Anti-austerity 'Take Back Manchester' event tries to prove that the Left is back in fashion

Billy Bragg plays to the crowd of protesters gathered at the start of the the march, which saw 60,000 people walk the streets of Manchester around the Conservative Party Conference.

The tone was set for several days of People's Assembly 'Take Back Manchester' protests at a day long gig on Saturday, organised by Sam Duckworth at the People's History Museum in Manchester. The event was headlined and closed out by Billy Bragg, who saved a rendition of The Red Flag for his encore - an anthem that Jeremy Corbyn's election seems to have brought back into style (Dearden, 2015).

The 'Take Back Manchester' protests, aimed at bringing the anti-austerity campaign right onto the Conservative doorstep at their autumn conference in Manchester (Pidd, 2015), follow an upsurge in activity after the shock Conservative election win. That surge has been given new energy by the election of Jeremy Corbyn as the leader of the Labour Party (Young, 2015; Kuenssberg, 2015).

Billy Bragg told his audience on Saturday night that he'd been a member of the movement so long, it had become fashionable again. And that's a message that the People's Assembly is keen to impress upon the Conservatives - that the days of austerity are numbered in the face of a resurgent popular democratic Left.

Natalie Bennett addresses the crowds assembled at Castlefields arena at the end of the march.

That message was at the heart of what the speakers had to say to the crowds gathered in the sun at the Castlefields outdoor arena. Natalie Bennett told the crowd that the sun was shining on their movement - in this case figuratively as well as literally, on a beautiful Sunday evening.

Stood on the stage in the sunshine, Charlotte Church told the crowd:

"They can hurl abuse at us and we will fight back. They can scare people into thinking one way, but we can educate people into thinking another. They can claim that protest doesn't work, but we can prove protest has worked, does work and will work for us now."

Owen Jones followed by saying that a broad movement was needed to achieve these things, organised from the bottom up. Mark Serwotka went much further, arguing that the trade unions needed to stand together, as the real opposition to the government, and close to outright called for general strikes.

The emphasis everywhere was on the power of the popular movement and not without good reason. Without the support of a broad social movement, the new campaign for an alternative cannot succeed. The new leader of the Labour Party cannot succeed.

On Saturday, Billy Bragg told the audience that he believed that the last election proved that the times are still in flux. That there is a world to win. But Bragg followed up with a word of caution. He said that the real enemy was cynicism - which needed to be replaced with hope and the belief that victory was possible.

If the People's Assembly and the trade unions are to build a bottom up movement and have a sustained impact, then Jeremy Corbyn - who addresses the Communications Workers' Union this evening in Manchester - will have an important role to play. Whatever lack of loyalty the parliamentary party has offered him as the new leader of the Labour, the wider social and trade union movements have adopted him as their figurehead.

But Corbyn needs to be wary. Alexis Tsipras has shown perils and difficulties of serving the people's idealism within the depressingly pragmatic political mainstream (Cohen, 2015). If Corbyn can be a lightening rod, the focal point and agent of the wider movements, he could be both the coordinator and the public spokesperson for the movements aims.

Yet, ultimately, it will require the sustained attention, energy and engagement of those taking part to overcome the austerity narrative, because a political party alone in the political sphere is not enough (Rogers, 2015). Only a sustained campaign - debating, educating and informing - can change public perceptions and give people a reason to believe in an alternative.

References

Lizzie Dearden's 'Jeremy Corbyn celebrates election as Labour leader by singing The Red Flag at victory party'; in The Independent; 12 September 2015.

Helen Pidd's 'Anti-austerity activists protest against Tory conference in Manchester'; in The Guardian; 4 October 2015.

Gary Younge's 'Corbyn victory energises the alienated and alienates the establishment'; in The Guardian; 13 September 2015.

Laura Kuenssberg's 'Labour conference: An activist's speech from leader Corbyn?'; on the BBC; 29 September 2015.

Phil Cohen's 'Can Corbyn forge a new bottom up social democracy?'; on Open Democracy; 17 September 2015.

Ludovica Rogers' 'Hope, power and delusion: Jeremy Corbyn has won the race for leadership of the Labour party - But Greek and Spanish activists advise against placing too much faith in political parties'; on Open Democracy; 15 September 2015.

Top Caption: 'Manchester march: Large protest at Tory conference'; from the BBC; 4 October 2015.