Article

Euromarch

From: Kevin Brandstatter kevin.brandstatter@bbsrc.ac.uk -----A report on the UK leg of the march.

Saturday 4 June about 300-400 max marchers got together in Hyde Park. I put the term loosely. The venue had been variously billed as Marble Arch, Speakers Corner, Hyde Park, and lastly Reformers Tree in Hyde Park.

I was the first to arrive, met a couple of other IWW members and waited. Members of the SPGB turned up followed by few people from Socialist Organiser and then some Spartacists who tried to "teach" me that what we needed was a Bolshevik Revolutiona along the lines of 1917!!

Two people arrived with a banner procaiming themselves the Euromarch, walked straight to the centre of the Park, set up a megaphone and started making speeches. At the time they turned the megaphones on there was no-one around to listen to them. They had gone to a completely different place to the supporters of the march. Eventually we filtered over to where they were, listened to a number of boring contributions, laced with such homilies as "fight social exclusion" [a sociologists dream slogan I think] and waited for the mass march from Hillingdon Hospital to arrive. It did - there were no more than 30 on it! We then spent another while listening to more speeches and the march assembled and set off. [It was the smallest London march I had ever been in] At Downing Street a petition or something was handed in and a delegation of 6 returned cheering as if the revolution had started!

The march then wound its way to Westminster hall and there was a small rally.

In retrospect the day was a complete waste of time although as the IWW we made a few contqacts and sold some literature. I spoke with quite a few people who came along and it seems apparent that the attempts to totally depoliticise the march itself and the Euromarch in general had been so successful that no-one actually knew what the whole event was for!!! That in itself probabaly knocked participation totally on the head.

Kevin Brandstatter
IWW
Swindon