Marchers at London rally protest Grenfell catastrophe

LONDON — Grenfell Tower residents and supporters marched in a “Justice for Grenfell” contingent here July 1 in a protest against the Conservative government of Theresa May.

Many marchers were outraged by the Grenfell Tower catastrophe — a product of profit-driven bosses and their government backers from all bourgeois parties. They carried signs demanding justice for those victimized by the fire. Daniel Scott, a contractor who has installed sprinklers in council blocks in London told Communist League member Ogmundur Jónsson, inset, of the council leaderships’ reluctance to install sprinklers. “They always say it costs too much. It makes no sense — all new blocks have to have them. And the luxury blocks have all the safety measures. They just don’t care about ordinary workers,” Scott said. “If there had been sprinklers in Grenfell Tower that fire would never have made it out of the kitchen and would never have caught the cladding.”

Scott was among many protesters to get the Militant with the Communist League statement on the social disaster. CL members sold dozens of copies and 16 Militant subscriptions. Protesters snapped up 77 books by Socialist Workers Party leaders, including 18 copies of Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? and 14 of The Clintons’ Anti-Working-Class Record, both by SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes, and 15 of Is Socialist Revolution in the US Possible? by SWP leader Mary-Alice Waters.

The protest was called by the People’s Assembly Against Austerity and backed by trade union leaderships and others. Their goal was to rally those angry over the conditions imposed on working people and youth under today’s economic and political crisis of capitalist rule and to channel that anger into backing for the Corbyn-led Labour Party. Many protesters wore T-shirts supporting Jeremy Corbyn, the party leader, and carried placards calling for “Tories out.” At the end-of-march rally in Parliament Square, Corbyn said he’s determined to force another election.

— JONATHAN SILBERMAN