What shape will the deliriously anticipated May Day protests in London take? Will there be hijackings, kidnappings, pillaging and plunder? Let’s consider what actions have been publicised already. There’s to be a veggie-burger handout by the McDonald’s in King’s Cross, a picnic in Victoria Embankment Gardens, and a city of cardboard hotels will be built on Mayfair. There’s to be a Critical Mass cycle ride from Liverpool Street. London Animal Action will be feeding the pigeons outside Trafalgar Square and demonstrating outside the Philip Hockley fur store. There’ll be protests against third world debt outside Coutts and the World Bank office. There’ll be a picnic against privatisation on the Elephant and Castle roundabout, and a protest in Earl’s Court against Accommodata, the contractor that the Home Office uses to house refugees. At Oxford Circus, there’ll be drummers, jugglers and dancing. And there’ll be a Beltane celebration by the statue of Eros under the neon lights of Piccadilly, for which you should bring musical instruments, masks, costumes and all the love that you can muster.
I am not sure quite where the “rioters armed with samurai swords and machetes” of which a recent broadsheet warned us will fit in. What I do know is that 1 May will bring together a wide range of groups falling under the anti-capitalist umbrella. This movement is a diverse amalgamation of numerous non-governmental organisations, student groups and environmental campaigners who are reacting against what they see as the absence of party political representation.
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