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The concept of marketisation must have seemed a good idea to someone at some point. It’s a shame that it has fallen to higher education to prove the idiocy of capitalism. 

Education is not a commodity to be thrown to the winds of market forces, it is a basic right and should be properly funded and supported. 

For our eighth reading group we will continue reading Queering Anarchism, an anthology of essays. From the blurb:

A former employee of popular burger chain Almost Famous protested outside a partner restaurant in Manchester after his no-notice redundancy left him without pay for a month. 

On January 27, Almost Famous made more than 110 employees redundant across their branches in Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool – with many only finding out about their redundancies via social media. Outside of the Northern Quarter’s burger spot Super Awesome Deluxe – which is run by the Almost Famous team – members of Solidarity Federation Hospitality Workers’ Union handed out flyers to bring light to the recent struggles of the chain’s redundant workers. 

Our friends over at Freedom Press, who host the reading group, are having a book launch tomorrow, February the 13th, for Physical Resistance, a 100-year history of grass roots anti-fascism in Britain. Physical resistance covers the fight of the International Brigades in Spain to the Battle of Cable Street and the defence of Southall, and locates these large-scale events alongside forgotten episodes of everyday resistance, collecting voices from across the movement to highlight the ways racism was faced down in communities nationwide.

On January 27th, over 110 employees at restaurant chain Almost Famous (Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool) were made redundant, tossed aside with zero consultation or notice. The owners were quick to inform the media but some staff only found out via social media. Redundancy without notice is illegal. The owners of Almost Famous knew at least a fortnight beforehand about the pending insolvency, but kept staff in the dark, and monthly paid staff effectively worked for nothing in January. Rather than getting outstanding wages and holidays, staff were told to apply via an external company and the Government’s Redundancy Payment Services. The owners didn’t even bother to submit the details needed for staff to begin a claim.

For our seventh reading group we will be reading Queering Anarchsim, an anthology of essays. From the blurb:

For our sixth reading group we are changing venue. From now on we will be meeting at Freedom Bookshop, 84b Whitechapel High St, London E1 7QX. We will still be holding a reading group on the last Tuesday of the month (28th of January) at 7pm until 9pm.

Arranging a new venue has meant that the call out for this reading group is going out later than usual, so we have decided to read a much shorter work than usual; What is Social Ecology? by Murray Bookchin. Bookchin’s ideas have been influential on the ongoing revolution in Northern Syria, and are increasingly relevant in a world that is facing a climate catastrophe.

A free version of What is Social Ecology? can by found on the anarchist library here and even if you have not finished the essay, feel welcome to come and get involved in the discussion.

We will be holding an open meeting at the London Action Resource Centre (LARC), 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES on Saturday the 25th of January. This meeting will be from 4pm to 6pm, and is open who wants to build an independent and anti-authoritarian union in the workplace or community to resist state and capital.

As I write this, bar a miracle, Donald Trump looks set to win the 2024 US election. With this shock victory, many people are despairing at the situation in America, and rightfully fearful for what is to come. However, some observing from other western democracies will seek solace in the idea that America is somehow abnormal among nation states, and that a Trump could not rise in their home country. In the UK, we have recently ejected a grasping, corrupt, and useless Tory government that was leading the country down the same path as America is headed down now, and many British people might feel hopeful that we have managed to avoid our own slide into fascism.

Do you want to organise in your workplace? Do you want help others organise? Do you want to form a solidarity network to fight dodgy landlords and grasping bosses? Do you want to do some grenade organising and flyer random workplaces or blocks of flats just to see what happens? Do you want to do all that along anarchist principals and not get bogged down in union bureaucracy or derailed by party political wrangling? Well, North London Solidarity Federation wants to do those things to, and we will be holding an open meeting at London Action Resource Centre, 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES, from 2pm to 4pm, on Saturday the 23rd of November, with the aim of getting some of those projects going in London.