THE history of London May Day is rooted in the call for an eight-hour day by the Second International in 1890, and is marked by working-class activism and evolving political agendas. Several attempts to detach May Day from the labour movement, rejecting its roots in class struggle, have failed. May Day marches in Britain and London continue to be held annually.

One hundred and thirty four years later, on Thursday May 1 2025, London May Day marchers will assemble in Clerkenwell Green and march to Trafalgar Square led by the Big Red Band, where a rally will be held bringing together thousands of workers from many different unions and communities. Traditional, maybe, but more importantly, a gesture of class assertion, an assembly of trade unionists uniting on a working day, joining up with working-class organisations assembling in support of this year’s theme, Yes to Workers Rights, No to the Far Right.

Ismara Vargas Walter, Cuban ambassador to Britain, will address assembled crowds on the steps of the Marx Memorial Library where the march will assemble and then march to Trafalgar Square to hear speakers at the rally including Eddie Dempsey, recently elected RMT general secretary, Jackie Peckham (deputy general secretary of the NASUWT), Dr Husam Zomlot, Palestinian ambassador to Britain, Tubisam Ahmed from Unite, a striking worker and representatives from community organisations.

Many different organisations will be welcomed by trade unionists on the march, including representatives from Tamil, Kashmiri, Turkish and Kurdish, Cypriot, Pakistani, Indian, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi communities and groups and many others too.

Trade unions are the backbone of the fight for social and economic justice. This London May Day will highlight the renewed struggle to defend workers’ rights and opposition to the far right. The danger with current economic policies is that this Labour government is now branded as an austerity party, and austerity policies are opening the door to the populist and far-right Reform UK.

The rise in the cost of living, swingeing cuts to benefits, the means testing of the winter fuel allowance, and the refusal to lift the two-child benefit cap in an economic system which favours the massive profits of corporations and arms companies. The poor are getting poorer, and the billionaires are getting richer.

Trade unions are fighting back, challenging attempts to shift the burden of economic instability onto working-class communities, demanding that Chancellor Reeves impose a wealth tax so that workers no longer pay the price of an economic crisis in the sixth richest country in the world. Trade unionists are demanding that the Employment Rights Bill be delivered in full and the revocation of anti-trade union laws in defence of the right to protest and the right to strike. The Crime and Policing Bill itself follows a raft of repressive legislation giving ever greater power to the state to ban or shut down protest.

Observers have noted that the rapid rise in arrests by the police ignores far-right groups, but focuses instead on pro-Palestine and climate groups, arrests of workers on picket lines and arrests of immigrants blamed for the crisis who present in their view a serious risk to public order.

May Day seeks to give focus to all the myriad battles going on across the country and the world. It brings together trade unionists and communities calling for a redoubling of our efforts to challenge any attempt to shift the burden of economic instability onto the working class and protect our right to fight back.

On May Day, workers will make it clear that the real enemy is not each other but those seeking to divide us, including the far right. The working class needs to unite against a system and its consequences, which are poverty, racism, sexism, destruction of the ecosystem, inequality in so many forms, imbalance between regions in the world and threats to world peace.

Join the march with your banner and show solidarity with the workers in Britain and with the workers of the world.