On 1 May, International Workers Day, supporters of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! gathered at the John Carroll leisure centre in Radford, Nottingham, together with other members of the Save John Carroll Campaign. The centre is due to be closed as part of the latest rounds of budget cuts issued by Labour-run Nottingham City Council.
FRFI comrades took the lead in initiating an open mic, encouraging the gathering of roughly 60-80 people with chants and slogans. A Nottingham FRFI supporter highlighted the closure of the John Carroll Centre as an example of wider attacks on the working class and called out Labour councillors who claimed to support the campaign yet stayed away from the vote for fear of being disciplined by their party.
The protesters then marched through the streets of Radford and Hyson Green. The march was met with nothing but support from the public, with a loud array of cheers and horns from passing cars. This open enthusiasm was a stark contrast to the rally at the end of the march, organised by Nottingham and Notts Trades Union Council, which was tightly controlled and lacking any fighting spirit.
Local MP Nadia Whittome was given a platform to wax lyrical about the importance of working class communities in Nottingham and the need to fight austerity – a perverse irony considering that it is her very party in power locally, which has forced brutal austerity cuts onto the people of Nottingham, including the closure of the John Carroll Leisure Centre.
Yet a speaker from FRFI was refused the right to speak, preventing us from using the platform to celebrate the achievements of socialist Cuba in tackling the pandemic, not only within Cuba but in 40 other countries where Cuba’s healthcare professionals have been operating over the last year. The local branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign reported that they had also been refused the right to speak – a sad reflection of the narrow prejudices of the Socialist Party and Alliance for Workers Liberty members who were in control of the speakers’ list.
On International Workers Day, it is imperative that we support and learn from the people of Cuba who, under an extremely harsh and lengthy economic blockade imposed by the imperialist United States, have shown the world what can be achieved in a nation ruled by the masses, with a socialist system that values people over profit. We must also stand with the Palestinian people, who continue to defy imperialism after more than 70 years of occupation. And we must organise against the Labour Party politicians and their apologists, who have repeatedly sold out the international working class and have no interest in building real resistance.
