Mike Copestake reports on the Oct 23rd demonstration against cuts organised by Yorkshire and Humber TUC

Sheffield city centre, 23rd October

The demonstration, which attracted over 200 people, had a good atmosphere despite pouring rain. Speakers at the rally were drawn from the local trade union movement and Labour party, the latter enjoying somewhat of a resurgence now it is no longer holding the reins of the capitalist state. Trade union speakers made mainly sectional demands, with some rhetorical flourishes about class war. There was much talk about public services but only a single nod to private sector workers, whom, it was argued, must be won over so workers in the public sector are not seen as disruptive and self-interested, as the standard Daily Mail line goes.

Funnily enough, the most militant-sounding speaker of the day was Ben Curran, a former Lib Dem councillor who had defected to Labour and attacked his new party’s leadership- from the left! Quite a shift for a liberal. Though the party is not exactly popular in Sheffield at the moment, given the effects of cuts on the city. Nick Clegg, whose constituency is Sheffield Hallam, has complained of being spat at in the street and receiving canine excrement through his letterbox.

The divided left were out in force, including the CPB, SWP and SPEW (the latter two operating mainly through their identikit fronts, Right to Work and Youth Fight for Jobs), and a handful of unabashed Stalinists. They were joined by members of the main public sector unions and assorted others. A feeder march from Sheffield University added some young blood to the mix, student members of the Socialist Workers’ Party chanting ‘Fight, Unite, General Strike!’, apparently expecting the TUC bureaucracy to pull their finger out after years of inactivity. The Anarchist Federation had a largeish contingent, perhaps reflecting the lack of strategy from the Marxist left. Indeed some of the groups present were trying to flog papers on the basis that ‘We’re not the SWP, so our paper must be worth buying’. Needless to say, the other grouplets also lack a coherent vision of what is needed; a united resistance to cuts and a strategy for superseding capitalism.