MayDay 2000 - Action Reports

London

There were strong, colourful critical mass contingents of cyclists, both on Friday evening and Monday morning. The weekend also saw an anarchist football match and a tour of the East End's anarchist heritage.

Actions on Monday began with Animal Action handing out free veggie burgers outside McDonalds on the Strand. Meanwhile around 6000 people were gathering at Parliament Square, supported by critical mass cyclists and with great banners strung between the trees: "The Earth is a Common Treasury for All".

This is where the guerrilla gardening action took place, helped by the police watering the grass in advance. The street was reclaimed and turf laid out in the shape of Great Britain. Paving slabs were dug up, plants were planted and a merry festival began. Only plastic trowels and manual effort went into this action: materials were carried by hand and by bike, there were no big secrets, just what the people there made of it. Giant sculptures of Bill and Ben, the flowerpot men, overlooked open mic debates while daners waltzed round a Maypole in the shadow of Big Ben.

Meanwhile, however, crowds had followed a samba band up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square, and didn't return. A McDonald's and a money exchange office were trashed, a nice spectacle for the crowds of cameras surrounding it. Various statues were graffiti'd, except for General Montgomery's - a delicate display of flowers was instead placed at his feet. Then the police (in the background before now) moved in and split the Trafalgar Square crowd from those at Parliament Square (who continued their festival in peace). The crowd was ringed in Trafalgar Square, bottles were thrown and people were no longer allowed out, creating a long and boring stand-off.

The crowd at Parliament Square was now also sealed in, where discussions through open mics ended in the decision to leave en masse. The crowd (politely) pushed through the police line and walked down Millbank cheering and clapping. Police lined the exits along the route, and the crowd kept getting blocked in, and was separated when crossing a bridge. Some vehicles were trashed along the route. It ended up in Kennington Park, with tensions high and skirmishes with police. Some people made the effort to defuse the situation, and a football match next to the police lines helped the tension dissipate.

The people in Trafalgar Square were kept penned in for hours, and only allowed out one by one.

Another guerrilla gardening action took place at Hackney Marshes (East London), where people organised an occupation and children gardened happily.

Manchester

In the morning, the seaside came to the city. Sticks of red, black and green rock, with Resistance is Sweet running through the middle were given out to passers-by, a revolutionary seaside band entertained the masses and saucy seaside political postcards were delivered. There was a coconut shy where people got to 'knock politicians' blocks off' and a cut-out copper to stick your head through for a seaside photo.

At 2pm, crowds began to gather at Piccadilly Gardens, with banners, music and colour, plus the usual police helicopter, mounted police, evidence gathers etc.

By 3pm, up to 20 small autonomous groups had slipped away from the 500-strong crowd for Challenge Anarchy , a 'treasure hunt' each facilitated by an Anarchy Rice, targeting many places with their action pack of leaflets, flyposters, paste, chalk and spray cans.

There ensued: Shell blockades; many McDonalds occupied, leafletted or shut down; supermarkets targetted for genetics (food and GM cotton) and general nastyness; fake £20 notes dished out, with slogans included; cash machines 'melted'; a 'slave auction'; Disney (sweat & child labour), Starbucks (sponsoring globalisation), Reed & other employment agencies (casualisation & resultant insecurity & deaths) and NatWest (investment in animal abuse & general banking) visited; seeds and saplings guerilla gardened; spoof TV show making people spend exactly their £10 asylum-seeker voucher; anti-mass media 'The Lies' newspaper mock-up and actions; Fidelity Investments (investing in Occidental's attack on the Columbian U'Wa people) 'muralised'; Stagecoach buses stopped, leafletted and rolled under by disabled activists & others (Clause 28-support, few buses accessible, & anti-worker, rural routes, high fares etc Stagecoach manopolisation); general anti-consumerist, -advertising and -CCTV propaganda & shops closed down; plus "Unite, Resist, Celebrate" Mayday leaflets, and much chalking, stickering, subvertising and painting.

Meanwhile the main crowd went for a roving RTS through the city centre, followed by the cops and free food. Crowds divided up and rushed through police lines, defending themselves with wheelie-bin obstacles from horse charges, finding ways out, dividing and recombining, reoccupying briefly the Mancunian (motor)Way, closing down other city centre roads, until they were penned in near the Oxford Road McDonalds. 40 people entered the adjacent AMEC construction site, to climb up scaffolding above the police and crowd, as the Inspector announces "You'll be allowed to leave in small groups after giving your details, whe.., HOLD THAT LINE!" as people surged through the lines of riot cops.

People dispersed to rest up before the night's entertainment... A couple of dozen police in vans staked out the free party meeting point, but didn't notice dribs and drabs of people being led off. A little later, a mass of over 200 set off by the classiest route ever, silently snaking over land where their vans couldn't follow, in the darkness, together, to Mayday's secret free party celebration. They arrived at the Hacienda, unnoticed by police, despite the CCTV just outside the world famous ex-club, to party the night away. Graffitti inside from the first time we squatted it was updated to "People - 2, Police - 0". Some people were arrested when they left, but most left en masse and walked free.

On Thursday 4th the Hacienda was still occupied. After another night's party, the police left the site well alone. Before the building was vacated, huge banners covered the front of the building proclaiming "Anarchy", "Hac the System", "Resist", "We are Everywhere - http:// www.capitalismsucks.co.uk", and "Police Mutiny Now".

Arrests - 35, mainly various minor charges. Police impounded a van, & imposed a Section 60 (CJA extra stop & search powers) on the whole city centre.

Sheffield

Sheffield's Mayday was on Saturday 29th April and was summed up by one participant as a "Perfect Day". Estimates of people range from 800 to 1500. The day started with a GM action on a branch of the co-op supermarket whose chesses bare the lovely slogan "Products contain GM so we don't have to use animal products." aah how nice.

Next came an animal rights demo against Natwest funding Huntingdon Life Sciences. Tapes of tortured animals were played to passers by, while the manager got very pissed off. His branch is the scene of regular animal rights demos.

Then things got surreal with about thirty people dressed in as highway men descended on a super tram stop in the town centre. For about an hour, to the sounds of Adam & the Ants' every tram was stopped and leaflets were given out saying why transport should be free and why it is wrong the stagecoach (the owners of supertram) use the money they cream of the public to fund a bigoted homophobic campaign.

Around 1pm a very colourful critical mass took place. About 200 to 300 cyclists, walkers and skaters took over the streets. Roundabout after roundabout was taken, in a flash of colour and celebration. They even broke through a police line to take the main roundabout where the M! comes into Sheffield! There was only one dodgy incident where a trapped car reversed into a cyclist. Luckily the girl was unhurt, and soon carried on. The critical mass then met up with the carnival. This featured a giant maypole dance, samba bands and the painting of an ambulance destined for Cuba.

After about two hours the crowd moved again. They went through town stopping at the peace gardens, the scene of a former protest camp, before they took one of the big inner ring road roundabouts. This was held for about half an hour, ensuring some long traffic jams.

The afternoon saw a carnival, which began with some excellent drumming outside the city hall. The war memorial flagpost was temporarily turned into a very colourful Maypole and a traditional may dance was had around the pole.

Then the carnival took to the streets ending up on one of the busiest intersections. This was held for around 15 minutes before it was decided to head for the pre-arranged chill out space on Devonshire Green. A loud soundsystem was unleashed here and people danced till dark. Then there were two after parties, one in the adjacent squatted community centre "Wiser Monkeys" and one out in the Peak district.

There were no arrests and no police/protester clashes of any significance.

Aberdeen

In Aberdeen, there were demonstrations at both McDonalds, then after the dinner rush at Starbucks coffee house. All went well at McDonalds, where some staff even came out to our peaceful gathering and spoke to us and read our literature. Feeling quite successful, the protesters decided at 2 o'clock to move to Starbucks.

Again there was no trouble, and the demonstrators hope that they managed to get across their message.

Glasgow

More than 1,000 protesters reclaimed the streets of Glasgow with a colourful parade around the city centre, ending in Kelvingrove Park. Peaceful protesters also marched in Edinburgh.

Bristol

There were gnomes, kids, sunshine and giant puppets in Bristol. Eco-activists cleaned the windows of various capitalist targets such as McDonalds, NatWest and Burger King. One of the window cleaners explained "Its a metaphor. We want to make it clear these are dirty companies." The eco-activists also handed out seeds "to be planted anywhere" whilst five people climbed up a monument / modern-art / structure and hung various banners.