Jeremy Corbyn’s speech at the London Kill the Bill rally the other day was a poweful rebuttal to his detractors who claim that he has spent his life protesting ineffectively and that protests never change anything.
He gave a summary of a long history of protests, from the Tolpuddle Martyrs in the 1830s to the Chartists in the 1840s, to the Suffragettes in the 1920s, to Cable Street in the 1930s, to the fight against anti-trade union legislation in the 1970s, to the ongoing anti-racism protests of Black Lives Matter and the climate change activism of Extinction Rebellion.
The current protests against the government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which seeks to outlaw protests altogether, fits into this history and as Jeremy reminds us - not only does protest work, but without protest things don’t change.
