Party COP26 activity
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A half dozen or so members are going to Glasgow to maintain a stall for 3 or 4 days from next Sunday. Before they arrive, Party members from Scotland will be leafleting the march in Glasgow on Climate Action Day on Saturday 6 November.
Elsewhere members will be covering the marches and activities that day in London, Manchester, Cardiff, Sheffield, Oxford, Portsmouth, Bournemouth and Frome.
This is where we will be reporting on this activity.
Report from Manchester Branch:
There were probably five or six hundred (or maybe even rather more) people at the COP26 demo in Manchester yesterday. Four members attended and we gave out all the COP-related leaflets we had and also plenty of other leaflets too. Fortunately the rain held off until we’d stopped leafleting and gone for a coffee.
Report from London:
“We got about 1500 distributed by 4 or 5 of us at Trafalgar Square. The turnout on the march did seem much, mostly activists and lots of trots.”
More were handed out by a member who went to the start of the march at the Bank of Englabd.
Press reports here.
Three of us met up in Oxford for yesterday’s Cop26 rally, which had a mile-long route along one of the main roads into the city centre. Where the march ended, there were a few speakers from fringe groups as well as mainstream parties, calling for ‘climate justice’ (whatever that means) and futile appeals to those in charge. There were plenty of Extinction Rebellion banners, along with those from left wing and green groups. This newspaper article https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/19699884.oxford-activists-bring-traffic-halt-cop26-climate-march/ estimates around 3,000 people were there, which seems a bit high, and if true means that we gave leaflets to around 10% of those attending. Fingers crossed we’ll get some decent responses!
South Wales branch report that the march and rally in Cardiff was a wash out. It was raining and only a few hundred turned up. All the same, they got leafletted but it meant that the branch has hundreds of leaflets left which they will hand out at their weekly street stall.
was a wash out. It was raining and only a few hundred turned up
Fair weather eco-activists they have in Cardiff!!
I am afraid the Glasgow march was a washout as far as our members were concerned. As this press report indicated, there was heavy rain and the local members decided that there was no point in handing out soggy leaflets. So the comrades up there and from there now have 4000 leaflets to hand out over the next couple of days.
However, the comrades from south of the border arrived yesterday and have set up the stall. But it’s raining today too. Clearly Glasgow is not a place from which to notice any effect from global warming.
Just realised what the word “dreich” means in that press report and why it was appropriate.
Are we right not to march, rather than just “attend”?
Leaflets get wet and become unusable.
Banners and flags are mostly weatherproof (wind being the main risk from personal experiences)
If it was about getting our message across on Friday and Saturday we didn’t.
I’m aware it is a perennial discussion point often centred o May Days but shouldn’t we once again question our abstentionist policy of participating in marches and rallies when most taking part in climate change are not party-affiliated. But it may be a moot point since the opportunity has come and went now.
I’m sure we can produce better-looking banners than the CWO had on Glasgow’s march
I like the way the three of them blot out their faces. No doubt they consider this a wise precaution to prevent themselves being identified by MI5 since they envisage destroying capitalism in an armed insurrection led by a vanguard party.
Still, most people won’t understand their banner that way, so it will have done no harm. In fact it will have reinforced the view that global warming has something to to do with capitalism — something we are aiming to do with our “End Capitalism” we are distributing at these events.
Yorkshire Group report that four of them distributed 500 leaflets at the march and rally in Sheffield.
I should have added the important caveat that some of our members are getting on in age and walking on marches is something some are no longer physically up to doing.
Having a banner, (and I think we have some that highlights our case and which are more attractive and appealing than CWO’s), and simply holding it to be seen at the various vantage points on the route, would get our message across.
A lesson to bear in mind for the next similar occasion.
And if our members get photographed, I’m sure they will be all smiles and thumbs up.
Two South West regional branch comrades were at the Bournemouth seafront demo on Saturday where there was about 100 people at its height and distributed a good few hundred leaflets to demonstrators and passers-by. The remaining leaflets will be distributed door to door in Portsmouth and Poole.
If you have the patience the 20 minute live report will give some idea of the sort of people on these marches and their views. Note the two people interviewed carrying SWP placards saying “System Change not Climate Change” who had nothing to do with them but were from some environment charities.
Note the two people interviewed carrying SWP placards saying “System Change not Climate Change” who had nothing to do with them but were from some environment charities.
This typical long-time SWP practice – flood a protest with their placards for others to pick up and carry. When the media news outletsproduce video and photos, it is highly effective.
I have suggested previously we too adopt such tactics but mass produce flags or pennants with some of our own popular slogans – one world one people, for instance, and our logo and website details
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