anti capitalist musings

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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.

Hand-painted protest signs displayed against a neutral background. One sign on brown cardboard reads “THEY SAY CUT BACK WE SAY FIGHT BACK” in bold black letters. Another, on black card, reads “NO CUTS TO PIP!” in large white letters. A third sign, painted blue and white, says “WELFARE NOT WARFARE,” with the word “NOT” inside a red prohibition circle. The style is bold, rough-edged, and defiant, evoking a DIY protest aesthetic.

Under Siege: Labour’s Crisis of Vision

Labour won power by promising stability, but what it offers now is paralysis. It has no strategy to counter Farage, no defence against a Tory right fightback, and no imagination to confront the ecological and economic shocks coming fast over the horizon. While Reform sets the agenda and the left reorganises, Starmer retreats into technocratic caution. The government is not leading Britain—it’s managing decline, and doing it badly. Unless Labour finds the courage to confront the forces tearing the country apart, it risks becoming the caretaker of its own collapse.

A Union Jack ballot box in which a hand is placing a voting card inside - below it says "Don't be fooled again"

Farage: The Enemy Within

Some might be fooled by the swivel-eyed sermons about “free speech” or “common sense.” But Farage is no friend of workers. His party would criminalise strikes, deregulate labour protections, and deport those without paperwork faster than you can say “hostile environment.” The deeper appeal comes not from anything tangible, but from the thrill of performative cruelty.

A moody, industrial scene of the British Steel Scunthorpe plant at dusk. One blast furnace is glowing with fire, while the rest of the plant looks dark, half-abandoned. In the background, a faint red flag is reflected in a puddle, blending with a Union Jack and a faded Stars and Stripes—symbolising global capital entanglement. Grey skies overhead, with a faint hint of smoke.

The Furnace and the Flag

We’re not charting a path to industrial autonomy but rebranding our submission to market forces, only this time with China as scapegoat and Trump’s America waiting in the wings.