The march, called by Portsmouth Against the Cuts Together (PACT) and Portsmouth Trades Council consisted of trade unionists, pensioners, students, Sure Start campaigners, socialists and anarchists.

The march passed off without incident despite threats from the English Defence League being made online that they were going to disrupt the march. Portsmouth Anarchists decided not to fly any flags due to this as we did not want to draw unwanted attention to the march. With hindsight, this was probably not required as the few EDL that bothered turning up at the start of the march didn’t react aggressively to anyone bearing Socialist Workers Party or Unite Against Fascism slogans and just watched the march move off. By the end of the march, the only EDL that showed up trying to provoke a reaction were two nippers who stood 200 metres away with a St Georges Cross and a Union Jack. What they thought they were protesting about I have no idea and probably, nor do they.

The march ended with a short rally on the common and a few empty cans of beer. Whilst the turn out wasn’t anywhere near the numbers of the last PACT march, this was the first may day march in Portsmouth that I’ve ever heard of and long may it continue!