London rallies for May Day

Andy Brooks at Clerkenwell Green

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks and other London comrades joined thousands of  militant workers outside the Marx Memorial Library in Clerkenwell Green for the annual May Day march to Trafalgar Square in central London. The NCP Central Committee banner was there, amongst hundreds of other red banners and flags held aloft by supporters of the unions, left, socialist and communist parties that took part in the traditional parade, along with with the colourful turnout from the capital’s Turkish and Kurdish communities.

This year the march focused on racism in society, following the Windrush scandal and other Tory government efforts to play the race card in the run up to the local elections later in the week.

The rally also paid tribute to Mehmet Aksoy, a British-Kurdish film-maker who was killed by ISIS gunmen in Syria last year. Aksoy, who was a regular speaker at the May Day rallies in Trafalgar Square, was covering the struggle of the Kurdish YPG militia to drive ISIS out of Raqqa in northern Syria when he was killed during an ISIS attack on Kurdish positions on 26^th September 2017. Last November thousands of members of the Kurdish community turned out for the funeral service in London. Many then followed the cortège to Highgate ceremony where the coffin was laid to rest near the tomb of Karl Marx.