Violence and disorder marked May 1st, 2000, when ‘anti-capitalist’ demonstrations in London turned ugly.
Around 4,000 people gathered in the capital for a weekend of speeches, marches and demonstrations, some linked to International Workers’ Day and others organised by a growing ‘anti-capitalist’ movement comprising various protest groups and activists. It culminated on May 1st, which that year fell on a Monday and was the spring bank holiday.
The day started peacefully, with several mostly good-natured events taking part in central London. There was a large police presence in case of trouble, but the police took a light-handed approach to avoid provoking unrest. They looked on as self-styled ‘guerrilla gardeners’ dug up clumps of turf in Parliament Square and planted seeds in the soil beneath. It was part of their campaign to bring nature back into urban London, though strictly speaking its was criminal damage.
Later, about a thousand people made their way to Trafalgar Square for the day’s main events, but among the mostly peaceful protestors was a hardcore of troublemakers and instigators bent on criminal disorder. On the way to Trafalgar Square, a small group targeted a McDonald’s fast food restaurant, chosen as a symbol of American global commerce. Every window in the restaurant frontage was smashed and other rioters tried to get inside and ransack it.
Other shops and businesses along the route were also extensively damaged. As trouble escalated, various objects were used as missiles and one policeman was injured when hit by a flying brick. A few arrests were made and police cordoned off the immediate area, opening up a corridor for campaigners to leave. At that point violence flared again, with police facing a barrage of bottles, traffic cones, sticks, and scaffolding taken from a construction site.
The police were well-prepared, after small outbreaks of violence at previous May Day events in the capital. All leave had been cancelled and more than 5,000 officers were on duty. Most of them had been ‘on standby’, but were now deployed to curtail the escalating violence, with the police operation co-ordinated from a control centre at Scotland Yard.
CCTV was used to identify small pockets of troublemakers, many of them masked, and officers sent in make arrests. Many of the genuine campaigners and protestors were relieved that the trouble was quelled before it could get out of hand. They had no time for the provocateurs trying to ‘hijack’ the event and use it as an excuse to fight a running battle with the police. Around a hundred arrests were made before the crowds began to disperse and nine police officers received treatment for various injuries.
Media coverage of the disorder caused widespread outrage, especially when it was revealed that graffiti had been sprayed on the Cenotaph on Whitehall – the national symbol of remembrance for Britain’s war dead – and on a statue of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square. A strip of turf had also been draped on Churchill’s head to give him the appearance of a green ‘Mohawk’ haircut.
Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned those responsible for the violence and disorder as “an absolute disgrace”, saying: “Their actions have nothing to do with conviction or belief and everything to do with mindless thuggery.” He was careful to point out though, that only a small minority had deliberately engaged in criminal behaviour.
Over the next days, several people appeared in court charged with various public disorder and criminal damage offences. One of them, a former soldier, was jailed for 30 days for defacing the statue of Churchill, but he denied it was him who sprayed graffiti on the Cenotaph, making it out to be a public toilet. Many commentators accused the police of being over-cautious and too lenient in their handling of events and a Government review was convened into the management of future ‘May Day’ events in London.
The following year protestors found an enlarged police presence of more than 6,000 officers fully deployed from the outset and more closely restricting where they could and could not go. It led to accusations of the authorities being too heavy-handed, but there was no significant disorder.