UK antifascist prisoners Sean Cregan and Andy Baker released

Some truly brilliant news, reposted from Leeds Anarchist Black Cross.

We are very pleased to be able to announce that two of the UK antifascists sent down last year were released on 30/12/11 on ‘Home Detention Curfew’ (electronic ‘tag’). We wish sean Cregan and Andy Baker the very best of luck and hope that they can successfully rebuild their lives. Thank you to the many groups and individuals who have allowed us to properly support these comrades. For the moment, the other three antifascists sentenced in relation to the same case remain inside and in need of support.

A recent article by Sean Cregan:

Freedom’s Fight

“Mick, Sean’s up at the bloody window!”

My dad took the stairs three at a time and caught me just before I fell. The window was nailed shut with six-inch nails… That was my earliest bid for freedom. I was not yet a year old but somehow I had made it up to that ledge, as my folks nattered to the neighbours downstairs.

Looking from that point to this, my own struggle for freedom has been and still is a major factor in who I am as a person today. Indeed it is the reason why I write this from a prison cell.

Born to Irish parents, growing up on south London’s housing estates was always going tbe a challenge. I loved my Irish roots but to other “real” Irish I was just a “plastic Paddy”. The English hated me for being Irish. I couldn’t win. My feeling of always supporting the underdog, the downtrodden, probably took root at that early age and has never waned. If a human or animal had no voice and was being mistreated, I’d be there to fight for what I believed to be right.

In my late teens the world of punk rock opened up a whole new world for me. I listened to bands that sang with anger and passion about the way humans and animals were treated. The “safe” music in the charts didn’t rock the boat and that’s how the authorities liked it. Punk music had such a profound impact. It made me aware of things I’d been ignorant of. I was inspired to form my own band to add my voice to the call for freedom and justice.

I naturally gravitated toward like-minded people: people who questioned everything they were told; people who did not blindly accept what they were told; people that cared for others outside the immediate circle of family and friends. These were heady days for me and I felt alive and part of something good and exciting.

In time I moved into the squatting “scene” and started to attend demos and actions, from CND marches to animal rights and anti-nazi demonstrations. I met punks, hippies, crusties and junkies! Many colourful people, some from privileged backgrounds and from all over the world. I found lots of common ground as well as uncommon ground. My working-class roots found some of the people a bit rich. Literally!

Most of my new-found friends considered themselves as anarchists/activists. After a while it became clear that many of these folk used that label to look the part but actually do little more than take drugs and do nothing; a part of the problem not the solution. I remember one time at a squat in Tooting we were sat smoking weed and putting the world to rights when the doorbell rang. I swear not one of us would-be revolutionaries could be bothered to answer the door! I never smoked another joint. It made me paranoid anyway. There were other drugs that I liked better; speed and acid, mushrooms and pills. We were having the time of our lives, squatting rent free, going to gigs and travelling the country to actions of every description. It was a bit hedonistic but I was happy.

The feeling of living in those squatted communities was one of belonging. It was as if I’d found my second family, my tribe even. We believed in freedom of expression, mutual respect and activism against the oppressive system. We shared a common hatred of the state; the futile wars fought in our names, the corrupt politicians, the greed of big business and the sad consumer materialistic society that had grown in the wake of the Thatcher era. What really was free? Not much as far as we were concerned unless you were part of the privileged few.

We live in this western “democracy” and believe we are truly free, and compared to some countries it may well seem that we are, but that is a skewed way of looking at things. In our society today we are more controlled, restricted, spied upon and monitored than at any time in our history. The last twenty years have seen more

and more of our rights taken away from us under new laws that the government stealthily introduce, by for instance telling us it’s for our own protection in the case of powers granted to the police in the fight against terrorism. It may

initially be used for one section of society but could have a range of implications for the public as a whole. We have more CCTV cameras than anywhere else in Europe. We are constantly watched and tracked, and with “smart” phones the authorities can pinpoint you to a place in seconds while Oyster cards keepa handy record of where we have been.

Our mainstream media is largely run by a handful of millionaires that feed us whatever party line they support through their papers; a nice cosy arrangement with the politicians who in turn get their media mates to bury news they don’t want us to know about. We are given a set of rules, laws to abide by. They claim to be for the common good but we are constantly shown that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. A truly fair and equal society would indeed be free. Free from injustice and a place where we could all meet and live as equals sharing our collective wealth, but that is just not the case. Something like five per cent of the population own ninety per cent of the land! How did these people get to own land in the first place? By taking it by force manyyears ago. I’ve personally always thought that owning the land is a ridiculous notion but their laws ensure that we have no freedom to roam where we choose.

We are told it’s wrong to steal and yet we are robbed every single day by landlords, banks, big business marking up huge profits, taxed to death by the government – the list is endless. Most working people are lucky to have enough to get them through to the next week and once they’ve paid out the bills there is preciouslittle left. And that’s just the way the state wants the lower classes to be: reliant wage slaves, given just enough but not nearly enough!

We are also bombarded with the lives of the rich and famous. The TV and magazines like OK and Hello sell us glimpses into their luxury lifestyles. The ever-pouting Posh Spice and her gormless jet-set equals Paris Hilton et al

flaunt their unbelievable wealth in our faces while doing absolutely nothing to earn it. The poor lap it all up and long to be them, knowing the likelihood of that ever happening is zero. The uber-rich live in countries where they can

avoid paying their taxes – so it would seem freedom is obtainable at the right price. If you have the money you can buy it!

Violence, we are told, is not permitted in a civilised society. Yet we watch as those in power sell masses of arms to corrupt regimes around the world that end up in the slaughter of innocents. When there is money at stake and oil to be controlled it would seem that people’s freedom is way down the list where the men of Mammon are concerned. How many indigenous people have been crushed, uprooted and in some cases eradicated in the name of oil, timber or whatever commodity it is that they desire?

There is only the freedom that tyrants and despots around the globe allow us to have. Their double standards and hypocrisy are disgusting and how they still manage to pull the wool over the masses’ eyes is a mystery to many.

As the years passed my involvement in direct action increased. I became a hunt saboteur and regularly attended hunts in defence of the animals’ liberty. The rich and infamous took exception to their “sport” being disrupted and violence was never far away. Arrests inevitably followed with the law firmly on the side of the well-to-do hunters.

I lost my freedom after being sent to prison for kicking a police riot shield on a May Day protest demo. The police had held us for over six hours using the new “kettling” tactic for the first time. We had been crushed and bashed with batons all day and my temper broke loose with one kick. I was sentenced to six months. This did little to deter me and only underlined the injustice of law and order. Losing my liberty was the worst feeling ever.

In recent years my political life has been dominated by the fight against the rise of the far right. On a wet weekend in March 2009 myself and fellow anti-fascists tried to stop a concert by the extreme nazi organisation Blood and Honour. Given the chance, these fascists would deny many of us our freedom. Their message is one of intolerance and hatred. As the police seemed indifferent we felt it was our duty to try and stop these vile people preaching their politics of hate.

I was involved in a fight with one of the “master race” and myself and twenty-two others were arrested in dawn raids in a massive operation by the authorities.We were charged with conspiring to commit violent disorder. Six were found guilty and sentenced to twenty-one months.

I try to make some sense of why I am sitting in this cell. It seems that those who are prepared to stand up for what is right are treated as criminals. I don’t know if losing my own freedom in defence of others’ freedom is too high a price, but I will always believe freedom is worth fighting for. How I carry on that fightremains to be seen.

We can fight and win - if the struggle is in our control

PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka, writing in the Guardian, tells us that "we have the opportunity to fight and win on pensions." A fine sentiment, and one that I hope turns out to be true, for sure. But it's missing one crucial detail - any discussion whatsoever on how we might win.

The headline and the conclusion of Serwotka's article make the same point. In between, however, there is no indication of exactly how we might win or why we have the chance to do that in 2012. He tells us that the changes are unfair, that there has been no meaningful negotiation on key issues and that PCS are being wilfully excluded from talks - all of which most people following this dispute will be well aware of. But any idea of what we must do to win or acknowledgement of any question or debate on that issue is notable by its absence.

Liverpool Solidarity Federation on the N30 strike march in Liverpool

We might expect that, of course, seeing as Serwotka is a salaried union leader and not a shop floor militant agitating for action. But it serves as a useful reminder that - even without the capitulation of several big unions - public sector workers are not on the verge of even significant concessions in the pension dispute. Let alone victory.

November 30 saw the biggest strike in a generation, with more workers out than during the 1926 General Strike. But once the day was over, the disruption ceased and business as normal resumed. As it was after the June 30 strikes. PCS and the left have talked tough on resisting sell-outs by the most moderate union tops, but there is no indication that any - with the notable exception of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty - have any wish to go beyond this limited strategy of periodic, set-piece actions.

John McInally, Vice President of PCS writes in the Socialist newspaper that "action must be escalated" - but the only escalation he offers is an appeal tothe Public Sector Liason Group to "name the day" of the next single-day action. Albeit perhaps with "more unions on board including private sector workers like those in Unilever."

Now, it's certainly true that this dispute needs to be generalised beyond the public sector - and Unilever workers, having recently had their own pension strike, are one key example of this. But it also needs to go beyond periodic one day strikes. The PCS Independent Left faction - in which the AWL has influence - are suggesting that "selective and targeted action, levies for strike funds, and sustained action short of a strike" should all be on the agenda, and I'd agree. I'd also second their call for workers to have democratic control of the dispute, through strike committees and mass meetings.

Where we disagree, perhaps, is on the notion that a conference called in London - where those present will be representative of the various "left" groupings in PCS and of the left more broadly, but not necessarily of the rank-and-file of the union - can bring this about. Such control needs to be built from the ground up, however shaky progress on that front may be - as I've found out first hand organising ahead of N30.

A strike meeting held during PCS walkouts in Bootle in early June

Nonetheless, it is useful in that it forces a debate amongst PCS and other union activists that - in some quarters - isn't being had at all. There is a considerable appetite for the idea of greater rank-and-file control and of pushing beyond one day strikes - as I've witnessed first hand within my own union branch. But in a lot of places that simply isn't being tapped into. If the idea is dragged into the open, it offers more space for those already arguing for and trying to push such a strategy locally, gives more confidence to those who might agree but be more hesitant about doing anything, and means that any individuals or groups who might wish to derail rank-and-file control have to take a step back and appear to endorse it for fear of being outflanked from below.

Not that any of this needs the "permission" of the union tops, of course. To be truly effective, such initiatives should be as independent of them as possible. There will still come a point (including with PCS) where we either push beyond them and take control of our own struggles or accept some form of managed defeat.

Returning to the main point, Mark Serwotka is right when he says "we have the opportunity to fight and win on pensions." But that will only be the case if workers are prepared to respond with the simple question of "how?" Not so that he or the other bureaucrats can tell us what they want us to do, but so that it opens up that space for debate in the unions where the rank-and-file can take control of the struggle.

Demonstrate against NHS privatisation - and Labour opportunism

The Liverpool branch of the Labour Party have called a demonstration against NHS reforms for Friday 27 January. Saving the NHS from privatisation is indeed one of the most important fights in the battle against the cuts, but the Labour Party will not be the saviour of our health service. This is merely another opportunity for the Party to exploit people's anger at what's happening for electoral gain.

On Liverpool City Council, the same branch of Labour that has called this demo are enacting cuts which are devastating services and sweeping away people's livelihoods. Their council leader, Joe Anderson, has called anti-cuts protesters "scum" and lied about being attacked when they protested against him and his council. Now, they are asking - without a hint of shame - that we "join Liverpool Labour Group Councillors & Members of Parliament" in order to support their campaign against NHS reforms. Even more absurdly, they add that "the NHS is only safe in the hands of The Labour Party."

The only aim of the Labour Party in this instance is to co-opt people's anger and make political capital out of it. Should we see a Labour government replace the current coalition, we will not see an end to the cuts or to the privatisation, and the belief that we will is an illusion which threatens to derail the real fight against the cuts. If they are allowed to claim ownership of this battle, all they will do is demobilise the working class to their own ends.

We did not get the NHS by voting Labour - we got it because the Beveridge Report reflected the very real fear of the ruling class that "if we don't give them reforms, they'll give us revolution." We will not save the NHS by voting Labour - we will save it by building a mass movement, based on direct action, that gives the government that same fear once again.

On Friday 27 January, join the demonstration. But don't demonstrate under the Labour banner to get the Tories out, demonstrate against the privatisation of the NHS - by Labour as well as by the Tories!

Demonstrate against NHS privatisation
Friday 27 January, Royal Liverpool Hospital, Prescot Street, 11am-2pm

2011 in class struggle

Even aside from the revolutions and the Arab Spring, 2011 was the year when the working class fought back globally. Most countries saw some kind of protest and demonstration, if not outright civil disobedience or direct action. Not a month seemed to go by without some kind of unrest or resistance.

In Britain, the official movement was defined by a series of set-piece actions - 29 January, 26 March, 30 June,  9 November, 30 November. But in amongst them, there were a myriad of other key moments which the professional left steadfastly ignored. The Stokes Croft riots, the repression around the Royal Wedding, the eviction of Dale Farm. We saw the state become increasingly repressive and intolerant of dissent, saw the sparks of discontent flaring up even before they exploded in the August riots.

Elsewhere, Spanish youth - the indignants - started occupying public space. Inspired by the Arab Spring, though operating in different objective conditions, they saw that bourgeois democracy wasn't working and set up their own committees, organising themselves and engaging in direct democracy. True, the movement was riddled with contradictions - such as an ostensibly anarchist form and largely social-democratic demands - but what spontaneous movement isn't? The point was that they were ready to rebel, and tired of the traditional methods of the left and the trade unions.

A similar movement soon emerged in Greece. However, this took on a more explicitly anarchist form given the revolt already taking place in the country. If anything, the Greek experience improved upon the Spanish one - as Syntagma Square became not the means of change but the hub through which militants could organise, the perfect compliment to the "organised lawlessness" that workers in the country undertook.

However, it was the Spanish rather than Greek form which spread around the world, first in the form of sit-in demonstrations largely led by Spanish ex-pats, then as Occupy. It was through Democracia Real Ya that the call for global occupations on October 15 came and, though the iconic Occupy Wall Street protest began a month earlier, the link between the Indignants and Occupy could not be clearer. At the time of writing Occupy Together reports that there are currently 21,896 occupiers in 2,564 cities around the world.

If the Indignants movement was fraught with contradictions, then Occupy magnified that a thousand fold. In some parts, the movement appeared to fetishise the occupation of public space and the tactic of non-violence, whilst unilateral declarations that the camps weren't anti-capitalist risked not only alienating those who were, but also shutting down the possibility of going beyond shallow liberal politics. On the other hand, we have also seen some truly radical actions emerge from Occupy, particularly in America. The three examples that I can think of being the call for a general strike in Oakland, the coordinated shut down of West Coast ports and the Occupy Our Homes initiative.

In the coming year, the task of militant workers will be to build upon the positives that the past year of class struggle has seen and learn from the negatives. There can be no doubt that, with so many people newly radicalised, and with liberals and leftists still trying to make their influence felt, there is a huge propaganda battle to be fought. If it is lost, the labour movement will almost certainly repeat the same mistakes that it always makes and the consequences cannot be understated.

The working class must take control of its own struggles. The actions of the Sparks this year offer just one example of how we can force militancy even where the leadership are trying to stop it. From here, we need to build - strike committees, mass meetings and direct democracy so that it is those taking the action who get to say how it transpires. And for the all-too-common accusation that we cannot fight this struggle without the resources of the bureaucrats, we have our answer - in a national strike taken after the union tops had backed down, in the move towards a general strike by Spanish anarcho-syndicalists, in the shut down of ports and the driving out of bailiffs. We can, if we only build from below.

2011 in anarcho-blogging

This year, with revolutions abound and class struggle escalating, an awful lot more people have been using social media. Twitter has kept us appraised of world events when the mainstream media wouldn't, whilst blogs have allowed us to see through the eyes of those in the thick of it rather than some reporter paid to be there. The importance of this cannot be understated.

I've tried to keep track of some of the more useful or relevant blogs, from an anarchist perspective, with my anarcho-blogging roundup. However, haphazard and selective as it was, it was far from comprehensive. As will this be, as I won't pretend to be able to offer links to blogs covering events across the entire year here. Instead, I'm going to share some of the blogs which have inspired or enlightened me in some way.

They are listed in no particular order.

Jay O Doom's Blog: On Human Nature

Arguments I see time and time again against left-wing politics is that “human nature will get in the way” or “it ignores human nature”. Recently I’ve even seen this argument trotted out by people on the left, that any future system must “take human nature into account”. It’s fairly clear what is meant here without asking too many questions. Human beings are selfish. Human beings only work in their own self-interest and that this is natural. But I believe this to be wrong. This blog post will hopefully explain why.

Read the rest of the post here.

Cautiously Pessimistic: When they kick at your front door, how you gonna come? – Pacifism versus reality

When the state sends its thugs to evict an occupation, there is only the choice of fighting back or allowing the state’s violence to rule the day. And it isn’t just committed revolutionaries who see a need for violence: the riots that shook many English cities in August showed that there are a lot of people out there who feel a burning desire to attack the world around them, whether we like it or not. I’m certainly not claiming that the rioters were principled anarchists: clearly they weren’t, and a lot of their actions were ugly and indefensible. But we can’t deny that their rage and appetite for violence exists, so if we don’t want to see more muggings and burnt-out homes, then we urgently need to find ways of reaching these people and turning their violence in a constructive class direction, because the absence of revolutionary class violence just guarantees that we’ll carry on seeing more anti-social, individualistic violence.

Read it in full here.

Infantile Disorder: Jared Loughner and Clay Duke - A Tale Of Two Shooters

While Loughner - an unemployed twenty-two year old living with his parents - could never benefit from his belief in right wing theories, the Tea Party politicians and their multi-millionaire backers such as Rupert Murdoch certainly could. In spreading such rhetoric, Murdoch, Beck, Palin and others hope to push both the Republican Party and the Obama administration even further to the right. Now, having taken their views on board, a vulnerable and disturbed individual has acted violently upon them.

Read the full thing here.

Joseph Kay's Blog: Thinking about unions: association and representation

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a union? A big, bureaucratic service provider with a cheap credit card offer? A relic from the past? Solidarity and strike action? The industrial militancy of the and flying pickets of the 1970s? The answer will of course depend on your experiences and your political perspective. And indeed, all of the above are partial truths. To help unpack this, I want to reconstruct the evolutionary path from syndicalism to anarcho-syndicalism. This path has been an uneven, multi-linear one, far too complicated to recount here in any detail. Instead, I want to focus in on one central tension, between a union as an association of workers and a union as a representative of workers.

Read the full thing here.

Rebel Cleaners: No war but glass war!

You may have heard of masked anarchists in Huddersfield, stalking the streets and growing bold enough to venture around in daylight hours in enemy strongholds and make strategic assaults on the wrongs that capitalism has brought to our town. With a bottle and rag in one hand and a soapy bucket in the other justice was done and continues to be done.

Truth can be stranger than fiction.

Read the rest here.

The Great Unrest: “Committing a protest”: The Charing Cross arrests

Yesterday morning I was arrested with nine others outside Charing Cross station, apparently to “prevent a breach of the peace.”

I was intending to go to the “Not the Royal Wedding” street party organised by campaign group Republic.

A British Transport Police officer spotted some republican placards one of us had in a bag and decided to search everyone, under the Section 60 that had been invoked around the royal wedding area. The placards weren’t out, we weren’t having a demonstration. We were standing on a concourse outside a station, doing nothing much.

Read the rest here.

Fires Never Extinguished: Reflections on a Crucifixion: the Arizona Immigrant Movement's Slow, Steady March to Oblivion

So, let me get back to this seer of the movement, the man who saw with total clarity before anyone else the purpose of those long -- many, many miles long -- hot, summer marches. Before I even figured it out, when I was just stoked at seeing so many people in the streets of Phoenix, even if we anarchists had to fight for them to be open to us. It's easy to forget the blistering heat of those marches, which repeated every so often, leaving from the same park and heading to the same, distant destination. People collapsing of heat stroke all around. The ritual of the march, the self-sacrifice of the struggle -- it all looks so obvious in hindsight, now that the excitement of the working class in motion has worn off and that same working class has been out-maneuvered, bored, exhausted and beaten down by movement leaders. But one man got it right from the get-go, from the minute we set foot to blacktop (or sidewalk, as the leadership tried so desperately -- and sometimes unsuccessfully -- to limit it).

I present to you this man.

Read the full post here.

selfactivity: Quick thoughts on London riots

There’s a video circulating Twitter showing a man who was beat up. A group of people pretend to help him up, and then steal the items from his backpack. There are similar incidents that are happening all across the Western world, in every American city, right now. About 15 blocks away, on a Monday night, there are probably drunken college kids doing the same thing. Yesterday, a 17 year old was shot twice in the chest while riding his bike on the street I’m painting a house on. Last night, a homeless man just trying to get some change from people so he could ride the bus downtown was detained by the police for pretty much no reason, right as I exited a bar. This is the violence of everyday life.

Read the full post here.

Solidarity Federation: North London Solfed's response to the London riots

The fury of the estates is what it is, ugly and uncontrolled. But not unpredictable. Britain has hidden away its social problems for decades, corralled them with a brutal picket of armed men. Growing up in the estates often means never leaving them, unless it's in the back of a police van. In the 1980s, these same problems led to Toxteth. In the '90s, contributed to the Poll Tax riots. And now we have them again - because the problems are not only still there, they're getting worse.

Police harassment and brutality are part of everyday life in estates all around the UK. Barely-liveable benefits systems have decayed and been withdrawn. In Hackney, the street-level support workers who came from the estates and knew the kids, could work with them in their troubles have been told they will no longer be paid. Rent is rising and state-sponsored jobs which used to bring money into the area are being cut back in the name of a shift to unpaid "big society" roles. People who always had very little now have nothing. Nothing to lose.

Read the full thing here.

The Trial By Fire: My body, my rules: a case for rape and domestic violence survivors becoming workplace organizers

TRIGGER WARNING: sexual violence

I was raped by a boyfriend on August 18th, 2006. The very next day I held back tears while I lied to a stranger over the phone about why I was unavailable to go in that day for a second interview for a job that I desperately needed. When I hung up the phone I saw a new text message. It was from him. “It’s not over. It will never be over between us…”


The next day I went in for the second interview. It was inside of the Sears Tower Starbucks in Chicago. I took the train to the interview constantly looking around me and shaking. I needed work. I had just been fired from Target two weeks prior and had no prospects. I knew I would have to go through a metal detector in order to enter the building so despite every instinct in my body I did not bring a knife with me.

Read more here.

2011 in anti-fascism

For the British National Party and the English Defence League, 2011 was the year of their decline. The previous year had already ended with their reactionary message being sidelined by the struggle against the cuts, and this year they would fail to regain momentum. But in their place, once more, hardline elements have revived the Mosley-ite tactic of "controlling the streets."

This became clear when Jon Shaw - better known as Snowy and a leading figure in the EDL splinter group The Infidels - issued a "message to reds and militants." In a declaration of war against the left, he said "we have decided to put all our efforts into opposing everything you do regardless of the issue at hand." Now, "every event you hold will be a potential target along with your meetings, fund raisers and social events." With all pretence of "peacefully protesting militant Islam" abandoned, traditional fascist tactics were back on the table - and the "reds" identified as the real enemy.

Nor has it just been the Infidels who took up this call. Even before they parted ways with the EDL leadership, the Liverpool Division wholeheartedly embraced this tactic - invading News from Nowhere and the offices of Unite the Union, mobilising opposition to anti-cuts demonstrations, a march by female asylum seekers and anybody else they could identify as a "lefty." Then there was the Occupy movement, with Liverpool's camp becoming just the latest targeted for fascist violence.

Their threat to oppose the demonstrations during the November 30 strike transpired as a ludicrous sideshow to a remarkable demonstration of working class power. But it did confirm what we'd long suspected: that the resurgence of street fascism had brought together members of various far-right groups. Liverpool Division (no longer EDL) stood alongside BNP loyalists Andrew Tierney and Gary Lucas, as well as more openly neo-Nazi thugs like Liam Pinkham. If they had crossed over and hung around each other before, now they made no bones about it. As Liverpool Division put it, in their own semi-coherent way, they "are not an EDL division we are a division of united nationalists."

As for the organisations they came from, it is worth a quick word on their decline. The BNP, we know, were already in turmoil over the splits caused by a challenge to Nick Griffin's leadership - ultimately resulting in the formation of the British Freedom Party. Griffin's victory over Andrew Brons in an internal election supposedly solved that problem, but they have since only slid further into obscurity.

In Liverpool, the Party's activism consisted of harassing shop-keepers in Huyton, Peter Tierney getting arrested for harassing Labour Party members, and a demonstration at the filming of Question Time which once more saw them chased from the city. They fared abysmally in the local elections and Tierney's brother Andrew was tagged for an assault on an anti-fascist in the City Centre a year before - pretty much confirming that as an electoral force they are spent.

For the EDL, their threat to form a ring of steel around the Royal Wedding didn't materialise, whilst numbers at national demonstrations continued to decline. Tommy Robinson aligned the group to the BFP as an attempt to restore some credibility amongst the more moderate elements, but in the process managed to completely drive out the hardcore fascists. With the story of Tommy's "beating" earning further ridicule amongst anti-fascists and EDL splitters alike, it is hard to see how the EDL can recover from this year's set-backs.

Of course, it is likely that the BNP or EDL could see a reversal of fortunes in the coming year, or perhaps a last gasp of influence. But it remains the case that the street gangs are presently the main threat posed by fascism in this country. And even less so that the collapsing organisations they emerged from, they will not be defeated by state bans and counter demonstrations at a distance.

If the fight against fascism in 2011 leaves any mark, it is the reminder that - ultimately - fascism is an ideology based in violence and must be physically resisted.

2011 in bureaucrats

Whether they're trade union bureaucrats, Labour Party stooges or just desperate to become one of the above, those who claim to "lead" the working class are parasites. Aside from having entirely oppositional interests to our own, making sell-outs an inevitability rather than an exception, they also tend to be really fucking annoying.

In honour of these cretinous gobshites, here's a quick run down of the top 10 bureaucratic wastes of space who plagued us in 2011.

10. Liam Burns

Having only recently come into the role of National Union of Students President, Liam Burns hasn't really had much time to flaunt his bureaucratic credentials. At any rate, he was never going to match Aaron Porter this early on. He's given it a bloody good go, though, saying he wouldn't support strikes "if it affects our final year assessment and ability to graduate" before threatening to withdraw support for action over pensions because "there is no need for further or escalated action if employers are willing to return to the table and find an acceptable solution." Outing himself as a scab only seven months into the job is pretty good going.

9. Joe Anderson

It might be just me, having the misfortune of him as leader of my City Council, but Joe Anderson has really gotten on my tits this year. A self-proclaimed "socialist," he's currently overseeing the several hundred million pounds of cuts to jobs and services in Liverpool, yet still had the cheek to lead an anti-cuts march in February - because he was denied the chance to speak at a previous trade union march!

There is some satisfaction in the fact that, since his little moment in the sun, his actions now face protests at every opportunity. Most recently, his attempt to belittle a protester against Francis Maude at a demonstration outside the Conservative Business Forum was drowned out with cries of "scum," and he felt so intimidated by hecklers at a council meeting that he cried assault - even though he was never touched.

8. Sunny Hundal

Neither a bureaucrat nor a Labour stooge, Sunny definitely comes into the "wannabe" category. I've previously written of my utter contempt for the man and his risible attempts at political analysis, whilst others have explored his credentials as a scab. But being a piss-poor writer, a self-aggrandising liberal and all-round annoying aren't what got him on here. After all, Lisa Ansell isn't on this list.

No, the reason Sunny's on this list is because he's an utterly venomous cunt. As he proved when his reaction to the Telegraph's hateful exposure of a member of Brighton Solidarity Federation, nearly costing his job, was to sneer and applaud. The reason? Because the victim of the exposé had said some nasty things about him on Twitter. In essence, "if you want a vision of communism, imagine a boot stamping on Sunny Hundal's face, forever." Which, apparently, justifies being outed, smeared and having your job put at risk for the "crime" of being an active anarcho-syndicalist.

As Sunny later tweeted that anybody who didn't vote for the Alternative Vote "deserves a beating," and failed to get the irony, his own logic dictates that we can be smug and self-satisfied if he's ever carted off to a gulag and worked to death. For being a complete bell-end.

7. Philip Parkin

Parkin is the General Secretary of Voice. He stands apart from all other union bureaucrats because Voice, for "education professionals," is a scab union. They don't take industrial action as a matter of principle and you can gather that people join the union largely because they are ideological scabs. An utterly vile, contemptible scumbag in charge of a contemptible and scummy organisation.

6. Nick Lowles

The main figure in Searchlight and Hope not Hate isn't a bureaucrat as such, but in collaborating with the state and making an "anti-fascist" argument for government bans and repression he plays at least as reactionary a role. Responsible for re-defining "standing up to fascists" as "tying ribbons around lamp posts and getting as far away from the nasty men as possible," and for playing up to a government eager to clamp down on dissent, his organisation continues to be a real problem in the anti-fascist movement. Most of the details are covered in this post, but suffice to say I'm really not a fan.

5. Len McCluskey

The General Secretary of Unite, the biggest union in Britain and Ireland, "Red Len" has gained a reputation as something of a militant. From his calls to civil disobedience on the streets and admitting that the student protests "put the trade union movement on the spot," to declaring his support for the Sparks rank-and-file group, criticism of him is a lot less obvious than of other union leaders.

Nevertheless, it must be made, if only to drive home the point that even the "awkward squad" in the union movement have diverging interests from ordinary workers. McCluskey's words have not translated to action in the streets because, for union tops, talk is action. Thus whilst he is certainly at the more militant end of the mainstream union spectrum, he is still governed by the same pressures. Despite his words, his is the union which continues to funnel the most money into the Labour Party, his officials dubbed the Sparks "cancerous," and his union wasn't willing to join the pension strikes until November after four other unions had already taken action.

If nothing else, Len McCluskey is on this list as a reminder of where illusions in "good" bureaucrats get us.

4. Ed Miliband

This is all that needs to be said on the leader of the Labour Party;

3. Dave Prentis

The General Secretary of UNISON stands out as particularly contemptible amongst trade union leaders for his attitude to the fight against the cuts and to the pensions strikes. Libcom offers considerably more detail here, but it is worth adding that - after being pushed into November 30 by the anger of his rank-and-file members - he didn't just jump at the first deal he could take. He encouraged others to do the same and managed to not only sell out his own members but drag others down with him.

2. Aaron Porter

Aaron Porter's downfall wasn't that he was a bureaucrat - it was that he was particularly shit at managing and co-opting the  militancy and expectations of the rank-and-file. This led to a severe backlash against him which, in many ways, only helped the student movement grow in confidence and opened the way for arguments against trust in official leadership. If he hadn't been so quick to label the Millbank Occupation as "despicable" and to publicly climb down on his support for student occupations, things could well have been different.

Still, there aren't many things that will surpass the sight of him being chased off the student demonstration in Manchester in January, kettled by students in Glasgow and generally harangued until he essentially surrendered the NUS presidency. What a laugh.

1. Brendan Barber

The grand-daddy of them all.  The General Secretary of the TUC is a bureaucrat par excellence. His achievements this year include calling the biggest trade union demonstration in a generation then doing everything possible to demobilise it, running around at Tory Conference trying to strike back-door deals whilst thousands marched against the cuts and of course leading the great pensions sell out.

Gloriously, he did face a small taste of the backlash that Aaron Porter received when, speaking at Goldsmiths in February, he was met with a banner that said "TUC: Tories' Unofficial Cops," heckled through his speech and egged at the end of it.

2011 in revolutions

As we entered 2011, the most promising radicalism of the moment was the student movement, which had re-ignited the spark of class struggle in Britain. It looked as if there might be a fight in the working class after all, but the most we could hope for was to stem or slow down the tide of cuts being imposed by the government. Then a fruit vendor in Tunisia set himself on fire.

If there is one person who can be held responsible for making the idea of revolution tangible once more, it is Mohamed Bouazizi. With that one last act, inspired by sheer despair and desperation, he inspired an uprising which would spread beyond Tunisia and light up the world. By 14 January, Tunisian President Ben Ali had fled to Saudi Arabia. On January 25, the Egyptians held their "day of rage," which was followed by the occupation of Tahrir Square and a wave of strikes. By February 11, Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was also gone.

The Arab Spring, as it soon became known, soon spread. There were uprisings in Bahrain, Yemen and Syria - all still ongoing. There were protests in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Lebanon, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and the Western Sahara.

In Libya, protests and riots soon turned into armed civil war. Ultimately, this led the west to ditch their support for Gaddafi and side with the rebels, a UN resolution allowing for military intervention in the war. By August the rebels were making incursions into Tripoli, Gaddafi himself was killed on October 20, and the country declared liberated three days later.

The Arab Spring provoked a wave of uprisings elsewhere around the world, from the Spanish and Greek "indignants" to the Occupy movement. Not to mention the truly inspirational, yet roundly under-reported demonstrations in Israel, where thousands chanted that "Arabs and Jews refuse to be enemies." The people of Wukan, in China, similarly managed to deny expectations and achieve something astounding by driving officials from their village and winning concessions from the state. But it is fair to say that, though each situation varies in revolutionary potential, only the Arab world has genuinely seen revolution at this point.

Nor have the Arab revolutions been as neat as the media portrayed them and the world expected early on. Taking Egypt as a prime example, the quick ousting of Mubarak wasn't the revolution done - a prolongued struggle against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces followed.

Nevertheless, much came from these revolutionary events that we mightn't have dared hope for before - a breaking down of sectarian barriers, from the aforementioned chants in the Israeli protests and Egyptian Christians forming a barrier to protect praying Muslims during demonstrations to the international solidarity shown by Israelis to Egyptian protesters and by Egyptians to protesters in Wisconsin. If you ever needed proof that revolutionary struggle builds solidarity and class consciousness, then there it stands.

We would also do well to remember that revolution isn't a singular event, it's a process. If this year teaches us nothing else, then that has to stand out clearly. Victories will be won and mistakes made, perhaps in equal measure. But ultimately, the working class must maintain control of their struggle and in doing so learn to build a world geared in their interests. To concede control of the revolution is to concede the revolution itself.

2011 in...

It is customary, almost a cliché, to greet the end of the year with lists and reviews. However, whilst this might seem trite, it does provide a useful landmark for reflection on what has been and looking forward to what will be.

Regular readers will have noticed that I retired my No War but Class War series after September. This was because the sheer volume of struggles going on and the amount that could transpire in just a month made it impossible to make them as comprehensive as I'd have liked, as well as making them more a chore than a pleasure to write. Nonetheless, this means that the format in which I reviewed 2010 and 2009 won't be the one I use to look back at 2011.

Instead, I have written a number of blog posts which look back at the year from different perspectives in order to allow to me to examine different subjects without worrying too much about overlap. With luck, altogether they will paint a picture of what has - all told - been a remarkable year and offer some thoughts on what needs to come next.

Providing blogger does its thing, the posts should appear at periodic intervals across the day without any intervention from myself. Some will be full reviews of a certain subject, others will be basic lists. Some will be serious, others will take the piss a bit.

They will look at 2011 in...

• ...revolutions
• ...bureaucrats
• ...anti-fascism
• ...anarcho-blogging
• ...class struggle

In the meantime, here's wishing everyone a happy new year. Salud y anarquía to all my friends and comrades.

Thatcher and Liverpool - Thirty Years On

The following post comes from Adam Ford. It covers a subject which I had every intention of writing about today but couldn't find the words to articulate my thoughts. As Adam's managed to do that remarkably well, I hope he won't mind me sharing it.

Behind police lines during the 1981 Toxteth riots

Ah, the summer of 1981! The spectacle of a 'fairytale' royal wedding was a distraction for some as a Conservative PM led a ruling class offensive and unemployment skyrocketed, while riots shook the inner cities. 'The more things change, the more they stay the same', some have commented today, as government documents from those days are released under the thirty year rule.

Amongst revelations that the government lied about negotiations with the IRA during the hunger strikes and that Thatcher - shock! horror! - paid for her own Prime Ministerial ironing board, we are given a glimpse of the Thatcher cabinet's reaction to rioting in London, Bristol and - in particular - Liverpool. It turns out that Thatcher played referee in a policy battle between then Chancellor Geoffrey Howe and then Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine.

Heseltine believed the riots showed that something needed to be done in Liverpool. Of course, he didn't advocate a redistribution of wealth from the top to the bottom. Still, his It Took A Riot report argued for significant resources to be dedicated to regenerating the areas in which some of the poorest lived. This was a product of his 'one nation conservatism' - a philosophy based on fear that the poorest will rise to challenge capitalism as usual if they are left to rot.

But even then, one nation conservatism was on the wane, as speeding globalisation and a falling rate of profit compelled the ruling class to break with the social democratic consensus which had been part of the post-war settlement with the working class.

Heseltine at the garden festival site earlier this year

Thatcher had been put in power to make that seismic break with social democracy, and she wasn't about to let a few nights of insurrection shake her will. Something close to her position was articulated by Howe, when he warned her "not to over commit scarce resources to Liverpool".

"I fear that Merseyside is going to be much the hardest nut to crack," he said. "We do not want to find ourselves concentrating all the limited cash that may have to be made available into Liverpool and having nothing left for possibly more promising areas such as the West Midlands or, even, the North East. It would be even more regrettable if some of the brighter ideas for renewing economic activity were to be sown only on relatively stony ground on the banks of the Mersey. I cannot help feeling that the option of managed decline is one which we should not forget altogether. We must not expend all our limited resources in trying to make water flow uphill."

In short, for Howe and much of the ruling class, Liverpool's wounds were largely "self-inflicted". Of course, by Liverpool they meant the Liverpudlian working class, and by "self-inflicted" they meant that it was historically characterised by industrial militancy. Minutes of a key meeting show it was believed that: "The Liverpool dockers had caused the docks to decline by their appalling record of strikes and over-manning. Likewise, many companies had been forced to run-down their plants because of labour problems." This was unforgivable from a bourgeois perspective, and the city's population should not be encouraged by having "limited" cash squandered on them just because the people of Liverpool 8 had - to use a favourite local term - 'kicked off'.

Liverpool people know that Howe and Thatcher prevailed. Heseltine was made unofficial 'Minister for Merseyside', but his impact was generally limited to the garden festival of 1984, the commercialisation of the Albert Dock and the planting of new trees down Princes Avenue, as the government took on the local Militant tendency and ultimately won. Meanwhile, heavy industry was allowed to decline, culminating in the shutdown of the docks in the 1990s. Commercialism and culture were billed as rescues, but these waves began to recede in 2009, once the recession hit and the 'Capital of Culture' festivities were over. Liverpool's population continues to shrink, and "managed decline" would indeed be a fitting description of the last thirty years.

As I wrote following the riots of August this year, which again lit up the streets of Toxteth:

Liverpool of 2011 is very different to the Liverpool of 1981. Back then we'd only had six years of the neoliberal assault. Now it's thirty-six. The latest crises of capitalism have created a generation of ghetto children with even less to lose.