End Austerity Now: Far left group Class War organises separate Bank of England demo amid claims that police are banning people from the march

Far left group Class War is organising a counter-protest against austerity this Saturday (June 20), claiming the main demonstration will fail to bring about any change. 

 

The group has called for supporters to meet outside Bank of England at midday – an hour ahead of the time scheduled for the march being organised by the People's Assembly Against Austerity. 

 

Class War slammed the End Austerity Now demonstration, which tens of thousands of people are expected to attend, as “boring A-to-B marches organised by self-appointed committees working alongside police, with dull speeches either end” saying it was “kettling our anger.”

 

The group said: “We intend to occupy this belly of the beast. We didn't choose it, on a day when it's closed. But we will not march away from it into a Parliament Square "kettle" for speeches we have all heard before.”

 

It added: “If there is violence on Saturday, it will come first from the State and its police forces. If we are attacked, we will defend ourselves.” 

 

Class War and The Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) also claim that the police have one at least one instance banned an individual from attending the march as part of their bail conditions. 

 

https://twitter.com/policemonitor/status/611289329521020928

 

https://twitter.com/Classwar2015/status/611408542050951168

 

In addition, Class War claims police have been making “pre-arrests”, although Netpol said the arrests related to incidents at previous protests. 

 

A spokeswoman for the Met Police declined to comment on the bail conditions, and said the team was “not aware of any pre-arrests ahead of this weekend's protest”.

 

There were five arrests made during the last anti-austerity protest, held on the day of the Queen's Speech, relating to both incidents that day and during the attack on Brixton Town Hall in April.