Freedom News

Political reflections on the Poll Tax Riots 30 years on

This month marks the 30th anniversary of the Poll Tax riots. 30 years on they look both glorious and yet a tiny blip in the history of the people of the UK. They mark the last time that the working class won on the streets. The civil disorder culminated in major battles with police in

Solidarity for West Papua is overdue

“Those Papuans of yours are some 700,000 and living in the Stone Age” said John F Kennedy in 1963, as he approved an agreement to hand over control of West Papua to Indonesia, ceded from the Dutch. That figure the US president so glibly negated an entire people with was a few hundred thousand off

Syndicalism and the working class experience

In this classic explainer of trade unionism without bureaucrats from 1952, Philip Sansom (pictured) considers the thinking behind anarcho-syndicalism before giving an example from the time — the fascinating and little-known Mutual Aid Society of the Euston railwaymen. The trouble with most theories is that they have so little relationship with the facts. One can

How we invaded Cuba

On Friday 12 July 1963, anarchists invaded the Cuban Embassy in London. Members of the British Communist Party, who had been faithful to the Party Line throughout the difficult war years, obediently switching from pro-war to anti-war and back, in support of Soviet foreign policy, were shocked in 1953, when Stalin died and the line

Book review: A beautiful idea … and a messy reality

A Beautiful Idea: History of the Freedom Press Anarchists Rob Ray Freedom Press, 2018 ISBN: 978-1-904491-30-9 Review by George F. Rob Ray’s history of the Freedom Press anarchists is like getting sat down next to that eccentric blue-hairred aunt at a wedding that you’d always heard stories about, but never quite gotten the full picture

Interview: Bristol Class War in the 1980s

In this chat with a former Class War member, the Kate Sharpley Library discusses deindustrialisation, upheavals in the 1980s and thumbing the nose against Thatcher’s new normal. Can you tell us a bit about where you came from? I grew up in a town in the west of England during the 1970s. It was an