Friends of Freedom Press: Next Meeting

THE next meeting of the Friends of Freedom Press (FFP) will either be next Monday the 15th, August, or the following Monday, the 22nd, August.  At the last meeting the new Friend, Carolyn Wilson, was hauled over the coals by another 'Friend' because she apparently misunderstood the purpose of the Friends of Freedom board.
For some time the so-called Collective has had the wrong idea that the Friends of Freedom were there to raise money for the benefit of the Freedom Bookshop boss, Andy Meinke, Simon Saunders and his other mates in the Collective 'Hangout'.  Ms. Wilson is a new girl on the block and does not yet grasp the ropes.  She is in fact the replacement 'Friend' for Richard Parry, who was removed after the Advisory Service for Squatters (ASS) now based at the Freedom Press building, complained that he had a 'conflict of interest':  Mr. Parry is representing the ASS at the Pitchford Enquiry.  Ms. Wilson is also represented at the Enquiry by Mike Schwarz from Bindmans solicitors:  she is categorised as a 'Social and environmental activist' with 'Reclaim the Streets'.
Despite his exclusion it seems that Mr. Parry actually nominated Ms. Wilson for his place on the Friends of Freedom Press.  Meanwhile, the Secretary of FFP Mr. Stephen Sorba nominated Jason Holdway who has some affiliation to the Solidarity Federation, an anarcho-syndicalist body.
Collective member, Simon Saunders, recorded Ms. Wilson's special performance in the attempt to exclude a participant at the Friends of Freedom Press AGM on Wednesday the 22nd, June, from presenting some proposals she, Mr. Andy Meinke and young Simon Saunders apparently disagreed with.

*************************

Annual Report of the Friends of Freedom Press

Editorial Note:

WE are happy to publish below the Annual Report of the Friends of Freedom Press for the last year, which was sent to Northern Voices yesterday.  This itself is something of an achievement because it clearly lays out the difficulties encountered by the 'Friends' in their management of the company over the last year. 
In the past things have been allowed to drift, and there are now considerable complications regarding the condition of the building structurally, and certain sociological dilemmas with regard to some of the occupants of the building.

******

The Friends of Freedom Press Annual Report for 2015-16:

THIS is the first year of the resurrected Friends of Freedom Press (FFP), and this report is intended to look back on what we have achieved in the last year.   

Firstly, we have met regularly and discussed the situation facing Freedom as a publisher, as a building and as something approaching a social centre. That situation remains stark -  the building is in a poor condition. The Friends own the building, the Collective occupy it and try to maintain it and there is not any money. The remit of the Friends, “to facilitate anarchist publishing” (Editor's emphasis), is very barely being continued. 

The issues as FFP see them are the lack of publishing, both a paper and books; the condition of the building (including fire certificates and lack of disabled access/toilets); and the inability to insure the building.  Richard (Parry), Donald (Rooum) and Ernest (Rodker) each paid £200 for a comprehensive survey of the building, from which came the figure of £50,000 for repairs. 

With this background, and the only asset available being the building, the Friends decided to see how much it might raise. While there was never any intention to sell it without consultation, poor communication compounded by wild rumours saw this attempt to move forward shut down by the building’s users and their allies in a meeting originally billed as a “social”. The buildings users’ agenda was one of defining the role of FFP as merely fundraisers, accusing FFP of being a stalking horse for Northern Voices and failing to consult. The last of these points is the only one we are prepared to concede. The meeting did not address whether it would be in Freedom’s best interests to stay or move and how any activities would be financed. 

There has been some talk that the purpose of the Memorandum of Association should be amended to change the purpose of the Friends to suit how the building is currently run. Legal advice appears to indicate this is not possible. This is one area that the Friends will need to address with the Collective in the coming year.  

We understand that the Collective has set up working groups to address both fundraising and the repairs required. We look forward to hearing more from both these initiatives. 

At this AGM, the three longest serving directors will be standing down, though they may stand for re-election. 

Finally, we would like to pay tribute to Sonia Markham, a Friend until ill health forced her to resign in 2015, who sadly died earlier this year.

(Annual Report presented to the Friends of Freedom Press AGM: 
22nd, June 2016)

PENSIONER ATTACKED at ANARCHIST HQ!

by Christopher Draper

This is the first of a two-part-update on the management of Freedom Press.

ON the 22^nd June 2016, a 75-year-old pensioner invited to address a small political meeting in London was dragged from the building by a couple of ruffians and deposited, bleeding on the pavement outside.  An accomplice egged on the bullies, snatched the pensioner’s mobile and outside on the pavement grabbed and rifled through the victim’s brief case, whilst he was restrained by his attackers.

After receiving medical attention the victim was advised to provide a comprehensive report of his assault to the Metropolitan Police.  I have a copy of that report before me and it identifies the assailants as Andy Meinke and Simon Saunders, who claim to be anarchists occupying the FREEDOM building in Whitechapel High Street.  This dramatic development demands an effective response from the body, “FRIENDS of FREEDOM PRESS” (FFP), which not only owns the building but is legally obliged to ensure it is properly used for the continued publication of FREEDOM journal.  Instead the self-proclaimed “FREEDOM COLLECTIVE (FC)” in occupation closed down the journal in 2014 with the triumphant declaration by Andy Meinke, “Kropotkin might have started it but we fucking finished it!”

This occupation of FREEDOM HQ is illegitimate.  The victim proposed a scheme to reclaim the building and restart publication so he was vindictively attacked and ejected by Saunders and Meinke.  I detailed the narrative background to this occupation at length elsewhere (“Who Killed FREEDOM?”) and here present an updated précis-analysis underlining the key roles of Meinke and Saunders.  This article concludes with the revival of FFP in June 2015.  Part two, “A YEAR IN THE DEATH of FREEDOM” (to be published here on August 1st,) will describe and analyse events at FREEDOM and FFP from June 2015 up to, and including, the violent assault of 22 June 2016.

 An Illegitimate Occupation

The FREEDOM building is owned by FFP, a legally constituted company with “Articles of Association (AoA)” and “Memorandum of Association (MoA)” registered at Companies House.  These documents commit the Friends of Freedom Press Board to 3 crucial legal obligations (nb my emphasis);

• FFP exists to facilitate, “the printing and publication of the anarchist journal FREEDOM and books, pamphlets and journals published by FREEDOM PRESS” (MoA 3(A)1)
• FFP owns “the Freehold premises at 84b Whitechapel High Street, London, E1 and the fixtures and fittings and machinery situated therein for the purposes of making the same available to FREEDOM Press for the printing, publishing and disseminating of the journal FREEDOM and other literature” (MoA 3(A)2)
• “In the event of FREEDOM PRESS ceasing to exist or for any reason being unable to continue the publication of FREEDOM and other anarchist literature, to assist financially and promote the publication of anarchist journals, books and pamphlets by such persons, firms or bodies as the Company shall approve of” (MoA 3(A)3)
  As the 'Freedom Collective' ('FC') are demonstrably not engaged in “the printing and publication of the anarchist journal FREEDOM” they have no legitimate reason to remain. The FFP Board is therefore obliged “to assist financially and promote the publication of anarchist journals, books and pamphlets by such persons, firms or bodies as the Company shall approve of”. As the building is the Board’s only asset it must therefore be sold to finance the resumption of publication of FREEDOM by persons deemed suitable by Friends of Freedom Press.  As I will demonstrate presently, FFP formally agree with both this analysis and the need for action.  I will explain in Part Two why this has not yet come to pass.
• The Aldgate Cuckoos
  The 'FC' have been allowed to get away with it for too long and have developed a misplaced sense of entitlement.  They NEVER believed in FREEDOM.  They only ever intended to exploit the legacy for their own ends.  Despite claiming allegiance to anarchism the 'Freedom Collective' have little understanding, appreciation or respect for the long-established ethics and values of FREEDOM.  In so far as they represent any form of anarchism it is a crude, self-proclaimed commitment to “class-struggle” and an alignment to the moribund “BLACK FLAG” politics of Albert Meltzer. Both Saunders and Meinke, claim allegiance to BLACK FLAG and exploited their base at FREEDOM to republish BLACK FLAG magazine.
  Whilst FREEDOM promoted tolerant, civilised, constructive open-minded anarchism, BLACK FLAG (as a faction and magazine) celebrated confrontation and destruction, dismissing critics with insults and intolerance. FREEDOM’s Aldgate HQ was bought half-a-century ago by veteran anarchist Vernon Richards to provide a publishing home for FREEDOM journal (founded 1886 by Peter Kropotkin and associates). Throughout much of his life Vernon Richards and FREEDOM were reviled by Meltzer and BLACK FLAG.  The Friends of Freedom Press Board Member and Socialist Historian, David Goodway, in his “Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow”, outlined Meltzer’s BLACK FLAG approach, he “romanticised anarchist violence, imagined the existence of a significant historic anarchist working-class movement in the British Isles and altogether indulged in much fantasy.”
  Despite his prejudices, it was typical of FREEDOM’s inclusive politics that Meltzer was invited to contribute an article to the journal’s commemorative centenary edition. Instead Meltzer devoted a special BLACK FLAG supplement, “LIARS AND LIBERALS – THE OTHER ANARCHISM” to trashing the FREEDOM tradition.  FREEDOM stalwart, Nicolas Walter maintained that, “In a sense, anarchists always remain liberals and socialists, and whenever they reject what is good, in either they betray anarchism itself.”  Meltzer and BLACK FLAG derided liberal values and Saunders and Meinke energetically maintain that tradition.  In 2006, Saunders as newly arrived FREEDOM editor, belittled stalwarts of the Vernon Richards era as, “reeking of allotments, of forgetting class, of irrelevance and reformism”, whilst Meinke arrogantly dismissed Vero as “someone of a rather liberal bent”.
  In 2007, a relaunched BLACK FLAG announced; “BLACK FLAG has returned…we are working closely with the editors of FREEDOM…Now we are sure that is something that Albert Meltzer would never have expected”!
  In the Summer 2009, BLACK FLAG exemplifies just how closely Black Flag was working with the Freedom Collective as it featured a lengthy interview with Andy Meinke written by Simon Saunders (under the guise of “Rob Ray”).  Despite exploiting FREEDOM’s assets the 'Freedom Collective' ultimately achieved no more success with BLACK FLAG than they have with FREEDOM.
  Meinke and Saunders aren’t alone in their quest to eradicate all trace of liberal, open-mindedness from FREEDOM.  In January 1985, class-war warrior Nick Heath, then proclaiming Libertarian Communism, now leading the misleadingly named “Anarchist Federation (AF)”, wrote to FREEDOM rejecting its liberal editorial policy: “Why devote so much space to right-wing libertarians and anarcho-capitalists… I’m sure most of the readership…don’t want to read such trash”.  As Donald Rooum observed in an email to me of 6.3.2015:  “Nick Heath wanted the paper to stick to an anarchist communist workerist line, while the editors, when I was one of them, wanted the paper to be open to genuine anarchists of other persuasions and to arguments against anarchism.”   Rooum helpfully contrasts the open forum tradition of FREEDOM with the narrow “class-struggle”, party-line politics favoured by both Heath and Meltzer.  Rejecting the option of arguing out his opinions in FREEDOM, as Rooum explains, Heath, like Meltzer before him, “went off to found a paper and an organised group more to his liking.”  Rooum here, as elsewhere, is being disingenuous, for Heath and the “workerist…organised group more to his liking” is now headquartered alongside BLACK FLAGGERS Meinke and Saunders at FREEDOM HQ!  With no suggestion of a Damascene conversion it’s evident that FREEDOM HQ is now occupied by individuals opposed to the politics it was bought to promote. 
• Regime Change
  To be fair to the class-war warriors, they didn’t force their way in.  They sneaked in through a gap opened up by Donald Rooum.  I’ve described elsewhere (“Who Killed FREEDOM?”)   how Rooum shoved out both FREEDOM’s existing editor and bookshop manager as Vernon Richards relaxed oversight and died (2002).  For the key role of FREEDOM editor Rooum imported a Marxist former General Secretary of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.  Rooum claims it was a modernising move designed to save money and spruce up the paper.  I agreed the paper needed a facelift but argued at the time that the unique politics of FREEDOM were being destroyed.  Slogans and depictions of petrol-bomb-throwing predominated and thoughtful analysis of alternative ways of organising society were rejected. Where eminent sociologists Laurie Taylor and Jock Young once offered insightful social analysis we now had an editor content to describe society as, “the fucking steaming pile of horseshit we live in”. Thus was established “New FREEDOM’s” literary house-style.
  The innovation of a “WHAT WE SAY” editorial column would have been risible were it not so ominously indicative of the arrival of authoritarian, sub-Marxist group-think. My correspondence with “New FREEDOM” charts the immediate and profound consequences of this regime change. Spurning Nick Walter’s advice, after 2001 FREEDOM not only rejected what is good in liberalism, it positively spat in its face.
  Lest sceptics fear I exaggerate, I offer a couple of observations of bookshop manager Meinke who relishes the change and welcomes the, “shift in the people attracted to FREEDOM.  Until 2002 it was virtually owned by someone who was of a rather liberal bent and that has shifted”. Meinke recognises the opportunistic nature of the takeover: “When Vernon Richards died he handed FREEDOM over to the movement on a plate but it was too surprised to notice. It was comrades coming out of the anarchist youth network who saw the opportunity with the paper and reclaimed it for class struggle.”
  From the outset, editors, in their own words, “enforced a strict class-first line”.  The unique FREEDOM ecosystem was shredded.  Meinke’s fellow assailant, Simon Saunders, admits the new regime, “broke with much of the old support network…severely weakened the structure of the paper…readers have been alienated, writers have stormed out”.
   The New Regime in Action
  The new regime systematically alienated FREEDOM’s readers, writers and subscribers. There’s some truth in the FC’s claim that the FREEDOM journal became unviable but they were the cause.  Inappropriate policies pursued by incompetent individuals.  When Saunders assumed editorship in 2005, he boasted of his ignorance of anarchism so why on earth was he gifted such responsibility?  The answer is helpfully supplied by Meinke:  "Within the FREEDOM Collective only a small minority were involved in producing the paper, not so much lack of commitment as not seeing it as central to what FREEDOM as a building was for”!  (nb This amounts to a total negation of the Friends of Freedom Press’s legal obligations)
• Originally the Freedom Collective agreed to publish “Anarchists in Social Work” produced by FREEDOM traditionalist, Martin Gilbert, but then “lost the manuscript” so Gilbert, had it successfully published elsewhere.  When I sent a review of the book to FREEDOM, editor Simon Saunders eventually admitted, “The review was then lost, found, lost again, re-found and finally disappeared altogether.”
• Perhaps Saunder’s incompetence rather than censorship was to blame but after elderly anarchist Barry Woodling was bundled out of Manchester Anarchist Bookfair in 2012, the FC simply refused to publish a letter signed by over 150 anarchists and socialists deploring this action. Although Donald Rooum revealed that the editor had received “threats” from Nick Heath he in any case justified the censorship by claiming “Any fracas within the movement should stay within the movement”.  It is just such collusion with censorship, bans, intimidation and violence that provides carte blanche for this most recent assault.  
  After publishing a very un-FREEDOM celebration of political violence entitled, “Beating the Fascists”, Andy Meinke had to hand £4000 of FREEDOM’s money to David Hoffman, a press photographer whose pictures had been stolen and printed without permission.  Hoffman said he would have settled for less but, “From the start Meinke refused to accept any need to apologise, let alone negotiate.  He didn’t actually say 'Fuck off, we don’t give a toss and there’s nothing you can do because we’re holy anarchists and can beat the shit out of you' but that was the subtext.”
  At that point Meinke & Co hadn’t yet entirely burnt through the last of a £70,000 legacy bequeathed by an old-school FREEDOM anarchist.  That went after Meinke forgot to renew the Buildings Insurance before the 2012 fire.
  Abusing and intimidating critics is de rigeur at FREEDOM.  Revolted by the FC’s continued, crude celebration of profanity and violence, in 2010, Ian Pirie, who had subscribed for 30 years (and his father before him) wrote, in sadness and disgust, to cancel, questioning, “What has this thuggery got to do with anarchism?...I will continue to do my best to propagate the positive and constructive aspects of anarchist politics where we I can. But FREEDOM is no longer any help in doing this.”  FREEDOM responded with a diatribe delivered by “Gawain the cunt Williams” (his self-chosen moniker) that concluded:  “Finally, Mr Pirie, maybe you should realise that if the word cunt offends you so much it might be because you are in fact…a cunt. FREEDOM’s been doing a cracking job.”
• Donald Rooum popped up again at this point to defend “Gawain the Cunt” and accuse Pirie “of yielding to prudery…and sliding into intellectual snobbery”.  No one would accuse Meinke of prudery after reading his “Bookfair Song” (FREEDOM 24.10.2009);
   “Cos our scene is not a playground,
  For wankers to hang out,
  And pose at revolution,
  Whilst fucking us about”
  (plus 4 more similar verses and chorus)
  The failure to publish FREEDOM is sufficient ground to prove the illegitimacy of the FC, but for more than a decade successive, self-appointed “Collectives” revelled in their rejection of both the ideology and ethics of FREEDOM.  In their behaviour and propaganda they dance on the graves of FREEDOM stalwarts Vernon Richards, Colin Ward, Nicolas Walter, Philip Sansom whose legacy they so shamelessly exploit.
  A Sleeping Giant?
  For a decade or so decent anarchists hoped FREEDOM would reform but it proved impossible to shift the London clique from afar. Determined not to allow the FREEDOM heritage to be extirpated, in 2012, after collecting opinions and information from comrades around the country I initiated a campaign to reclaim the legacy (see “Who Killed FREEDOM?”).  As it was evident that FC was beyond redemption our immediate goal was to revive the FFP Board.  Originally constituted by Vernon Richards to hold FREEDOM assets and maintain publication, the Friends of Freedom Press Board retains full legal powers to liquidate the assets and resume publication.  The problem was that although FFP existed on paper it hadn’t convened for years and in recent times its Secretary had improperly conducted its affairs.  Could I shame the few surviving members to reconstitute the Board on a proper, legal basis and then encourage the Friends of Freedom Press to take action against the illegitimate occupants?
  Victory for Common Sense!
  The Freedom Collective was incensed as the light of publicity was shone upon its shameful activities.  The rabble couldn’t decide when to respond and when to keep quiet and the ill-judged outbursts of Saunders and Meinke encouraged anarchists around the country to provide us with further information and encouragement.  Having initially improperly insisted our nominated candidates for Board Membership, Peace Campaigner Ernest Rodker and Socialist Historian David Goodway, first gain the approval of the 'FC', the FFP Secretary realised the error of his ways. Following further intellectual jousting with an improperly appointed Board Member, sanity prevailed and the FFP finally reconstituted itself on June 24^th 2015 to include Ernest and David our two nominated candidates.
  In proposing Goodway and Rodker we didn’t ask them to do anything other than act in accordance with their Friends of Freedom Press legal obligations to revive FREEDOM. Significantly, one of the FC’s favoured candidates was none other than “Gawain the cunt Williams”. When Gawain’s candidature was rejected by the Board and the full list of appointments revealed it appeared a “Victory for Common Sense”.  The confirmed new Friends of Freedom Press Board consisted of the following 9 members;

• Jayne Clementson – graphic artist, long-time layout artist for Freedom Press
• David Goodway – historian, author and admirer of the anarchism of Colin Ward
• Martin Howard - Solfed member, writer of “Svartfrost” column in Freedom
• Sonia Markham – anarchist, retire TV make-up artist and daughter of founding FFP member, pioneering feminist-anarchist and children’s author Olive Dehn
• Richard Parry – solicitor and author of “The Bonnot Gang”
• Martin Peacock – founder of the London Anarchist Bookfair
• Ernest Rodker – veteran peace campaigner
• Stephen Charles Sorba – FFP Company Secretary, printer with Aldgate Press
• Donald Rooum – Stirnerite anarchist and cartoonist

 A Prospect of FREEDOM?

It was impossible to predict how this new cookie would crumble.  First the Friends of Freedom Press had to apprise and agree an analysis of the Aldgate occupation.  We trusted that the facts would speak for themselves, and that any fair-minded observer would recognise the accuracy of our analysis.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t be entirely sure whether the personal and political allegiances of each and every Board Member would not interfere with their rational assessment of the behaviour of the 'FC'.

Even if FFP agreed that there was no proper publishing going on at FREEDOM would FFP have the courage to act appropriately?  Would the FFP Board survive intact the predictable slings and arrows the 'FC' would likely employ to resist eviction?

We felt the FFP deserved a decent opportunity to build up mutual trust and offered to abstain from publishing a blow-by-blow commentary BUT promised that at the end of the Friends of Freedom Press’s first year we would publish a comprehensive analysis of both the 'FC' and FFP's recent activites.  This will be published under the title, “A Year in the Death of FREEDOM” on this site on August 1^st 2016.

Christopher Draper (Llandudno)

13.8.2016

Whistle-blower Breaks Silence on Freedom!

by antigr0up on 18/06/16:

'A tenant acting as proxy for Andy's (Meike's) machinations (who pay little or nothing to Freedom) have sickened Richard Parry from staying? A pyrrhic victory. *slow hand clap* Unless Freedom can establish a viable financial plan Freedom will either fold or be forced to move to smaller premises within two or three years -which means the tenants are fucked. What's more the Freedom collective and their tenants have only themselves to blame. on FREEDOM - 'A Mausoleum'!'

Editor's Reply:

Yesterday, I was told that a couple of months ago buyer for 84B, Whitechapel High Street, had been round to the Freedom Bookshop to view the Freedom premises, and had been turned away by someone in the Bookshop.  Could it have been the Laughing Policeman?  If so, it has serious implications for everyone involved.  It would seem that the tenants are on a dodgy wicket here with the shakey situation over the rents (paid or unpaid), and even the Friends seem to have been asleep on the job.  Increasingly, it is looking like there could be tears before midnight unless the Friends clean-up their act and apply themselves to the task of carrying out what is required of them in the Articles of Association.  That is the simply reasoning behind the program of Our Friends in the North. 

FREEDOM - 'A Mausoleum'!

by antigr0up:

JUDGING from everything written so far the collective seem to have lost any sense of perspective. Now Andy and Adam are deploying flimsy, baseless claims towards those who are understandably calling to question the collective's chronic negligences. 

Word is the shop struggles to get five customers on any given day.  By that measure Freedom is more of mausoleum than anything else. It certainly feels like one, but only more miserable.

Five customers a day won't even pay staff wages never mind any of the other bills.  The place must be losing money every week.  Considering this situation has been allowed to operate like this over years it can only mean Freedom must be eating into the last of their financial reserves.  Put this into context:

- The shop is losing money.

- The collective let out spare space upstairs to groups who are unable to pay rent.

- The collective seem incapable of carrying out the basic requirements of any form of book shop, never mind the compulsory condition of doing a on 'Andy Meinke upholds the honour of Freedom!'

 NV Editor: 
ONLY this week we have been told that it is Donald Rooum - the cartoonist - a former member of the Collective himself and now a Friend of Freedom Press, who is bailing out the Freedom Collective to produce the Freedom free-sheets, and that he recently covered them for a debt that they had run-up. 


It may be of some interest that Donald was never made a Friend, while Vernon Richards was around.  Donald will be one of those Friends who as required by the constitution (Memorandum of Association) to stand-down at next week's Annual & General Meeting of the Friends. 


Richard Parry, the solicitor, is another Friend who is having to stand-down, but in this case it would seem that pressure has been applied behind the scenes by one of the insurgent 'tenant groups'.  Mr. Parry, it would seem, has put up some of the backs of those associated with Andy Meinke and the Collective, and they have used some underhand strategy to oust him.  It would seem that Mr. Parry has been doing too good a job for the likes of Mr. Meinke and his 'hangers-on' who enjoy his company.

Friends of Freedom Press: Life & Death?

WHEN in 1979 the Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP) exposed the abuse of boys by Cyril Smith at Cambridge House in Rochdale the only national publication to take the story up was Private Eye.  It was then widely known among national journalists and media outlets that Cyril Smith had abused his powers, but apart from Private Eye there was silence in the rest of the media.  Similarly, when Chris Draper did his forensic study entitled 'Who Killed Freedom: an unauthorised history'  on the NV Blog earlier this year, except for some rather corny anonymous comments there was a strange silence among the official anarchist media.  Ironically again it has been left to Private Eye to follow up and report on the goings on at Freedom Press in Angel Alley, next to Whitechapel Art Gallery in East London.   

The Freedom Website has significantly not commented on Chris Draper's diagnosis and has not covered any of serious developments regarding the meetings of the Friends of Freedom (FFP), the trustees and owners of the Freedom building, that have taken place as a consequence.  The current issue of Private Eye reports that FFP 'will meet in London' today to take some action to remedy the situation at Freedom.   

The crisis at Freedom, I suspect, is really the tip of an iceberg in not only the so-called anarchist movement, but on the British left in general.  The inability to debate and discuss difficult and inconvenient facts is widespread.  For example the historian, David Goodway, wrote a very shallow historical postscript after the demise of Freedom newspaper last year.  It all suggests an intellectual and moral bankruptcy on the British political left. 

Friends of Freedom, like the solicitor, Richard Parry, the historian, David Goodway, and the others in attendance, must today at 2 o'Clock begin to address the practical questions of what to do about the unruly Freedom Collective that closed down the newspaper last year and are discrediting anarchist politics. 

Who Killed FREEDOM? – update 4 – August 2015

REGULAR readers will recall this series began as an analytical report on the destruction of FREEDOM, the world’s oldest radical newspaper. Further investigation revealed that the Board of Trustees (FFP) legally responsible for safeguarding the newspaper was as seriously dysfunctional as the FREEDOM collective.

Our immediate fear was that having closed down the paper in 2014, the collective would sell off the FREEDOM PRESS building and walk away with a million pounds to use as they wished.  Unless we could quickly reactivate FFP there was nothing to stop them and they were already discussing the idea.

UPDATE THREE briefly outlined the decline of Friends of Freedom Press (FFP) and reported our successful campaign to have it re-constituted.  As our ultimate aim was always to restore intellectual, ethical and political integrity to a re-launched FREEDOM newspaper we chose not to emphasise individual responsibility for the fiasco of FFP.  On 24th June 2015, the first meeting of the newly reconstituted FFP recognised that without the Northern Voices' campaign FFP would have languished.  However, Richard Parry, one of the individuals involved now rejects that view, claiming, 'If anyone was pushing to get FFP working it was me!'

Parry challenges our account and accuses Northern Voices of inaccurate reporting so we will now analyse his response. (To minimise blame and antagonism we identify individuals only where essential and apologise in advance for necessarily tedious detail).

1.             As a qualified solicitor, Mr Richard Vyvyan Tristram Parry, of R P Legal Consulting Ltd knows the procedure that must be followed to be appointed as a Director to the Board of a legally constituted Company registered at Companies House is a formal process, prescribed by relevant sections of that Company’s “Articles of Association”.

2.             To be appointed a Director of 'The Friends of Freedom Press Ltd' (FFP) is a process prescribed by section 43 of FFP’s Articles of Association, to be specific:

'No person other than a director retiring at the meeting shall unless recommended by the directors be eligible for election to the office of director at any general meeting unless, not less than three nor more than twenty-one days before the date appointed for the meeting, there shall have been left at the registered office of the Company notice in writing, signed by a member duly qualified to attend and vote at the meeting for which such notice is given, of his intention to propose such person for election, and also notice in writing signed by that person of his willingness to be elected.'

 3.             To be appointed a Director of FFP Parry would first have had to be formally proposed in writing by a serving Director.  He would himself have to sign that proposal form which had then to be left at FFP’s registered office, within that prescribed 3 to 21 day window. That time scale was specified to ensure all Directors received due notice to attend the relevant meeting.  At the due meeting a quorum had to be met and a minute book maintained.  Parry maintains, 'If there was any impropriety in my election as a 4th Director it was in the failure to tell me about it'. Extraordinary, it would clearly be impossible for anyone to be properly nominated, let alone elected in accordance with Section 43 and yet remain ignorant of the fact.

4.             When Mr Parry’s name was forwarded to Companies House in February 2012 he had not been properly appointed and wasn’t even aware his name was registered until I informed him so in an email six months ago.  In his email reply he expressed genuine surprise yet he now pretends all was well except nobody told him that he’d been “elected”.

5.             In fact, there was no election in 2012 to ratify his 'nomination'.  As we noted previously, there were then only three registered Directors and as recently as six months ago, two of them confirmed that they had no knowledge whatsoever of the appointment of a Mr Richard Parry.

6.             Parry’s name was improperly registered, the other Directors know it and so does he. As we sought a positive outcome I wrote to him 'in a private capacity' to offer him an opportunity to quietly withdraw his claim (of 3.3.201) to represent a Board of which he was not even a member, without publicly losing face.  Regrettably he preferred to raise the stakes and sent the letter on to the FREEDOM collective (see previous post for Mr Meinke’s role).  If the rest of the Board had allowed this flagrant abrogation of their proper responsibilities to continue we would indeed have had no option but to alert Companies House to prevent the subsequent disposal of FREEDOM’s assets.  Fortunately wiser counsel prevailed.

7.             Parry, similarly, insisted we redirect any nomination of Dr David Goodway for Board membership to the FREEDOM collective for prior approval (hardly a requirement of section 43). Where we wanted FFP to get a proper grip on the aberrant activities of the collective, Parry tried to engineer precisely the opposite result.

8.             Just as the FREEDOM collective refused to recognise its dysfunctionality until the newspaper finally collapsed, Parry would have Northern Voices' readers believe only trivial problems existed at FFP and these were already in the process of being resolved by application of his own efforts and expertise.  The truth is rather different.

9.             FFP was utterly dysfunctional. AGM’s are mandatory but hadn’t been held for years.  Proper minutes didn’t exist and when one Director, in March 2015, repeatedly asked the Company Secretary for a copy of the FFP Articles of Association (AA) they were not forthcoming. Parry claims AA can be obtained from Companies House, as indeed they can, but members of functioning groups should not be required to apply to external bodies (in this case NV) for copies of their own rulebook.

10.           When Parry disingenuously wrote to me on 3rd March 2015 'in my capacity as a Director of FFP' he did so without the prior knowledge or approval of the longest serving member of the FFP Board, yet he infers his action was legitimate because he subsequently sent her a copy of the letter.

11.           Parry had no need, or indeed proper reason, to 'track down' any of the three legitimate Directors as he claims, for every Company Secretary is obliged to maintain an up-to-date contact list of Directors. If any tracking down was required, it was the Company Secretary’s responsibility. In fact, we communicated with all three legitimate Directors without difficulty.

12.           Following our intervention, Parry belatedly realised he could only hope to regularise his position if the three legitimate Directors met and agreed a way forward. We were happy to accept a Board that included Parry if the nominations of David Goodway, Ernest Rodker and similarly respected candidates were also given proper consideration.  That general strategy was agreed at the 30th March 2015, FFP meeting and a reconstituted Board of ten Directors was subsequently formed on 24th June 2015. As we previously reported, 'A victory for common sense'.

13.           In Update Three we employed the term 'rumbled' advisedly.  When faced with wrongdoing, as anarchists we always try to first positively appeal to people’s common humanity, if that doesn’t work we point out the negative aspects of exposure, if the culprits remain obdurate we are left with no alternative but to reveal the seamy side of individual behaviour.  We identified the dire state of FFP, appealed for positive change and deliberately kept our power dry to allow sufficient opportunity for FFP with the help of others to reconstruct itself.  At every stage Parry spurned our efforts to quietly reform the moribund Board and insisted on antagonism.  Even now, he appears to reject the Board’s judgement that the discomfiture of our campaign was the prime mover in reconstituting FFP.  We never sought to pillory individuals, not even Mr Parry, but neither were we prepared to remain silent and collaborate in the destruction of the FREEDOM heritage that took anarchists a century to establish.

14.           It is ironic that Richard Parry criticises NV reporting as more than one correspondent observed that only on the Northern Voices website can anyone discover what’s going on at FREEDOM.   Neither Mr Parry nor his friends in the collective have reported a word about developments at FFP but we are happy to host Mr Parry’s response and continue to carry his critique alongside our own account so readers can judge the facts for themselves.

15.           Even at this late stage, Richard Parry might yet reach down deep into his psyche and locate that light-hearted humanity that once prompted him to creatively contribute to “XTRA!”, one of the wittiest anarchist magazines ever produced.  Perhaps Richard, in his newly legitimated role, might now concentrate on restoring intellectual and ethical standards to FREEDOM which in October 2014 celebrated the newspaper’s demise with a final issue bearing the inappropriately triumphalist words of collective member, Andrew Meinke;

'Kropotkin might have started it, but we fucking finished it!'

Christopher Draper, Llandudno (August 2015)

 

Freedom: A Managerial Mystery Story

ANDY Meinke merely adds to the mystery behind the 'election' of Richard Parry as a director to the Friends of Freedom Press Board (FFP).  The Articles of Association of FFP clearly state that a new Director must be elected after an existing director has given notice 'of his intention to propose such a person for election, and also notice in writing signed by that person (in this case Richard Parry) of his willingness to be elected'.  Now Richard by his own admission didn't know he had been elected, and until now only FFP Company Secretary, Steven Sorba, seemed to have been aware that Richard had been registered with Companies House on the 20^th, February 2012 as a director of Friends of Freedom Press. 

 

That was the position as it was understood until this week, but now Andy Meinke has intervened to write that it was he and the Freedom Collective that 'recommended' Richard Parry to the 'then directors' when the 'Freedom Collective had a meeting in 2011 and suggested some people and Richard responded'.  Andy doesn't say to whom on the FFP Board he and / or the Collective 'recommended' the name of Mr.Parry, but I suppose it would be reasonable to assume that it was to Company Secretary Sorba.  Neither of the other two directors, Donald Rooum or Sonia Markham, seem to have had any knowledge of the existence of Richard as a director when asked in 2014.

 

The problem here is that the FFP Company Secretary, Mr. Stephen Charles Sorba (appointed to FFP Board on 22^nd, April 2002), is not just the only director to be aware that Richard Parry was registered as a director with Companies House, it is Mr. Sorba, who as manager of Algate Press, had the expense of printing Freedom newspaper for free and therefore benefited when it closed down.  I suppose this is what is called a conflict of interest.

 

Meanwhile, people are asking what does Andy Meinke, and the Freedom Collective do in Angel Alley, now that Freedom newspaper no longer exists.  Andy himself has described the premises as an 'anarcho-hangout' - a kind of gang-hut for a Whitechapple elite who claim to represent the 'anarchist movement'.  I can't think that this is something that either Peter Kropotkin or Vernon Richards would have welcomed.

Response to Andy Meinke from Jennifer Welsh

THE post by Andy Meinke raises many more issues than it attempts – unconvincingly – to answer, and I should like to examine them in four stages.


First, Andy Meinke claims that ‘Richard [Parry] was appointed as a director of Friends of Freedom Press (FFP) for the simple reason that the Freedom Collective recommended him to the then directors.’  However, the reason isn’t simple because it begs four questions:
1.  By what right did the Collective make the recommendation? 
2.  Who were the members of the Collective at the time? 
3.   Did the members of the Collective exert undue influence over the Friends of Freedom Press, who as I understand it, should be separate from and independent of the Collective? 
4.  Do the members of the Collective have any answerability to the Friends of Freedom Press, who own the building in which the members are based?


Second, Andy Meinke goes on to say, insultingly, ‘The clue is in the first word, “friends”.’  The members of the Collective appears to have decided that the Friends of Freedom Press have all the financial responsibility, including paying to support the unreported, and hence unknown activities of the members, while having no say in what the members do!  However, the Friends of Freedom Press ‘own the building in trust for the good of the Anarchist Movement as a whole.’  What is the ‘Anarchist Movement’?  How would I contact it?  When I Google the phrase I find a Facebook page of gargantuan unpleasantness, which, thankfully has been inactive since 2011.  So where is the ‘Anarchist Movement’, apart from its existence in the land of wishful thinking? 


Third, Andy Meinke makes the point that the building ‘needs to be protected against any attempted takeover.’  Given that the newspaper folded because it lost so many readers, who would want to take over the building?  Surely not the members of the Collective?  Yet the Friends of Freedom Press are excluded from the decision-making of the members of the Collective but are supposed to put their hands in their pockets when they tell them to do so!  There is appalling hubris in the next statement, about the supposed commitment of the members of the Collective ‘to ensure the day to day activity of Freedom is controlled by those active in the anarchist movement today ….’  Will a member of the Collective tell us exactly how it ensures that ‘those active in the anarchist movement today’ are enabled to ‘control’ the day to day activities of ‘Freedom’ – whatever Freedom is now supposed to be?

Fourth, if you’re still reading this post, and you’re one of the Friends of Freedom Press, be aware that Andy Meinke emphasizes again that basically all you’ve got to do is to fund the members of the Collective in whatever they fancy doing.  After all, the members of the Collective are said to be ‘free from influence by those providing financial backing.’ 


This clear description of the role of the Friends of Freedom Press implies three components to the role: 
1.  Look after the building, i.e. give money
2.  Fund the members of the Collective, i.e. give money but don’t ask any questions 
3.  Take responsibility for whatever disaster the members of the Collective might produce, i.e. give money, ask no questions, but don’t expect any of them to be accountable for their actions.


It seems to me that the post by Andy Meinke should deeply concern not only the Friends of Freedom Press but also everyone committed to anarchism.   

Jennifer Welsh (July 2015)

Andy Meinke Speaks up for Freedom Collective

RICHARD (Parry) was appointed as a director of Friends of Freedom Press (FFP) for the simple reason that the Freedom Collective recommended him to the then directors.  New directors were needed after Harold (Sculthorpe) and Colin (Ward) died.  The  Freedom Collective had a meeting in 2011 and suggested some people and Richard responded.  The clue is in the first word, “friends”. The “Friends” are not the people responsible for how Freedom is run.  The “Friends” are people who want to financially support the work that Freedom does in all it's aspects (shop, building, publishing and news) but are no longer active in what the Collective does and who as a limited company own the building in trust for the good of the Anarchist Movement as a whole.  This is a really important safeguard.  The building is a great asset (£1.1 m at last valuation) and needs to be protected against any attempted takeover.  On the other hand the members of FFP are excluded from decision making in the Collective to ensure the day to day activity of Freedom is controlled by those active in the anarchist movement today and free from influence by those providing financial backing.

However Freedom Collective meetings (which are held on the first Monday of the month at the shop) are open to everyone in the movement- especially members of FFP.  That's been so for at least the seven years I've been involved.  If anyone had any problems with the decisions the Collective has taken over the years they can come and discuss them. 

Andy Meinke:  Freedom Collective (July 2015)

Freedom: A curious business!

RICHARD Parry writes:  

'If there was any impropriety in my election as a 4^th Director it was in the failure to tell me about it.'

 

That is an odd statement for a solicitor to make:  his appearance at Freedom was more like the Immaculate Conception, in which only the Company Secretary and God Almighty seemingly knew about it.   Last Autumn, I spoke on the telephone to Donald Rooum, another member of the 'Friends of Freedom', about Mr. Parry being a member of the 'Friends' and he was adamant that this could not be the case, saying that 'I'm sure Steve (Sorba, the Company Secretary) would have told me.'  Donald insisted that at that time there were only three 'Friends of Freedom'.  Given that Donald didn't know about Richard being a 'Friend', I should have thought that it would be more appropriate to say that Mr. Richard Parry was 'appointed', presumably by the the Company Secretary Mr. Steven Sorba, rather than 'elected' by the 'Friends of Freedom' as a whole.  Far from being a pedantic point this constitutional misrepresentation would merely seem to highlight, yet again, the curious way in which business has been conducted at Freedom in recent years.

Brian Bamford - July 2015.

Letter from Richard Parry of Freedom Press

I want to respond to this blog as a Friend of Freedom Press (FFP).  Firstly, the Articles and Memorandum of Association are public documents available on the Companies House website, they have never been hidden or secret.  Although AGMs are mandatory, the Articles provide that the “directors may meet together...as they see fit". There is no other provision for regular meetings but since our EGM on 30 March we have agreed we should meet at least quarterly.

Paragraph 8 of the blog misrepresents my letter of 3 March 2015; I said “If David Goodway and Peter Marshall wish to be involved in assisting Freedom Press please can you ask them to contact the Freedom Collective directly.”  This does not suggest the approval of the Collective; as you know David came to the AGM in June and was unanimously elected as a Director.  The blog says that Sonia Markham knew nothing of the letter of 3 March 2015 - and yet I sent it to her!  And she clearly knew nothing of Chris Draper’s letter to Steve Sorba of 20 February 2015.  I wrote to her:

“I have since spoken to Steve Sorba, the Company Secretary, and we have agreed that it might be a good idea to have a Director’s meeting to think about the future of the Friends and indeed of Freedom Press itself. Can you please let me know if you still want to be a Director and if so would you be interested in coming to a meeting at Freedom in the near future.” 

 I am pleased to say that Sonia responded positively and the criticism made by CD and Northern Voices was discussed by all 4 Directors at the EGM on 30 March 2015.  So if anyone was pushing to get FFP working it was me!

CD maintains that Sonia Markham was ‘the sole member to attempt to get a grip on the whole debacle’ - but in fact of course it was I who had tracked her down and spoken to Ernest Rodker, and encouraged them both to come to the meeting on 30 March. I also brought copies of the Articles and Memorandum to that meeting for everyone. Following my letter to Chris Draper, he had sent a letter to me, oddly ‘in a personal capacity’, dated 27 March 2015: 

'I look forward to receiving written notice from you acting in “your capacity as a Director of FFP” that the 3.3.2015 letter has been formally rescinded and by implication, assurance that all improprieties have been resolved. If I do not receive such a statement from you by 5pm on Friday 10th April 2015 I will have no alternative but to lay evidence of what appears series transgressions before the appropriate legal and regulatory authorities and other interested parties.' 

So much for his anarchism, I wonder what State agencies he had in mind?

If there was any impropriety in my election as a 4th Director it was in the failure to tell me about it. We reviewed all the procedures at the meeting on 30 March 2015. Nobody was ‘rumbled’, we all agreed to hold an AGM and elect more Directors. The Friends of Freedom Press is being rejuvenated and I am playing an active and positive part in this. We are all very pleased at the increase in the number of Directors and aware of the responsibilities we have.  We are also aware of the history of Freedom and want to be faithful to what Vernon Richards and others were trying to achieve in setting up the FFP. We also recognise the value of the Freedom Collective and the day to day users of the building who give it life. I hope we can all move forward productively and NV (Northern Voices) will report more accurately in the future.  As you know I have had no personal history with NV and have no animosity towards NV or any individual members.

Yours, Richard Parry.

Who Killed FREEDOM?: update 3: July 2015

A VICTORY FOR COMMON SENSE!

IN 2014, the world’s oldest radical newspaper, FREEDOM, ceased publication.  As N.V. explained previously, the rot set in back in 2001 when FREEDOM abandoned its traditional free-ranging, tolerant approach and enforced a 'class-first' political line.  In February 2015 (with help from NV comrades) I identified the culprits and causes in a detailed critique, 'Who Killed FREEDOM?' (available on this website).  If you’ve been following the thread you’ll know that whilst individual members of the FREEDOM collective offered intemperate insults, all refused our challenge to openly debate our analysis before an anarchist bookfair audience.

FREEDOM should never have sunk so low as responsibility for publication ultimately lies with its trustees, THE FRIENDS OF FREEDOM PRESS (FFP).  Sadly, as narrow-minded incompetents squandered a 10K annual subsidy, a 6K rental income, wasted 4K on copyright infringement and forgot to renew the insurance just before a fire caused extensive damage the supposed FRIENDS OF FREEDOM PRESS slept more soundly than Rip Van Winkle.  Then one day FFP were rudely awakened by 'WHO KILLED FREEDOM?' 

Although our original article lifted the lid on the death of the world’s oldest radical newspaper the FREEDOM collective blithely insisted the paper’s demise was inevitable, they were not to blame and we were making a fuss about nothing.  All the while FREEDOM’s so called FRIENDS did nothing.  Undeterred we continued to campaign for action, aware that the only hope of reviving FREEDOM was to breath life into FFP and we can now announce that our campaign has succeeded.  Despite determined efforts to bury their heads in the sand and ignore their responsibilities FRIENDS OF FREEDOM PRESS has been entirely reconstituted and will now meet regularly for the first time in forty years.  We rattled the cage and the apparently dead parrot sprang to life! 

We didn’t aim to 'capture' or control FFP but wanted the FRIENDS to address the dire state of FREEDOM.  Our original piece revealed Who Killed FREEDOM?  This update records how the FRIENDS were revived.

1. October 2014, end of FREEDOM after 128 years publication explained away by collective as unavoidable due to the combined effects of financial loss, the internet and the apathy of the anarchist movement.  Although FFP has ultimate responsibility for publication of FREEDOM it did not initiate, was not consulted nor even informed of the newspaper’s closure by the FREEDOM collective.  The collective was responsible for the collapse of the paper but in doing nothing FFP became complicit, the members of FFP slept on undisturbed.

2. In January 2015 'Who Killed FREEDOM' (published on this website) challenged the excuses offered by the FREEDOM collective and blamed the collapse of FREEDOM on the intolerance and incompetence of named individuals.  The essay concluded with a call to FFP 'to belatedly get a grip on the legacy, both intellectual and material handed down to us by anarchists who didn’t hide behind aliases or enforce their own narrow political creed.' 

3. With the cooperation of comrades around the UK we researched FFP and obtained copies of key FFP documents, including the 'Articles of Association' and 'Memorandum of Association' and compiled a comprehensive history of all appointments and resignations from the Board.

4. FFP was formally incorporated on 4th February 1982 with seven directors; Vernon Richards, Colin Ward, Philip Sansom,, Geoffrey Ostergaard, John Hewetson, Olive Markham and Mary Canipa.  The Board was the legal owner of all the assets of FREEDOM PRESS and the primary responsibility of Board Members was to facilitate and ensure the continued 'Printing and publication of the anarchist journal FREEDOM'.  The Memorandum of Association makes crystal clear that FFP is obliged to act; 'In the event of Freedom Press ceasing to exist or for any other reason being unable to continue the publication of FREEDOM…'

5. FFP owns a building worth a million pounds and as the FREEDOM collective formally ceased publishing the paper, then FFP had lots of possibilities available to continue production but doing nothing wasn’t an option.  Although obliged to meet regularly, keep written minutes and formally approve resignations and new members, FFP had become as dysfunctional as the FREEDOM collective.  By 2014 it nominally comprised just 4 members and only Company Secretary, Stephen Charles Sorba, claimed to know who the other three members were!

6. Our researches revealed that on the 20th February 2012 Company Secretary Sorba had registered Richard Parry as a director of FFP at Companies House yet when I contacted Parry he emailed back to express ignorance of his appointment.  Sonia Markham and Donald Rooum expressed similar ignorance of Parry’s appointment.

7. On 20th February 2015, I wrote to Company Secretary Sorba asking him to ensure that FFP  belatedly complied with its formal obligations to maintain publication of FREEDOM, and  proposing the addition of more active, representative Board Members.

8. Curiously, on 3rd March 2015 I received an email response, not from Company Secretary Sorba, but from Richard Parry, 'In my capacity as one of the Directors'.  This letter claimed all was fine with FREEDOM, rejected the specific offer of respected historian Dr David Goodway to join the Board and instead insisted any potential new directors first present themselves to the FREEDOM collective for approval (an inappropriate reversal of the responsibilities of the Board).

9. I subsequently learned that Sonia Markham, the longest-serving Board member, knew nothing of this letter.  Clearly it wasn’t just the FREEDOM collective that was controlled by a clique that cared little for open, democratic procedures.

10. Despite formally representing himself to me as 'one of the Directors', Parry openly admitted the impropriety to Andy Meinke of the Freedom Bookshop who emailed the collective on 24th February 2015, 'Richard rang this morning, he wasn’t even sure he was on the board!' (the exclamation mark is Meinke’s)

11. It is indicative of just how far FFP abrogated its responsibility to an inappropriate collective that Meinke’s February email went on to say; 'ps.  We really should ask some more people to join FFP as four is a bit risky if they all fly on the same plane.  Let’s ask Martin Howard of Solfed and Nick Heath of AF, that’ll cheer Draper up.'

12. To her great credit, Sonia Markham was the sole member of FFP who attempted to get a grip on the FREEDOM debacle yet when she asked Company Secretary Sorba to provide her with the Board’s 'Articles' and 'Memorandum of Association' she was given the run-around.  Fortunately, I was able to supply interested parties with appropriate documents.

13. Realising they had been rumbled, the remaining three 'members' of FFP finally agreed to hold an AGM, the first for years.  Even better they were forced to reconsider nominations from outside their own sphere of influence.

14. That meeting was held on Wednesday 24th June 2015, and it produced an excellent result.  Six new members joined the Board and a constructive discussion ensued.  After Donald Rooum, the sole member of both the FREEDOM collective and FFP, grumbled about our campaign to expose the shameful manoeuvrings at FREEDOM it was generally recognised by all that without our intervention the FRIENDS would have become completely moribund.  From now on the newly revitalised Board of the FRIENDS OF FREEDOM PRESS is pledged to meet quarterly (next meeting 16th September 2015) in order to discuss and discharge their proper responsibilities. 

15. The residual FREEDOM collective are uncomfortable at the prospect of proper oversight and have already met to express an obdurate determination to resist any legitimate intervention by FFP.

16. In contrast, we congratulate FFP on its Phoenix-like rejuvenation and trust members will continue their initial move to restore the ethical and intellectual credibility of FREEDOM.  Typifying the juvenile, sarcastic, 'That’ll cheer Draper up!' approach of Meinke and co. was the collective’s attempt to get a character featured in 'Who Killed FREEDOM? – Update 1' onto the FFP Board.  Exercising impeccable judgement the born–again FFP had little hesitation in consigning the nomination of Gwain the cunt Williams (his self-chosen appellation) to the dustbin of history.

17. The sort of issue FFP might next care to address is the arbitrary judgement and abuse of power by FREEDOM bookshop manager Andy Meinke who, for example, refuses to stock Northern Voices magazine.  Asked why he rejected a popular magazine produced by Northern anarchists and others he recently informed editor Brian Bamford, 'Because I don’t like you Brian'!  Such narrow-minded prejudice needs to be exorcised from FREEDOM and a proper publications policy restored.

18. The ten members of the born-again Board of FFP are as follows:

* Jayne Clementson – graphic artist, long-time layout artist for Freedom Press.

* David Goodway – historian, author and admirer of the anarchism of Colin Ward .

* Martin Howard – Solfed, writer of 'Svartfrost' column in Freedom.

* Sonia Markham – anarchist, retired TV make-up artist and daughter of founding FFP member, pioneering feminist-anarchist and children’s author Olive Dehn.

* Lois Olmstead – anarchist originally from Ohio, ex-member of Freedom collective. 

* Richard Parry – solicitor and author of the 'Bonnot Gang' .

* Martin Peacock – founder of the London Anarchist Bookfair .

* Ernest Rodker – veteran peace campaigner .

* Donald Rooum – veteran Stirnerite anarchist and cartoonist.

* Stephen Charles Sorba – FFP Company Secretary, printer with Aldgate Press. 

19. FREEDOM was traditionally a resource for all open-minded anarchists but terminally declined under the influence of a narrow-minded clique.  The rejuvenation of the FRIENDS is a great success and a positive encouragement to us all to continue the struggle for free-speech, fellowship, peace and anarchy.

Christopher Draper:  3^rd, July 2015.