Disorienting times

In this opening speech for rs21’s Festival of the Oppressed event in London on June 20th, Harry Holmes lays out the grim future ahead, the alternatives we must build, and the politics of freedom we must reclaim.

When we heard the news of the sentencing of Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio and Fatema Rajwani to collectively over 25 years in prison, we knew yet another Rubicon had been crossed. 

This comes on top of the attempt to remove jury trials, and the proscription of Palestine Action itself, which was recently upheld by the Court of Appeal. It comes on top of the expansion of police powers that the Conservatives engaged in and Labour upheld and further expanded through the Crime and Policing Bill; the use of facial recognition; the introduction of digital ID; the attempts to police social media usage; the repeated conviction of both those expressing support for Palestine Action and Jamal and Nineham in PSC and Stop the War. 

It comes on top of the ongoing genocide in Palestine, the British state’s support for it, both tacitly and also explicitly in military intelligence, supplies and more. The same goes for the British state’s role in the attacks on Iran and in Yemen, allying with the US and Saudi Arabia. 

We have a far-right party gaining seats, led by Farage, presenting itself as the party of workers and opposed to the British state, whilst led by bankers and ex-Tories. To its Right, we have Restore, welcoming neo-Nazis, pulling the situation ever further to the Right. Yet again this summer we have racist attacks, most recently in Belfast. On top of this widespread popular racist politics, we have a growing cost of living crisis, caused by the war and climate change, as well as worsening workplace and living conditions. 

In this context, we have a deeply unpopular Prime Minister. Who is being deposed by Andy Burnham, a figure well to the right of the party, who has made it clear that he intends to stay the course on most if not all of Starmer’s policies, from the ECHR guidance to expanding the border regime. A career politician who has leapfrogged from graduating into being a Parliamentary assistant, to being an MP, to being a Mayor. But of course, he speaks with a northern accent, so is somehow the ‘King of the North’ even though his politics remain shit, incapable of rising to the moment AND being from the wrong side of the Pennines. 

I could keep listing the state of things: from the failure of Your Party to the rise of AI. At the core these days are Disorienting Times – where political clarity is a premium.

There is a push now, amongst people previously respected, to tack-rightwards – whether in the softer form of the language of ‘popular alliance’ or in the more malicious form, which is to talk about legitimate concerns and attempt to triangulate on matters of solidarity. 

It’s a concession of frame, where we give up because we think we’re too far behind to win. Political consciousness works on the terrain that is determined for us. Politics is about not just the ruthless critique of all that exists, far too many get stuck on that, falling to the temptation to get lost in that sauce, but about expanding the realm of possibility. But it’s also wrong, as with snooker, because it is a losing strategy. 

Medium term estimate  – three years from now, assuming there is no early election, we will be facing a far-right attempting to romp to victory and a Labour party, arguing for discipline behind it, probably with significant unpopularity. That is in just over 1000 days. 

The objective must be to form a popular cradle, with the dispersed and demoralised forces available. It’s a big task, which demands a level of seriousness I don’t think we have seen on the left in Britain. Any push to be led by the governing party, which will return to unpopularity, or to concede on matters of anti-racism, internationalism and so on, will only be an impediment to forming such a cradle. 

So that was all lovely and positive. When we’re thinking about building such a popular cradle, outward facing activity by revolutionaries, backed by serious organisation, and embedded within wider working-class resistance, how do we orient around this? 

So what can we be clear about? The mass of people who form the basis for a different kind of politics in Britain haven’t gone away. Only in the last six years: 

We’ve seen the massive explosion of activity around Black Lives Matter. Sure, I’m thinking of those huge demos in London, but it was everywhere: Market Harborough to South Wales to Cornwall. There is a repeated and continuing opposition to policing and state violence, whether the protests around the murder of Sarah Everard or the strip searching of child Q in Hackney. There are those that have come out after racist violence, in number, such as in Walthamstow and elsewhere last year. 

We’ve seen the emergence of a generation of activists taking on the government’s attacks on trans people, whether the multi-city mobilisations after the murder of Brianna Ghey or the actions of Trans Kids Deserve Better and Bash Back! 

There was the strike wave, from doctors to posties, a new generation of workplace activity. More recently, there were the Birmingham Bin strikes, ongoing, and the massive displays of solidarity from across that movement in the megapickets. Just down the road, at Goldsmiths, we have the ongoing strike there. 

Obviously, we also have the global movement against the genocide and for the freedom of Palestine. Hundreds of thousands of people in Britain have marched, people still refuse to convict direct actionists such as most recently in the Moog 4 case, and there are still those organising within their workplaces. Most recently, several hundreds of people with Arms Embargo from Below blocked an arms factory in Kent. I was proud to be there on that day with comrades. There are numerous students who have occupied their unis, pushed for divestment and the boycott and more. 

In each of those examples, it has not just been the usual figures, but a significant section of the British working class, who have been politicised and active. They have not evaporated. In these disorienting times, it’s hard to remember that, but we must remember that good news. 

In each of those areas, looking around this room are people who have been involved in it. That’s one of the functions of this festival. 

It’s not enough to simply chase that activity. It’s a question of articulation. We must get to the longer term core of this unfreedom. What we are looking at is political struggle against the British state. Clarity about that, and the need for a party that can actually take that struggle forward, is crucial.

We must also reclaim a politics of freedom. Something the right have been too good at for one that is ours. 

All the talk of the King of the North has me recently re-looking at someone who wrote a lot about the North. That someone is EP Thompson, who wrote The Making of the English Working Class, a history of the early struggles that formed one part of the story of socialism in Britain, as did the anti-colonial revolts that spanned from Ireland to Palestine. So much in that book that feels so pertinent to this moment. The smashing of machinery – who doesn’t feel that when they hear about AI data centres? Or the resistance to early repression? 

But as well, when I see people get despondent about the state of the movement in Britain, it is important to remember that those impulses of freedom were built at times of deep exploitation and unfreedom. One of the most beautiful images in that book is its descriptions of strikes spreading between Northern valley towns, workers downing tools, going onto the moors, sleeping there, to come down early in the morning to convince others nearby to join them. I often wonder what it was like, sleeping on those cold, brutal moors, staring at the night sky, knowing that tomorrow was part of a deeper struggle. 

What I’m trying to say is I don’t need a King in the North to tell me what to do or keep me safe, because he has little to do with that tradition. But, what they felt looking up at the sky, in many ways, might be similar to how someone gets up early to attend a mega-picket, or a student on an encampment staring upwards. There is an alternative politics growing in that moment. A kind of indescribable thing, that I know many of you will have felt, and if you haven’t you’re in a good place to experience it – the content goes beyond the phrase. That drive for freedom needs to be taken far more seriously organisationally, especially in such difficult times. But we can be clear: in a time of the drive to war, to racism, to attacks on workers, not only that things need not be this way, but that we are part of making it so.