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Speaker 1: History link. In the show notes. During the main episodes,
Speaker 1: Dave also mentioned another mass protest which grassroots activists wanted
Speaker 1: to hold in October nineteen ninety but Militant the other
Speaker 1: major Trotskyist group in the UK at that time, which
Speaker 1: dominated the nash Con Federation known as the FED, disagreed
Speaker 1: with this strategy.
Speaker 2: So there was you know, lobbying of the All Bitten Federation.
Speaker 2: In the end, the All Britain Federation said, oh, we'll
Speaker 2: organized a people's march against the pull tax, but only
Speaker 2: seventy five people will be allowed to go on it
Speaker 2: from Manchester to London. And they were all hand picked
Speaker 2: and basically they were all members of militant and we said,
Speaker 2: this is ridiculous, it's like a stunt, but it's not
Speaker 2: what we need, something en mass that would defend the
Speaker 2: right to protest as well as to show the movement
Speaker 2: is strong and the movement is not for turning. So
Speaker 2: what happened in the end there was an uneasy compromise
Speaker 2: in which the All Britain federations said, well, if you
Speaker 2: in London want to organize a London demonstration, we won't
Speaker 2: oppose it. I mean it was hard work working with
Speaker 2: organizations that are controlled by one political party. So we
Speaker 2: in London. There was a lot of debate in the
Speaker 2: London Federation and it was agreed that we would have
Speaker 2: a massive rally and gig in Brockwell Park in South London,
Speaker 2: in Brixton and Traffago Square. Defense Campaign said well it's
Speaker 2: not enough. We need a protest outside the courts and
Speaker 2: outside Brixton Prison. So we decided to organize feeder events
Speaker 2: which to support the rally, that organize our own feeder events.
Speaker 2: So twenty thousand people turned up to the rally, which
Speaker 2: is a pretty good turnout for just a London demonstration,
Speaker 2: and we had about fifteen hundred turned up to the
Speaker 2: protest outside one of the key courts that were processing nonpayers.
Speaker 2: And also after the rally, about three and a half
Speaker 2: thousand people marched to Brixton Prison where there were Trafago
Speaker 2: Square prisoners and nonpayers being held in prison. They were
Speaker 2: quite substantial. We knew that the police this potentially was
Speaker 2: quite challenging to the police and we had a meeting
Speaker 2: I think I attended a meeting with the Chief of Police,
Speaker 2: London's Commissioner of Police or whoever. We said, look, we
Speaker 2: want to all to go off with that incident, could
Speaker 2: you guarantee from your side? And he was saying he'd
Speaker 2: heard rumblings within the police that they wanted a rematch
Speaker 2: after Trafalgar Square and he was going to stamp that out. Yes,
Speaker 2: that's what he said personally. We've got it in writing
Speaker 2: to the Trafalgar Square Defendance campaign. On the day once
Speaker 2: the rally was coming to an end and we were
Speaker 2: about to march to Brixton Prison three and a half
Speaker 2: thousand people, we had this very extensive monitoring system. Everyone
Speaker 2: had bust cards on what to do if for rested.
Speaker 2: We had videos, we had observers coordinated, we had a ready.
Speaker 2: This was the first real kind anything had happened like
Speaker 2: that in this country, where we had planned for what
Speaker 2: would happen if the police attacked the demonstration, and we
Speaker 2: were able to monitor police radios and police conversations on
Speaker 2: the ground and the events. Basically, I was one of
Speaker 2: the heads. We didn't really add a heads to it,
Speaker 2: but I was one of the coordinators. And when we
Speaker 2: got to Brixton Prison, I think I was the coordinator,
Speaker 2: was near the front of the march, and the agreement
Speaker 2: was that we were going to gather outside Brixton Prison
Speaker 2: for an hour and then disperse. And without going into detail,
Speaker 2: a lot of strange things began to happen. Police suddenly
Speaker 2: got withdrawn. Other police units seemed to be arriving in
Speaker 2: side streets, you know, with the heavier armor, and it
Speaker 2: seemed obvious that they were gearing up to attack the demonstration,
Speaker 2: which is what happened. I can't remember how many people
Speaker 2: invested one hundred and twenty or something. The police immediately
Speaker 2: had a press conference and were able to tell the
Speaker 2: whole world straight away that it was all caused by
Speaker 2: the demonstrators, and we within twenty four hours we had
Speaker 2: a complete alternative proof that this would be the premeditated
Speaker 2: police attack on an agreed demonstration. So the aftermath was
Speaker 2: they wanted to use the situation to say, look, this
Speaker 2: whole movement, the antipol tax movement, it's kind of, you know,
Speaker 2: full of radicals. They're not interested in really the poll tax.
Speaker 2: They're just using it to attack the police and the establishment.
Speaker 2: And we were able to paint a different story. The
Speaker 2: antipol tax movement was united. We were determined to defeat
Speaker 2: the poll tax, but also to defend our right to demonstrate,
Speaker 2: and actually we were able to prove that the police
Speaker 2: had fabricated their version of events.
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