half an hour chalking anti-war slogans all over the area. One cheeky young scamp drew a cock on one of the chalked Œdead bodies‚ and was ordered to wipe it off by a copper. Dissatisfied with that, the kids moved off again· to the metro. The cops had heard where they were going and accompanied them to the metro doors. But for some reason, they didn‚t follow the group to Gateshead, where they got off and made straight for the Tyne Bridge. Stopping traffic on the Tyne bridge was child‚s play. No coppers showed for ages. Initially sat on the Gateshead side, people decided to take the middle of the bridge. As they moved off, a copper finally caught up. He drove past, stopped and tried to make people stop, but everyone just walked past him. Non-plussed by this, he overtook again, got out and grabbed the first person he saw.! Then things started getting a bit h
airy. Whilst the copper was tussling with his arestee, several radgies had got out of their cars and were looking like they were gonna kick off. One woman was screaming and balling her head off, even though she said she was anti-war!!! Then several cops vans showed and the fun was over.

The group then marched back into Newcastle, this time accompanied by police vans the whole way. At lunchtime, it met up with the main march and again stopped traffic at the Haymarket. The final event of the day came at a 6 p.m. anti-war vigil. Addressed by the usual (and far too many) suspects, it looked like the crowd of perhaps 1,000 was going to end up bored to death. The organisers appeared to be employing terrorist measures of their own when a folk singer came onto the platform and started performing· Despite this, a large group (several hundred) hung about until the end and then marched up to the Haymarket and again stopped traffic by sitting in the road. Then they tried to march onto the main road north out of Newcastle but were stopped by large numbers of police vans. They turned round and tried to march the other way, moving towards the civic centre but again were corralled by the cops. So, the crowd ran over the park by the churc! h and sat in the road back where th
ey‚d just been; the cops didn‚t have a clue what to do.

With ten years if political activity in the city, I had never seen anything like it. There was a large crowd, mostly of people under the age of 18, intent on causing disruption and testing the state‚s means of control. It seemed like the cops would never shift people, but it was at this moment that the church stepped in. A clergyman appointed himself police liaison and informed the crowd that the police had identified ring leaders and would be making arrests if they didn‚t move. Instantly, a few people stood up saying ŒI‚m a ring leader, arrest me‚· and there followed one of those incredible ŒI am Spartacus‚ moments as everyone stood up shouting the same thing. Yet, it was clear that something had been killed. Maybe most weren‚t up for risking arrest, but there is absolutely no excuse for electing yourself to do the police‚s dirty work for them, regardless of your motives. (The clergyman in question had been heard to say in the morning dem! o that people shouldn‚t sit in the
road as they‚d look like a bunch of anarchists, so it was clear, and predictable, where his sentiments lay).

The coup de grace was delivered by a representative of a similar organisation. The SWP regional organiser then announced that the demo was over and everyone should go to the next one. After, some argued that loud hailers should not be allowed on marches. But it‚s not really the loud hailers, but the fuckers using them. The way in which such a high level of solidarity, spontaneity and militancy was effectively killed by people who were meant to be supporters of the cause was nothing short of a disgrace. It remains to be seen whether the experiences of that night will encourage people to hold their nerve in the future or whether the shiteness in which it ended will put people off doing similar things again. It didn‚t need to end that way, and we need to find ways of combating those who elect themselves to sell us out. Hopefully, the kids, who were the main inspiration of the days‚ events, will learn to deal with this in the future, and won‚t! be put off by it.

Its a shame that Trots can no longer stick to selling newspapers and playing around in the Labour Party. Its bizarre that they see themselves as leaders - they're the kiss of death for any political movement displaying genuine life signs! One solution I've developed over the years is to take my own lound hailer on demos. When the Trots start shouting the odds simply tell them to pack their ice picks and fuck off.

Its a shame that Trots can no longer stick to selling newspapers and playing around in the bowels of New Labour. Its bizarre that they see themselves as leaders - they're the kiss of death for any political movement displaying genuine life signs! One solution I've developed over the years is to take my own lound hailer on demos. When the Trots start shouting the odds simply tell them to pack their ice picks, fuck off and bore someone else.