Autonomous Bloc penned in again at Mayday rally.

Police today used common law powers of "preventing a breach of the peace" to exclude the wholly peaceful autonomous bloc from entering Trafalgar Square. Their attempts to spark a confrontation however - including confiscating their sound system - failed.

Bloc at the start

Cordon at the start

Allowed soundsystems

Bloc penned in Trafalgar Square

Curiously, sound systems such as the Brass and Silver Band contingents of the traditional British Trade Unions were not seen as being in any way a problem and sailed merrily in to the square, some coppers whistling happily to their tunes as they passed by.

But it was overall a jolly affair, empowering in a way because of the strong international feel. Whilst the devil had all the best tunes (until the cops confiscated the sound system), the award for presentation and PR had to go the the Turkish Marxist Leninist Communist party contingent, whose dancers, children, banners and sheer exuberance won constant media attention.

And this was against strong competition. Marchers ranged from the traditional style British unions (RMT, Amicus, T&G, and so on) to their Iraqi counterparts, with strong contingents of many displaced and harassed people such as Kurds and Chechens. There were flags from many countries, South America and Cuba being strongly represented.

So it was a (predictable) shame that the forces of law and disorder tried to bugger it up. At the rear of the march were the familiar red and black flags, the face masks and the anti-capitalist banners. Just in case you couldn't work out who they were, a solid doughnut of yellow jacketed cops surrounded them, backed up as they approached the square by two lines of mounted police and then, as they were jostled towards the National Gallery, by the Tactical Support Group.

Outnumbered about twenty to one they found themselves in an all too familiar pen, individually harassed and collectively filmed by the ever present FIT mob.

By four they were allowed to leave singly or in pairs, and are probably now being prodded and narked in the pubs of the West End.

mini mouse

Comments

Hide the following 5 comments

they know

01.05.2006 21:39

they know that the autonomist movement is the only real threat to their strangle-hold on power and they will do all they can to discourage you people. will you become discouraged as so many have in the past? or will you learn from the mistakes of the past and learn to work your way around the state kettling tactics? please learn so you can avoid these nasty situations in future.

ps - great pics!

london activist

nice pics

01.05.2006 21:50

and nice report.

thanks.

ctv

iconic pics

02.05.2006 00:10

yep spot on - the pics and the report.

The unions need to sort their outreach strategy a bit better.

Some are cottoning on to the migrant and non-unionised workforces, but unless they wake up, mayday will only ever be just a small international festival demo, suitable for not much at all.

headache

03.05.2006 06:15

The confiscation of the sound system might have had something to do with the insistence on playing that awful gabba/techno music!

munkle

Weirded out by the pig and union alliance

05.05.2006 15:42

Hey- I arrived late to the event and came across the Autonomous Bloc by walking up the road just off the square- It was really great to see many people in the bloc and doing what only some of us are brave enough to do-- ie join in solidarity, show anarcho colours and make our voice heard - and at the same time have a fun time--
But yeah it was pretty crazy to come across the bloc flanked by hard core and overly serious police-- plus it seemed at the time there were paddy wagons in every back road off the square - just poised and ready- pretty ominous ~ though I guess standard proceedure!!
What genuinely wierded me out was the speeches in the square started before everyone on the rally had actually arrived- this completely excluded the Autonomous Bloc- plus while the police were blocking entry none of the organisers of the rally seemed to want to know or acknowledge what was happening-- it was a truely missed oppertunity cos by this time the speakers were pretty dull and droning on about the same old dry irrelevant stutt- to me what was really current and happneing was how the hundreds of people in the autonomous bloc were being treated-- and surely if we lived in an ideal world everyone in the bloc would also be unionised and militant in all ways-- and at the end of the day be the ideal candidate to revigorise the flagging unions- which for what I could see consist of a few die hards, are generally aging, and are finding it hard to remain militant - being militant and questioning authority is at the core of most unions mandates!!!!- it just seemed the organisers of the biggest May Day event in London were 100% palsy with the police- the world has gone crazy!!

Mary

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