Sarah Wrack
“No nos vamos, nos echan” – we’re not leaving, we’re being thrown out. This was the message of hundreds of young Spanish people on a protest in central London on 7 April.
They came with suitcases and backpacks and formed a queue holding signs, including ‘we will return stronger’ and ‘forced out of work, forced out of the country’.
This followed the Spanish immigration minister claiming that the 1,000 emigrating from Spain each week do so because of their ‘adventurous spirit’, rather than the 55% youth unemployment making a future in Spain seem impossible.
But they were also angry at finding that things in Britain are not wholly different. Socialist Party members took part in the protest and met young people, including one who was a journalist in Spain and another who is a qualified architect, now working in minimum wage jobs with poor working conditions, mainly in restaurants and bars.
Many were keen to get involved in Youth Fight for Jobs’ Sick Of Your Boss initiative.
The youth that feel forced out of Spain are determined to fight for an alternative to austerity and were keen to discuss the Committee for a Workers’ International’s call for a European-wide general strike.
We sold 22 copies of La Brecha, the paper of Socialismo Revolucionario, sister section of the Socialist Party in Spain, and seven people gave their details to get involved in their local Socialist Party branch.
