Around 100 protesters organised by Australia’s largest Marxist group, Socialist Alternative, protested outside the CPAC conservative political conference in Sydney on Saturday.

The assembled collection of uni students and general dross screamed slogans, scuffled with a few of the over 900 attendees and at one point attempted to force entry to the International Convention Centre venue.

Socialist Alternative had planned the protest on Facebook under the names of two of its front organisations Community Action for Rainbow Rights (CARR) and Campaign Against Racism and Fascism – Sydney (CARF), organising their activists and supporters to picket the conference in order to block the speeches of dangerous “far right” figures such as the former prime minister Tony Abbott, British Brexit hero Nigel Farage and about half the Sky Australia after dark line-up.

The silly Socialists organised their supposed confrontation at around 1pm, during the CPAC lunch break, meaning that all attendees were inside and able to view the badly outnumbered mob outside through the large viewing windows in the side of the Convention Centre in peace and comfort.

“We must silence Sky News,” one protester squealed at the group. Which was odd as not only was there a Sky Australia reporter and camera team at the event, but they gave a rather soft-ball interview to the leader of the protest Owen Marsden-Readford. Owen, of course, being an activist with Socialist Alternative at the University of Sydney and who was one of the fellows who recently decided to hilariously harangue former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.

According to the evil Murdoch media outlet, News.com.au, the other leader of the protest was April Holcombe, the “Co-convenor” of CARR.

What the wicked puppet of the horrible Rupert failed to point out was that Holcombe is also a little bit of an extremist. Not only has Holcombe been a Socialist Alternative organiser for years but the not-so-little April is a regular speaker at their conferences on a wide variety of subjects, including:

• Why western Maoism was a dead end (speech at Socialism 2021 conference).
• Revolution betrayed: the rise of Stalinism (speech at Marxism 2021 conference)
• The freedom to be: Marxism and trans liberation (speech at Marxism 2021 conference).
• When Humanitarianism Becomes Imperialism: Aid in the Developing World (speech at Marxism 2018 conference).
• Strikes, corruption and economic slowdown – China in crisis (speech at Socialism 2015 conference).

So it’s fair to say that the not-quite-fair April isn’t baking biscuits for the church roof repair fundraiser.

It wasn’t all Socialist Alternative in the crowd, however. One bloke was spotted holding up a sign for the group “Trotskyist Platform” which according to their website appears to be half a dozen people convinced that Trotskyism can only be implemented via the mechanisms of Mao-Zedong thought. Which is mildly insane to say the least.

A reported seven police vehicles and large amounts of police on foot kept the little lefties from what would probably have been a rather embarrassingly feeble attempted re-enactment of the storming of the winter palace.

According to Josh Butler of the Guardian Australia, one of the leaders of the protest tried to lead a heroic spaghetti armed charge toward one of the doors of the venue, but as police easily moved to block the entrance the badly behaved bolshy toddlers suddenly lost their bottle and decamped elsewhere for a “debrief”.

CPAC attendees inside productively spent their lunch break jeering the protesters while making a range of friendly and unfriendly gestures before returning to the afternoon session.

In typical Trotskyist form, Socialist Alternative has declared their protest a total victory and is now planning how to capitalise on this new bout of extraordinary progress.

Photo: Chriscoveries