Report on NHS Demonstration in London

Despite great weather, a very colourful and noisy demonstration and visible unity of purpose amongst health workers and supporters of the NHS on Saturday there will be justifiable anger today over a missed opportunity.

I went down on a local Unison organised coach after a difficult search for a ticket (involving being passed around various people and asked if I was a Unison member, and getting an almost astonished response when I said that I was in Unison, but not in Health branch, but still wanted to go on the demo). Remember, this was a demo that had been pushed for by trade unionists and health campaigners - like the largest national campaign KONP (Keep Our NHS Public) - for a long time, with Unison Health section eventually calling a demo having waited too long for the union's national officers, or NHS Together (Representing all the unions in the health sector) to act nationally. The date was changed, and then gradually the dead hand of Unison's Dave Prentis and his Brownite Labour Party loyalists became clearer and clearer. They were obviously not keen to rock the boat for the "new" administration at Westminster. The demonstration was to be a "Celebration" of the NHS and a "family day out", not a public show of the strength and unity of health workers and campaigners against cuts, budget restrictions, closures, PFI and privatisation. Local hospital demos around the country have mobilised thousands - the demo could have made the links between the anti-closure and anti-cuts and anti-privatisation campaigns explicit and mobilised for maximum unity. Instead we had Prentis with platitudes and Ken Livingstone (does he think he is Nelson Mandela?) doing the "statesman's address" by video to his humble subjects. Most of the demonstrators were from Unison - the publicity and mobilisation had obviously not even reached as far as many other trade unions in Health, let alone the broader trade union movement and the local health campaigns.

The demonstrators made the best of a bad job and there were some excellent brightly coloured banners, props and flags. The non-approved slogans "The NHS is Not For Sale" and "Keep Our NHS Public" were very popular and rivalled the official fluffy "I (heart symbol) NHS".

The watering down of the demo and effectively attempting to limit participation to mainly healthworkers ensured a low turnout. I would have guessed 10-20,000, but the BBC says 7,000.

The Green Party had mass produced a placard with "Keep Our NHS Public" on it that went down very well (some people trading in the less eye-catching SWP ones for them!) It was good to meet up with comrades from Green Left, Green Empowerment and Green Party Trade Union Group. It showed that with good organisation and a good leaflet (I overheard praise for the Green Party leaflet from various activists on the coach I was on) the Party can have an effect.

The IWW also had a contingent and were giving out their National Blood Service Campaign leaflets. There were a few Respect banners and the obligatory SWP placards, but in their current troubles the Respect/SWP contingent seemed very subdued. I have never been on a demo with so few Socialist Worker Sellers - there almost seemed to be more AWL people selling their "Solidarity" (The centre page pull-out on the Grundrisse is not exactly light reading, comrades - but top marks for referencing the latest Michael Moore film on the front page!)

The crucial task of building a national movement to defend the NHS that links service users and the broader community with the organised workers still remains. Prentis et al can utter platitudes about defending the public service ethos and opposing free market dogma, but unless workers can defend themselves and a nationally co-ordinated movement is built to apply real pressure on this issue, then the death by a thousand cuts and stealthy piecemeal privatisations will continue as the likes of the US health giants exposed by Moore in Sicko dig their claws deeper and deeper into our healthcare system.