The largest anti-racist, working-class demonstrations in recent years filled Manchester’s two main central squares on the weekend of 7/8 June. Saturday and Sunday were significant departures from the political norm in this city. National press put the attendance at approximately 15,000. Organised independently, this unrest manifested with the global spark of protests calling for justice for police killings of black people, particularly in the names of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. There was no single, dominant platform. Chanting and speeches, mostly spontaneous, brought out the discontent specific to Manchester and British state racism and the primarily black, white and Asian youth who took to the streets. Moving beyond solidarity to become a place for voicing complaints not addressed by complacent parliamentary forces, the predominantly young and working-class demonstration filled the entirety of Piccadilly Gardens and surrounding areas on Saturday; the largest demonstration over the two days of action.
While supporters of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! took our voices and our political newspaper to support these actions, the Labour Party and supporter organisations’ normal controlling presence was completely missing from speaking platforms and protest marches on either day. An online event of their own, scheduled to run parallel and in conflict with these street actions, meant the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) and its political front Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) were completely absent, in effect boycotting street protest in favour of their own sanitised online event. This sharp contrast with general political culture in Manchester was surely one reason why the weekend’s actions were spontaneous, determined and defiantly lively.
Taking advantage of a lack of overall coordination coming out of Black Lives Matter protests in Manchester, SUTR have sought to seize back control by organising ‘kneel’ events broken up across the city, further removing any potential to capitalise on the anti-racist unrest by taking away the platform and open, democratic space to organise in.
It is no coincidence or surprise for Labour’s politicians to have been entirely out of the loop regarding this nascent movement. Manchester council leader Richard Leese was eager in attempting to pin Black Lives Matter protests to his purple lightshows on council property. Responding to being shown up by the young protest organisers, Leese patronisingly offered his ‘thanks’ and called for ‘caution’ over coronavirus. Infections rates have in fact decreased in the weeks following the upsurge of Black Lives Matter, no thanks to the policy programmes of local or national government, as FRFI has reported.
Empty gestures have not covered up their complete complicity in the violence perpetrated by Greater Manchester Police (GMP). Only last month, the inquiry into the killing of Anthony Grainger was suffocated in the courts and reached its unsatisfactory verdict earlier this year. Assistant Chief Constable Steven Heywood’s charges for his leading role in Grainger’s killing were dropped without investigation. This is only the most recent example of GMP and Manchester City Council’s failings. The meaningless ‘thanks’ of a council covering for violent cops offers no comfort for those anti-racist protesters calling out a system that works only to attack, divide and exploit them. It is clear, then, these organisations will play no part in an effective anti-racist movement. Labour and the Socialist Workers’ Party remain enemies of all the working class.
