This week a group of activists, led by the Taxpayers Alliance, announced they would be holding “The Rally Against Debt” on May 14th. The demonstration is for showing the government support over their public sector cuts, and is a direct response to the TUC organized anti-cuts protest, which saw around 500,000 people descend upon London.
The Chief organizers for the event are Matthew Sinclair, one of the directors of the Taxpayers Alliance, and Annabelle Fuller, a former aide to Ukip leader Nigel Farage. The guidelines for the march, as outlined on the rally’s website, say "Any visits to Fortnum & Mason's by protesters will only be to marvel at their selection of quality goods and perhaps make the occasional purchase. Bonfires will be strictly forbidden: it's out of season anyway. Trips to see Vodafone and other high street chains will result in congratulations to the company for providing jobs and growth in the UK." This was a hilarious nod to the minority protesters who caused trouble at the TUC rally.
First things first. Why would anyone in their right mind want to publicly back the cuts? If you are in favor of them then surely you can be in favor of them in private. To march in support of them is rubbing it in the faces of the thousands of people who are going to lose their jobs over the next year.
Since when have there been demonstrations supporting what the government is doing? Surely the whole point of staging protests is to oppose something. That’s why they’re called protests! For this demonstrations you might as well have the cabinet be driven around on an open top bus through London, throw in some cheerleaders and some flags and call it a pep-rally.
The people organizing are not the most appetizing people. The Taxpayers Alliance is a ridiculous organization, which in no way incorporates all UK taxpayers. In fact one of their directors doesn’t even pay tax as he lives in France. Ukip is a political party who are short on actual policies, mostly they just don’t want to be part of Europe anymore.
The fact is that they are being deliberately antagonistic. The people who participate in this march won’t have been affected by the cuts, don’t like the TUC, they are clearly rather delusional and want to force the other side in to confrontation. This is why their rally was announced so far in advance. They want anti-cuts protesters to come out, for some of them to get violent as they did last time, which will lessen the credibility of the anti-cuts movement. A movement which is being roundly ignored anyway.
These people just seem to me to be smug and bored. They’ve got nothing better to do with their weekends then to get behind a cause which means absolutely nothing. The rally is pointless.
So if you support the cuts then that is fine. Just don’t shout about it.
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