Britain’s parliamentary left has been in a state of fragmentation following the defeat of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in the December 2019 general election. The last eighteen months have seen the purging of socialists from the party under new leader Keir Starmer, with mass suspensions of members and efforts to block left candidates from standing on spurious and opaque grounds. Adding to this fragmentation, Starmer has kept Corbyn suspended from the parliamentary party since November 2020. Now, however, progressive and left-wing movements are coming together in protest against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Bill put forward by the Tories in March.

Starmer’s Labour Party has, until recently, taken a conciliatory approach to the Conservatives’ bill, which would, among other things, increase the ability of the police to suppress and control many different forms of free assembly. Meanwhile, Britain’s billionaire-owned media has done its usual job of spreading misinformation on the political situation around the bill, demonizing the groups who do not want to see it passed.

In the face of this intense hostility, a diverse cross-section of left-wing movements and other citizens’ rights and environmental groups have organized throughout the country. Demonstrations against the bill have erupted all over Britain in the last six weeks, building to a massive day of action last Saturday, May Day, when thousands took to the streets in protest.