Up to 300 people attended a meeting of Podemos—the new left party that is shaking up politics in the Spanish state—in central London last Saturday.
Podemos MEP Tania Gonzalez and campaign director Iñigo Errejon spoke alongside Labour Party member Owen Jones, Left Unity founder Ken Loach, and social media expert Cristina Flesher.
The meeting attracted a large number of young Spanish people forced abroad by youth unemployment.
Errejon and Gonzalez struck a chord with calls to jail corrupt bankers and politicians, and stop evictions of people hit by the financial crisis.
They pledged to keep their roots in the massive struggles that Podemos grew out of.
Gonzalez said, “We want to be the tool that allows the majority on the streets to have a majority in politics.
“The streets alone are not enough, we need to get into the institutions and take control of them.”
Errejon celebrated how “fear has changed sides”—with ordinary people now hopeful and the political establishment running scared from the “Podemos effect”.
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