No More Cuts!

Caroline Lucas, Diane Abbott and Len McCluskey at the front

 by New Worker correspondent

THOUSANDS took to the streets of London on Saturday 20th June to protest against  more austerity. Around 250,000 people marched through central London to demonstrate against the renewed ruling class offensive of the Cameron government.

Every major trade union was well represented along with many of the minor ones, community groups and peace movemtns like Stop the War and CND, anti-fascist campaigns like UAF, freedom and justice campaigns, NHS and housing campaigns, religious and pensioner groups, phalanxes of people in wheelchairs and thousands and thousands of noisy and colourful students – all together and all with one message: “No more cuts!”

The march from the Bank of England to Parliament Square was tiring for many but they packed the square to listen to speeches from Green Party leader Caroline Lucas, singer Charlotte Church, Diane Abbott MP and of course Jeremy Corbyn MP, who is standing for the Labour leadership.

He spoke of the ruin that the banking crisis had caused and the increasing inequality with a million depending on food banks and people sleeping in the streets.

He also spoke of the 1850s rallies in the same spot for the People’s Charter, whose demands were described as “out of date and irrelevant” at the time but were all achieved within a century. “They were the real visionaries,” he said. “We are standing on the shoulders of giants.”

“We want a state that takes responsibility for everybody… where we each care for all and no one is destitute. I think it’s called socialism,” he added.