anti capitalist musings

The rest of the blog

A realist oil painting shows a Joan of Arc–like figure in medieval armour standing amid urban chaos. Flames engulf the street, sending black smoke into the air as police and emergency vehicles appear in the background. She raises a banner with a red cross high above her head while holding a sword at her side
Britain

The Free Speech Martyrdom of Lucy Connolly

Keir Starmer’s law-and-order theatrics have handed the far right its new saint: a self-styled free speech Joan of Arc—except this saint didn’t want to be burned, she wanted others to be.

Britain

The Law, the Hotel, and the Vanishing Migrant

Paul Bristow cites the Epping Forest ruling to demand hotel closures for asylum seekers, but offers no plan for what follows. The Conservatives built the hotel system; Labour inherits it; local politicians weaponise planning law while migrants disappear from view.

Keir Starmer

Dawn Raids and Banned Placards

The arrest of a part-time cleaner for sharing Facebook posts backing Palestine Action shows how Britain’s response to Gaza has drifted from foreign policy into domestic repression.

Britain

The Provincial Mussolinis

Farage brings the noise, Starmer brings the law. The country falls apart to the sound of flags snapping and doors slamming while capital quietly clears the till.

Robert Jenrick stands on a ladder attached to a lamppost, giving a thumbs-up while raising a Union Jack flag. The background shows a cloudy sky, rooftops, road signs, and a quiet road stretching into the distance.
Conservative Government

Provincial Mussolini on a Ladder

Robert Jenrick’s Union Jack pantomime isn’t patriotism; it’s a confession of weakness. A dying political class turns to flags and ladders because it has nothing left to offer but theatre.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague, with the blue ICC sign in front of a modern glass building complex.
International Criminal Court

The Court in the Dock: Washington and Tel Aviv vs International Law

By sanctioning International Criminal Court judges and prosecutors, Trump’s America has openly declared that empire stands above the law. Europe and Britain now face a stark choice: defend the court’s independence, or accept a world where justice stops at Washington’s door.

Labour Councils

Planning Permission for Exclusion

The High Court’s ruling in Epping shows how Britain has turned planning law into a border regime, feeding jealous politics of scarcity and erasing the very category of the refugee. Now with Labour councils as willing collaborators.

illustration of a skeleton hunched over reading a copy of the Daily Mail, surrounded by crumpled newspapers on the floor, in muted beige, black, and faded red tones with rough, distressed edges.

The Anatomy of a Mail Article

The Daily Mail’s “migrant hotel” coverage isn’t just selective, it’s structural. By merging separate legal matters, foregrounding asylum status, and importing political imagery, it constructs a narrative in which migration itself becomes the crime.

Halftone image in black, deep red, and beige. In the foreground, a man’s silhouette leans forward aggressively, mouth open mid-shout, finger pointed at a smaller, upright figure in the corner. Vertical prison bars dominate the red background, evoking confinement and humiliation.

The Theatre of Occupation

Ben Gvir’s prison-cell confrontation with Marwan Barghouti is not security but theatre, a staged humiliation designed to rally the far-right and remind Palestinians that even their most prominent leaders can be silenced. Occupation thrives on such performances; the degradation is the point.

Grainy black-and-white image showing a masked, heavily armed ICE officer in tactical gear dominating the foreground, with other armed officers and a man in a white shirt filming them in the blurred background, creating a tense, menacing atmosphere.

Newsom Just Got a Lesson in How Authoritarianism Works. Now He Needs to Act

Trump didn’t send dozens of masked federal agents to Little Tokyo to enforce the law, he sent them to send a message. If Newsom really means it when he says California won’t be intimidated, the answer isn’t just outrage. It’s cutting every state pipeline that makes ICE’s work fast, easy, and invisible.