May Day bank holiday to be replaced with a holiday to celebrate the UK

[ed miliband]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/04/may-day-bank-holiday-under-threat
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/de679290-309d-11e0-9de3-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz1D4l3SiJr



“I don’t think we need a workers’ day any more than we need a day for pensioners or any other group. It is silly. We need a day everybody can celebrate. If it can be for everybody it is much more inclusive.”
lol. Workers are just a "group", not the vast majority of British people or anything.



Very symbolic though, innit? Replacing a day established to celebrate the working class with a day to celebrate "Britishness" as one big, happy nation without any divisions.

[brigadista]

the way things are going there will be no workers -expect nothing else from the eton old boys bs

[erupt]

Very symbolic though, innit? Replacing a day established to celebrate the working class with a day to celebrate "Britishness" as one big, happy nation without any divisions.
Very nationalistic, as well. Just because the government says "No more May Day," doesn't mean the workers of Great Britain can't celebrate with their proletarian kinship themselves.

[rednordman]

isn't this the sort of thing that Hitler and Mussolini would have said in support of 'national unity'?

[Delenda Carthago]

isn't this the sort of thing that Hitler and Mussolini would have said in support of 'national unity'?
Actually, both of them declared May Day as the "celebration of Spring" day...

[The Author]

I see the British are now going to do almost the same as we Americans are doing with May 1. Here, we have "Law Day" and "Loyalty Day" (Funny how two different holidays just happened to be thrown together on the same date. It just goes to show how this half-assed government can't make up its mind on what to do in order to counter labor demonstrations and celebrations.). With Loyalty Day, we have a "recognition of freedom," and with Law Day, we "recognize law as the foundation of society and its importance in the nation's founding." Freedom, as in the right to have private property and total exploitation without any restraint, and law, as in how the political and legal superstructure of the bourgeois democracy exercises its right of suppression of the working masses in their efforts to strike and demonstrate against exploitation. We have here two "holidays" which clearly represent the oppression of the bourgeois class against the proletarian class, in the place of a holiday which represents the power of the proletarian class to fight back. Most of the countries around the world at least allow May Day as an opportunity to have their workers vent their rage and hopefully prevent them from revolting on the other 364 days of the year. But since global unemployment and exploitation has skyrocketed over the past four years, now the countries of the world fear for their loss of control and have decided to slowly put a stop to such celebrations, replacing Labor Day with bullshit holidays such as the ones mentioned above.

[Rooster]

Meh, they can try to change the name of it or whatever, but it'll still be the day for marches.

[TheGeekySocialist]

October Bank Holiday to celebrate the UK?

what are they gonna call it?

"Let's Moan About The Weather Day"?

only thing I can think off that unites most people in the UK in ruddy October...

[Ocean Seal]

I remember when I held a May Day celebration at my high school, this ass**** attempted to trash it because May Day celebrates "a riot with ties to communism and threatens the American way of life, and is ignorant."
The funny thing is that this kid was a liberal atheist who enjoyed poking fun at nationalists/ the American way. But he was also wealthy. Forget all the times he mocked the American way, its the only way when they are commies around. Liberals become rabid American nationalists as soon as someone mentions social justice. Liberals are the worst kind of reactionaries, the kind that you don't expect to come and bite you in the ass, but do so anyway.

Nationalism is a weapon which will be used as a way to keep the people from developing a class conscience? We'll if we have worker's day, we should have boss' day? But let's turn them into England day, and forget about the fact that tomorrow you'll go back to being exploited.

[Rafiq]

What are you all bickering on about? You make it as if we actually need National recognition from the British state to celebrate worker's unity.

We'll all celebrate it anyway. We don't need to Okay from the British government to do so. Fuck them.

[ed miliband]

What are you all bickering on about? You make it as if we actually need National recognition from the British state to celebrate worker's unity.

We'll all celebrate it anyway. We don't need to Okay from the British government to do so. Fuck them.

Obviously this is true, and cancelling May Day is, if anything, a good thing (people will just throw a sicky and not go into work). I just think it's a fairly symbolic thing, particularly the idea that a day to celebrate "national unity" should replace a day celebrating the working class.

[Volcanicity]

No worker in the UK cares what the day-off is called, the fact that we get a day off is enough.

[rednordman]

I will say that this sort of thing could even be suggested only in a tory dominated government. How will the rest of Europe react to this, considering that they all celebrate it properly?. It makes no difference in the UK as we usually still have to work. Saying that, would this mean that we would loose a Lou day for working it?

[Tommy4ever]

Meh, they can try to change the name of it or whatever, but it'll still be the day for marches.

That's not what they are doing. The proposal is to totally remove May Day as a public holiday and create the new 'UK Day' in October to 'extend the tourist season'.

That means most people won't get the day off on May Day meaning that there will be far fewer actual marches - because people will be at work.


No worker in the UK cares what the day-off is called, the fact that we get a day off is enough.

It's a totally different day off that you will get.

[Volcanicity]

That's not what they are doing. The proposal is to totally remove May Day as a public holiday and create the new 'UK Day' in October to 'extend the tourist season'.

That means most people won't get the day off on May Day meaning that there will be far fewer actual marches - because people will be at work.



It's a totally different day off that you will get.
The fact that it's a day off is all that most of us workers in the UK care about.If they would've scrapped the day off as a whole then there woud've been something to shout about,all that's happening is that the day has been moved, we can still march on that.Lets not give the government the satisfaction of seeing people pissed off.

[gorillafuck]

isn't this the sort of thing that Hitler and Mussolini would have said in support of 'national unity'?
Yeah probably, but that doesn't mean the UK is fascist.

[Widerstand]

Well for what it's worth, whatever radical aspect May Day had has been consumed by reactionary union trash anyway. Of course nationalist trash is worse than reactionary union trash, but this is really just the coup de grace on a long rotting carcass.

Nonetheless, the loss of May Day is a strong blow against the left and the proletariat (even though no one will care I assume). We must take it back, of course.

http://backspace.com/notes/images/mayday05.jpg

http://www.ecopolis.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/euromayday_aachen_008.jpg

http://mayday-bremen.kein.org/sites/mayday-bremen.kein.org/files/images/mayday_plakat.preview.jpg

http://italy.euromayday.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/mayday09_poster_def.jpg

[ed miliband]

I remember when I was about 7/8 and my dad took me to one of the big London May Day protests to see all the action. This was either in 2000 or 2001 so when large amounts of people went and did shit like guerilla gardening. We walked right into the centre of Parliament Square and looked at the statue of Churchill scrawled with grafitti and garnished with a mohican, and there were black bloc guys spraying graffiti right in front of the police.

I don't remember much else but I remember thinking it was all really cool.

[Widerstand]

Yeah, but these things will happen irregardless. I'm more worried about the effect it has on the greater populace. May Day is one of the few instances in which class consciousness at least shimmers through. If they manage to direct that feeling of collectivity into nationalism that'd be a tragedy. Of course, the exact opposite might happen, MayDay demo's without state sanctioning could lead people to turn away from the established channels and towards more revolutionary approaches. We'll see.

[rednordman]

Yeah probably, but that doesn't mean the UK is fascist.I dont think the UK is fascist:)

[Arlekino]

May Day for me was wonderful experience in Soviet Union we used dress up best clothes, marched with flowers into our hand. It was big day for us hm some nostalgic memories.
I marched on May Day in UK is little shame every year seems less and less workers are attending on May Day marches. Shall time to United I think yes it is time to Unite all us workers.

[ʇsıɥɔɹɐuɐ ıɯɐbıɹo]

You know you can still call it May Day and hold May Day Parades in solidarity with international workers, nevermind what the estab. says.

[Kalifornia]

You know you can still call it May Day and hold May Day Parades in solidarity with international workers, nevermind what the estab. says.

You know communists are all conformists, we only rebel when were allowed, its kinda our catch 22 thing:tt1:

thats why trotsky and Stalin had all that beef, Trotsky was like lets spread the revolution, but stalin was like, no, europe would be pissed
:crying:

[ed miliband]

Yeah, but these things will happen irregardless. I'm more worried about the effect it has on the greater populace. May Day is one of the few instances in which class consciousness at least shimmers through. If they manage to direct that feeling of collectivity into nationalism that'd be a tragedy. Of course, the exact opposite might happen, MayDay demo's without state sanctioning could lead people to turn away from the established channels and towards more revolutionary approaches. We'll see.

All of that sort of stuff stopped after Genoa anyway, now May Day in London is just a march and some rallies. You get to see Stalin banners tho.

[Omi]

In Holland mayday is not an official holiday at all. We have ''queens-day'' which is an official holiday and everyone goes partying the evening before and probably on the day itself as well. The whole population is paralysed the day after so there are almost no mayday festivities at all from the established unions and labour parties, just some little internal meetings and such. The only mayday marches last year where organised by on the one hand the more traditional communist groups and on the other a more anarchist/anti-authoritarian dominated demonstration. They both ended up fighting the cops and getting dispersed/rounded up. They where bigger than the previous year though.

It's also got a positive aspect because of the fact that mayday isn't such an institutional phenomenon. It's easy for radicals here to claim it back from it's radical roots and celebrate the real struggles people are waging. That's at least what the radical left is trying to do and partly succeeding. At least they put back mayday on the agenda of the activist/anarchist milieu and is part in the development of anarchist involvement in class struggles.