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Can’t Pay. Won’t Pay. Memories of the Poll Tax struggle, 31 March 1990

Lizzie Woods
29th March 2010 at 16:32
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· As a sixteen year old school student, I organised a delegation of school students from the South East to attend the London anti-poll tax demo.

We were largely from working class households, I lived in Hackney and attended Kingsland school in Dalston.

We were keenly aware of the impact such a tax would have on our lives, the lives of our families, and our community as whole.

There was no way we were going to sit back and allow the Thatcher regime, which had already stamped out our rights to a decent future with the abolition of ILEA and the abolition of student grants, get away with further attacks on ourselves, and our people.

It wasn’t a case of wanting to demonstrate, it was a case of having to demonstrate. For us, there was no choice.

We arrived at Kennington park, it was a lovely day, the sun was out and the atmosphere was peaceful and upbeat.

We led the march for a time.
All the left groups were there, Militant, Socialist Workers, Communist Party of great Britain, as well as the Greens and CND.
The majority of demonstrators though, were unaligned – ordinary people, families, pensioners, teenagers,black, white, all united as one to fight against the tax.

There was a number of anarchists on the march and they too were peaceful.

· One minute it was a peaceful march, people laughing chanting slogans and singing,the next there were horses charging, people shouting and screaming,it was terrifying and it seemed to have come from nowhere.I recall one woman with a baby in a buggy rooted to the spot, unable to move and scared witless.

As we made our way out of Trafalgar square we noticed a couple of guys on the scaffoldings throwing things at us – to this day I am convinced they were agent provocateurs.

·People blame the anarchists for the violence which ensued, and this is wrong in my opinion.

One only has to look at the Tories’ record to see how vital it is we keep them out.
20 years might seem a long time ago, but in the general scheme of things it is gone in the blink of an eye.

If we think Labour are bad now, wait and see what the tories will bring.
Never forget.

Working class people stood up and fought against the might of the state and won – the success of the anti poll tax movement is proof that by standing together shoulder to shoulder we can win through the power of collective muscle.

We are faced with unprecedented struggle over the coming period – massive cuts proposed in public spending will result in thousands of job cuts and thousands of families plunged into poverty on a scale not seen since the great depression of the 1930s.
This is why civil servants in the Public and Commercial Services Union have staged three national strikes over the last month; we need to protect what we have. Why should ordinary men, women and children pay for capitalism’s failures?
We should rekindle the slogan of the Poll Tax battle and send a strong message to the bosses and the bankers – ‘Cant pay. Won’t Pay, for YOUR CRISIS’.

We won in 1990. We will win again, by uniting, as trade unionists, workers, families, youth, pensioners, black, white.

United we stand, divided we fall. Let’s stamp out state bullying once and for all, and work collectively for a fair, just and decent future.