The UK political system is a history of scandal after scandal. If we look to just the recent past, we could mention the way Covid has been handled, the Grenfell disaster, MPs expenses, the Panama Papers, Windrush, Hutton, cash for honours, cash for questions, back to basics, Hillsborough, Orgreave, spycops… There’s a seemingly never ending
Including reports from correspondents on the ground, Freedom rounds up five days of women standing against male violence and police impunity – even as the Tories rush through draconian new powers cracking down on our right to demonstrate. The second reading of the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill passed on Tuesday evening. There article
The public inquiry into Britain’s political secret police – the Undercover Policing Inquiry, or UCPI – is finally beginning this summer. Here’s a bit about what we know and what to expect. The Undercover Policing Inquiry is an independent, judge-led inquiry into undercover policing in England and Wales. Its main focus is the activity of
Is there really anywhere else quite like a good social centre? Peter Ó’Máille considers the value of rebel community hubs and updates on what’s happening in our libertarian networks. Whether heady with punky vibes and revolution like the Red and Black Umbrella (pictured above) was or more holistic community focused like Nottingham’s Sumac with its
Over the last year Freedom News has covered, and in many cases broken, hundreds of stories, run a wide range of feature and analysis pieces and backed anarchist activity worldwide — below is just some of the news from around Britain that we picked up. Happy New Year everyone! Anti-fascism The rise of the alt-right
Grassroots pressure from Grenfell campaigners pushed the PM into bringing two new “experts” onto the fire probe today — but only after core building safety and response issues have already been dealt with. The push for improved representation, led by Grenfell United, has argued that Establishment figure Judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick should not be the
After an investigation tracking his articles through the paper and talking to old comrades, Freedom can today reveal at least some of the story of former spycop Roger Pearce as he used our paper to worm his way into Northern Ireland. Earlier this week it was disclosed that Freedom Press would now be considered a
Many regular Freedom readers will be aware that the last few years have been tumultuous at the Press, with the near-catastrophic fire in 2013, closing the paper as a regular production in 2014, the reorganising of our publishing enterprise in 2015, a survey in 2016 which suggested we would need to raise a whopping £40,000
An edited amalgamation of several different accounts, this essay only really skims the surface of the Freedom Press’s long and storied history, and a much fuller account can be found in A Beautiful Idea: History of the Freedom Press Anarchists by Rob Ray. More about its early period can be found in John Quail’s book
Since the election of Donald Trump, a right-wing discussion point which had long been burbling in national press outlets such as The Times and the Telegraph has spectacularly jumped into the spotlight — why does the Left hate free speech? In Britain, this question has over the last few years mainly revolved around a relatively