anti capitalist musings

The rest of the blog

In red ink on textured beige paper, a line of riot police with visors and shields confronts an angry crowd. One masked protester is being pulled back mid-leap. The figures are stylised and simplified, with harsh lines and dramatic motion, evoking urgency and confrontation. In the background, blocky lettering hints at a school building.
Britain

The Hotels Are Just the Excuse

The protests outside migrant hotels aren’t spontaneous. They are engineered. Stoked by far-right groups, amplified by the right-wing press, and legitimised by political cowardice, what we’re witnessing is a strategic campaign to turn fear into power. When the police protect anti-racists, it’s called provocation. When the far right throws bottles, it’s “community concern.” The hotels are just the excuse. The real target is the idea that Britain could ever belong to all of us.

A screenshot of The Telegraph’s website front page. The main headline reads: “Police take pro-migrant protesters to asylum hotel.” The subheading says, “Essex officers brought counter-demonstrators to face angry residents, claim witnesses.” Beside the text is an image of uniformed police officers in high-visibility jackets standing in front of a group of pro-migrant protesters holding “Stand Up to Racism” placards. A black Jeep with a visible rear wheel is parked in the foreground. The scene takes place outside the Bell Hotel in Clacton-on-Sea. The mood is tense, with the police forming a line between protesters and onlookers.
Far-Right

The Telegraph’s Riot: When Anti-Fascists Become the Problem

While far right mobs are framed as “concerned locals”, anti-fascists are treated as the threat. The police escort becomes the scandal, not the fact that far-right demonstrators are being allowed to dominate England’s streets with near impunity. When the media sides with the mob, resistance is rebranded as provocation.

Britain

The Patriarchy in Uniform: Reform UK’s Law and Order Is a War on Women

When Reform UK’s justice spokesperson declared she would “much rather see a great big strapping male police officer with a female,” she wasn’t just airing a preference. Pochin was laying out a worldview. One where women are too vulnerable to patrol alone, too soft for frontline work, and too inconvenient to be equal. As under Trump, so under Farage: the creeping politics of patriarchy, where power is always male, and women are tolerated only if they stay in their place.

Britain

The Real Arsonists of Social Cohesion

The English disease is back. While Scotland holds the line with civic identity and social solidarity, England is once again the testing ground for far-right mobilisation and state complicity. From hotel sieges in Epping to flag-waving standoffs in Norfolk, this isn’t about deprivation alone. This is nationalism curdled into grievance, stoked by those who know exactly what they are doing. And the only person who benefits from this is the man rubbing his hands together, whispering told you so, told you so, and you all know exactly who that is: Nigel Farage.

Britain

Unbinding the State: On Suella Braverman’s Plan to Leave the ECHR

Braverman’s plan to leave the ECHR isn’t legal reform, it’s preparation for rule without restraint. Like the ERG before her, she wraps authoritarian ambition in the language of sovereignty. Strip away the rhetoric and what’s left is a state unbound, a state that punishes, not protects. If she jumps to Reform UK, this plan becomes reality.

A cracked wall bears the words “Krome Transitional Center” above a row of four old CRT televisions. The largest screen shows the hooded, outstretched figure from the Abu Ghraib torture photos, standing on a cardboard box with wires attached to his fingers. The other monitors display static. Exposed pipes run down the wall, evoking a bleak, institutional atmosphere.
ICE

Kneel and Eat: America’s War on Migrants

Reading this made me feel sick. It brought back the images from Abu Ghraib, its black hoods, outstretched arms, the grotesque theatre of domination. Only this time, it’s not Baghdad in 2003 but Miami in 2025. Don’t look away: this is what America does to the unwanted. And Britain’s not far behind.

Just Stop Oil protestors

The Unanticipated Opera: A Symphony of Dissent at Glyndebourne

On a seemingly ordinary Thursday, at the time-honoured Glyndebourne opera festival, an unexpected interlude of protest emerged. In the sanctuary of the arts, amid the melody of Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, a dissenting chorus brought the opera to a standstill. Sparked by the cause of Just Stop Oil, the interruption blended a traditional form of high culture with the pressing concerns of our era. This is the narrative of that day, a symphony of dissent resounding from the grand opera house to the streets of London.

A suffragette arrested in the street by two police officers in London in 1914

From Chains to Change: Just Stop Oil Protestors as the New Suffragettes

In the vanguard of dissent, demanding justice, a new breed of rebels is rising, and their fight is our fight. Their actions carry the echoes of a movement that stood firm in the face of oppression more than a century ago—the Suffragettes. Today, we draw parallels between these trailblazers and the Just Stop Oil protestors, not to dilute the significance of either struggle but to highlight the enduring power of civil disobedience in the quest for justice.