15,000 Protest in Belfast

[Jolly Red Giant]

15,000 workers took to the streets of Belfast today in the first major protest in the North of Ireland against the austerity cuts of the Con-Dem coalition government

Video of protest here from UTV -

http://www.u.tv/News/Hundreds-protest-over-budget-cuts/7dad7a86-7e0a-45fb-8e4e-d9ba7e4d86ec

[durhamleft]

Excellent- were about 20k in Edinburgh today too, movements getting steam.

[The Grey Blur]

a friend who was there says it was 2500 at most? do you have figures jrg?

[Hoggy_RS]

IRSP statement on todays protest.

Organise, Protest & Make Your Voices Heard - IRSP
23 October 2010

The Irish Republican Socialist Party joined thousands of our fellow workers, trade unionists, community groups and the many other prospective victims of the planned Tory cuts in the North, for a protest in Belfast on Saturday, 23rd October. The IRSP views the proposed cuts, which will disproportionately hit working class people and the most vulnerable in our society the hardest, as utterly despicable and we remain committed to stand in solidarity with all progressive forces in opposition to these vindictive cuts.

Speaking at the protest, IRSP spokesperson Paul Little said:

"The right-wing Conservative-led administration that has designed these cuts has done so with absolutely no mandate from the Irish people. What they have done is provided a recipe for further unemployment, inadequate public services and increased poverty. This is the reality of the so-called 'peace process'. While the establishment parties who wish to play sectarian politics at Stormont continue with their empty rhetoric about 'moving forward', many working class areas across the North are being left firmly behind."

On the role of Stormont in the implementation of these cuts, the IRSP representative continued:

''It is also utterly hypocritical for a self-proclaimed republican socialist party like Sinn Féin to take to the streets in insincere protest, while they will be the very ones implementing Tory cuts. Stormont has been exposed once again as merely a puppet parliament tasked with implementing the policies of the UK government in the North of Ireland. It is an insult to those who will be suffering the effects of these cuts that Sinn Féin is attempting to portray themselves as a party of opposition, yet at the same time will be implementing these vicious cuts. It was quite symbolic on the 3rd of October in Birmingham, that while Martin McGuinness was an invited guest at the Tory Party conference, the IRSP was outside standing in solidarity with working class people who oppose the Tory plans. The IRSP will not be abandoning communities and will not be found wanting in the fightback against these cuts. We view the complicity of the establishment parties in Stormont in this whole process as shameful but also indicative of the true face of Stormont.''

He concluded:

"With the stark realities of these cuts in mind, it is quite clear that militant working class action is the only way they can be fought. The establishment parties have abandoned working people, and if they will not grant us what we deserve, we have got to take it for ourselves. We have seen recently in both Greece and France that mass mobilisation is the most effective means available to us to challenge the state and the inequality at the heart of it. This protest in Belfast is just the start of the fightback. The IRSP urges people to take to the streets, to organise, to protest and to make their voices heard. Join the IRSP in the fight for a workers' republic!"

Ends

[Jolly Red Giant]

a friend who was there says it was 2500 at most? do you have figures jrg?
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1023/belfast1.html

Bottom of report states organisers claimed 15,000.

[Dr Mindbender]

well if one good thing comes from all this, maybe its that it will unite protestant and catholic workers.

I guess Westminster forgot why they didnt give us the poll tax.

[The Grey Blur]

my friend is sticking by 2500 at most...15000 does sound wildly optimistic. on the other hand there were demonstrations in derry and presumably other parts of the province as well.

as for cross-community working class solidarity it depends on the nature of the resistance to the cuts. if it's purely economist it will inevitably split along the old reactionary nationalist/unionist lines as soon the national question arises as regards practical issues. it's a question of drawing in wider layers including the republican left, a generation of disaffected youth and the protestant working class breaking from loyalism...i don't see that being likely with the current half-arsed union leadership.