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

Adam Barr's Northern Ancestors etc?

Hi Brian (Bamford),

So first of all, you shouldn't make assumptions about people's backgrounds. I come from Hull, and am a proud Northerner. My grandad was a docker, and my other grandad was an upholsterer, as is my Dad. I am the first in my family to get the opportunity to go to university. Unfortunately my Dad failed his eleven plus and so only has one measly O level in woodworking. The fact he didn't get to the opportunity to go to university has been a source of great frustration to him. Please don't think I'm from the home counties or middle class. I'm really not. Also my name isn't double barreled! My middle name comes from my Grandad (the upholsterer one not the docker.)

It wasn't really a spat with Nick Heath btw, we just disagreed. It happens sometimes.

I bring up these organisations because they are on the Freedom Collective, and send delegates to our monthly meetings. They have input on what we publish and occasionally contribute to our output. Far from Freedom basking in the glory of these groups, they are a vital part of the collective. You seem willfully misinformed as to how things are here.

I have no idea which Friend you are referring to? Financing certainly is an issue and it's something we've been doing work on. I've been involved with Freedom for about three years (not that it really matters) so of course things that happened before that are before me time! They couldn't be anything else. It is certainly true that large donations we're apparently squandered, it's a source of great frustration to me that I have to run a freesheet and website on no money. Luckily we've got the 500 pounds together that we need for the website redesign so I'm very happy about that!

I've also read a lot of NV content, some of it is quite good, other bits rather lacking.  I especially like your focus on blacklisting, something that has affected a number of family friends.

From what I understand, again please correct me if I'm wrong, you've spent a good number of years feuding with various people associated with Freedom because you once had a disagreement with an old editor?  Seems a little petty to be honest with you.

I don't particularly care about your past. I care about what you're doing now. And what you're doing now is awful. I think I particular low point was the piece you had published in Private Eye, although that was probably authored by Chris Draper. What an uncomradely thing to do. I'd be really upset if I didn't already think you were a piece of shit.

By the way, I'd be interested to hear what you thought about the freesheet you picked up at the last London Anarchist Bookfair? I can also send you a copy of the new freesheet if you'd like to take a look. It's got a great piece from the Glasgow Anarchist Collective in it about their work against homelessness.

I'd extend you're criticism of the Friends of Freedom Press out from simply a matter of geographical location. Why is there only one woman? Where are the people of colour? Where are the trans people? Where are the disabled? Where are the queers? You've put forward a list of four white men.

Your proposal is a vague, ill thought out load of rubbish. Not much more to say about it.

Again, don't make assumptions on me or my class background. Don't make assumptions as to the class backgrounds of the members of the collective. You're wrong on both counts.

Joanne Cox: Political Class gets priorities right,

as a miner dies in relative obscurity

by Les May

EARLY last Friday morning, a miner called John Anderson was killed in an East Cleveland potash mine.  His death was relegated to page 13 of the 'i' newspaper and merited just a quarter of a page of newsprint.  Last Thursday an MP called Joanne Cox was killed in the street.  So far the same newspaper has devoted eleven pages to her death which today included the fact that £800,000 has been donated to a charitable fund set up by her friends.

For the families of both of these people their deaths are an ongoing tragedy.   But that is all that they have in common.  Mr Anderson's death has been reported to HM Mines Inspectorate and no doubt there will be an inquest.  That may merit a few lines in the national press or it may not.  Local Labour MP, Tom Blenkinsop, has spoken of his concerns following the death and intends to meet the mine owners ICL Ltd and the mine unions.  There is no reason to suppose that Mr Anderson's death was anything other than a tragic accident.  But history suggests that if that presumption were to prove to be wrong no one would appear in the dock charged with causing his death.  A man has already been charged with the murder of Joanne Cox.

There's a bandwagon rolling and lazy journalists are determined to scramble aboard before its too late.  A particularly inept sub-editor at the 'i' managed to confuse Joseph Priestley who in 1733 was born in Birstall where the murder happened, with author J. B. Priestley who was born in Bradford in 1894.  A day before in the same paper Joan Smith in an otherwise sensible article decided there was a bit of mileage in referring to 'an apparent normalisation of the most grotesque misogyny' and Andrew Grice took yet another opportunity to have a go at Jeremy Corbyn just as he did the day after.  It seems no one can resist the temptation to use this tragedy to further their own agenda.

But it's not just the media which have tried to use the killing to their advantage.  The organisation 'Unite Against Fascism' which sees a climate of 'racist discussion' on immigration having been 'stirred up' during the EU referendum campaigning.  Whilst the Tories, Lib Dems and UKIP all announced they would not contest the seat at the forthcoming by-election the Liberty GB prospective candidate, a former BNP member, announced his intention to stand by saying 'We cannot let Jo Cox's death be in vain'.  The North-east branch of 'National Action' took the opportunity to post on Twitter, '#JoCox would have filled Yorkshire with more subhumans'.  I usually think that invoking the word Nazi means you know you are losing the argument, but for this comment it seems entirely appropriate.

Eager not to be labelled as 'Stirrer up in Chief' Nigel Farage turned psychiatrist saying the killing was the act of 'one man with serious mental health issues'. This line will no doubt play well with those papers which have done so much to use immigration to stoke up resentment against the EU,  'It wasn't me gov it was him'.

Even the usually excellent Al Jazeera news channel managed to use it as an excuse to ask why the killing had not been labelled 'terrorism' when this epithet is so frequently attached to incidents involving Muslims.

Whatever this killing was it was not terrorism.  The whole idea of 'terrorism' is to terrorise the population at large by causing panic and uncertainty about whether you are going to be the next casualty.  Like the killing of Lee Rigby in 2013 Joanne Cox's killing was a carefully targeted attack.  Terrorists see the whole population of a country as a legitimate target.  The IRA Manchester bomb of 1996, the Twin Towers attack of 2001, the London Bombings of 2005, can all be accurately described as 'terrorism'.  By the same token the targeted killing of secular bloggers and academics in Bangladesh isn't terrorism either.

I find it distasteful that after her untimely death Joanne Cox is being given the 'Sleb' treatment by some sections of the media.   It's an old trick.  Lavish praise on what someone has done.  Associate yourself with similar views, which are of course the views of all 'right thinking people', and hey presto, a nice bit of self praise emerges.

Whatever Joanne Cox's qualities personally I'd like to see fewer MPs with a background of university, working for a charitable organisation, then the House of Commons, and more from John Anderson's background.

Whatever I think of Simon Danczuk's antics as an author and MP, he is surely right to draw attention to the fact that so many of his colleagues really do form a 'metropolitan elite'.  He could have added that they inhabit the same 'Westminster Village' as the journalists who write about them.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/18/thomas-mair-charged-with-of-mp-jo-cox  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Priestley 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._Priestley

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lee_Rigby

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings

 

Enfield Council becomes first British government body to deploy the "Virtual Employee!"

Brexit and European politics

We are publishing below extracts from the 'Monday Briefing' by Ian Stewart, Chief Economist, at Deloitte UK:

* The "What the UK Thinks: EU Poll of Polls", based on the average share of the vote for 'Leave' and 'Remain' in the six most recent polls carried out between 10th June and 16th June shows Remain and Leave tied on 50% in the week ahead of the referendum (adjusting for the removal of "don't knows")

* Instead of parliamentary constituencies, the geographical area for the referendum will be 382 counting areas, one for each local government area in Great Britain, and one each for Gibraltar and Northern Ireland. Each counting area will make a separate declaration which will be aggregated by eleven regional counting officers. The national result will be announced in Manchester Town Hall by the Chief Counting Officer. 


* Unlike last year's General Election there will be no official exit polls, partly because of the difficulty of extrapolating from a sample to a wider population in a referendum. Nonetheless, the Financial Times reports that some hedge funds have commissioned their own exit polls in order to trade on early indications of the result. The movement in the value of sterling during the count of votes from 10pm on Thursday evening will provide one signal of market sentiment about the outcome. 

* According to the latest political betting odds cited by PaddyPower, there is a 31% implied probability of a Brexit vote – down from a high of 44% in the middle of last week 

* A number of polls early last week showed growing public support for a vote to leave the EU, with an Ipsos Mori poll putting support for Brexit ahead by six points (excluding 'don't knows') – the first time the Ipsos MORI telephone survey has shown a lead for Leave

* Leading Vote Leave MP Chris Grayling set out the Leave campaigns' plan for power, with moves to ensure the end of free movement of people and curb the power of EU courts, and reach a new trade deal with the EU, all by 2020 

* British Chancellor George Osborne said he would likely have to introduce an emergency budget if Britain voted to leave the EU, although 57 Conservative MPs said they would block spending cuts and tax rises as part of such a budget 

* The head of Germany's influential Ifo institute for Economic Research warned that "the biggest risk" for the German economy at present is a possible Brexit, adding that "Germany has very little to gain and an awful lot to lose" 

* The European Court ruled that the UK can use strict 'right to reside' rules in order to limit access to child benefit for non-UK citizens, ruling against the European Commission, who had argued that the rules were discriminatory 

* The European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of England have agreed to provide liquidity to each other if needed – to ensure that "there would not be liquidity bottlenecks either at English banks or at European banks", according to ECB governing council member Ewald Nowotny 

* German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble said European finance leaders are preparing for any possible outcome of Britain's referendum, with Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem also stating that the euro area has "the capacity to deal with any shocks that might occur" 

* The Bank of Japan is in "close communication" with the Bank of England and other global central banks ahead of this week's referendum, according to its governor Haruhiko Kuroda 

* European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that the EU would not "be in danger of death if Britain leaves, because we'd continue (the) process of closer cooperation in Europe, if not of deepening the EU, and mainly the Economic and Monetary Union" 

* In her strongest intervention to date, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that Britain would be treated as an outsider to the single market if it decided to leave the EU 

* During an impassioned speech in Vienna, Christine Lagarde urged British voters to stay in the EU, saying that "Membership has made the UK a richer economy, but it has also made it a more diverse, more exciting, and more creative country." 

* FT analysis of the 2015 annual reports of every member of the FTSE 100, shows that only 26 mention Brexit, and only a few specify the nature of the risks a Brexit poses to their company 

* Shareholders of Virgin Media in the UK approved a late donation of up to £700,000 for the Remain campaign, with company leaders warning that the company would seriously reconsider future capital investment in the UK if Britain votes to leave the EU 

* France's Finance Minister Emmanuel Macron warned that if the UK leaves the EU it will become as significant as the island of Guernsey and "a small country in the scale of the world". The Minister also said the EU would have to send 'a very firm message and timetable' in the event of a Leave vote, saying: 'You're either in or you're out.' 

* Pollsters ComRes reported that more UK voters say they would be delighted if Leave wins (44%) than if Remain wins (28%). A Leave victory would also disappoint fewer people. However, it would also make more people anxious - 41% said a Leave vote would cause them anxiety compared to 33% for Remain. 

* Investors pulled over $1bn from UK equity funds in the week to Thursday 16th June, second only to last May's general election over the past decade, according to flow of funds data compiled by Bank of America Merrill Lynch 

* The FT reports that retail brokers in the City of London have been preparing themselves for a surge in trading this week, including moves to test IT systems to ensure they can cope with the rush to buy and sell before and following the referendum 

* Enfield Council is to become the first British government body to deploy a "virtual employee" for frontline services; with the council working with a New York technology company to deploy 'Amelia', a "cognitive agent" that will carry out human resources tasks and hopefully also respond to residents' queries and help authenticate permit applications

Pale-faced Reply by Irrelevant Old Man!

Dear Adam Lawrence-Barr,

NICE to hear from you.  I only became aware of you after someone drew my attention to your spat with Nick Heath over your interview with the Catholic Worker.  I think he accused you of returning to the 'Big Tent' approach to anarchism, and you humbly said that Freedom had no intention of returning to the 'Big Tent' approach.  I don't know what the alternative is perhaps it amounts to proclaiming what Orwell called the 'smelly little orthodoxy' of left wing politics.  Whatever is the case, Northern Voices would be more than happy to publish your ideas on the NV Blog.

 You mention a few groups or tenants of Freedom that are doing 'work', implying that by offering rooms or collecting rents and standing in their shadows Freedom is somehow made more significant by its proximity to these bodies.  It's a curious argument to pursue, especially when at the last meeting of the Friends of Freedom you revealed that the inmates at Freedom had managed to 'squander' a large sum of money left to Freedom by a benefactor some 7-years ago.  You did say 'squander' didn't you?  And did you go on to absolve yourself by saying:  'It was before my time'?  Also, is it true that a member of the Friends has been financing the Collective out of their own pocket? 

None of these misdemeanours seems to inhibit you from taking that moral high ground in your e-mail and accusing Northern Voices an 'attempt to steal away the means of production from the workers using it by a bunch of old irrelevant white men'.  I'm glad you raised the matter in this for it suggests that you have not read a word of the Freedom archives or even of Northern Voices.  By couching your profound critique in such terms I suppose that you are claiming that you are more in touch with the shop-floor and the world of work?  And that your record in anarchist politics is somehow superior to mine and the other three supporters of the 'Modest program'?

Well, that is interesting:  how long have you been involved in Freedom?  The problem is that you seem to be representing the Metropolitan elite, and apart from David Goodway from Yorkshire, who is on the Friends of Freedom to represent the provinces?  Your own name sounds like something from the Home Counties and the middle-class, it doesn't have a proletarian ring to it does it?  It doesn't sound owt like someone who has been apprenticed in a factory, or has worked in the shipyards in Gibraltar like me, or has been a weighman in a Lancashire textile mill.  Or someone who has done time in Strangeways, or been detained in a dungeon in the province of Segovia in the summer of 1963, before even Stuart Christie went to Franco's Spain.  I'll not mention about the interviews I did for Freedom during the pyramid sales riots in Albania in 1997, and in Belgrade during the general elections there in December 2000.  What today seems to be held to be 'irrelevant' on the left of politics is the concerns of the blue-collar worker:  take the lack of interest in many quarters in the recent High Court case over blacklisting - that is the elephant which has somehow been left outside the room.  Where are the representatives of North & South Wales on the Friends of Freedom?  Where is the Scottish connection?  Where are the Northerners?  Where are the genuine Proles and blue-collar workers? 

 Come-on Adam Lawrence-Barr, who are you kidding? 

 Kind regards, 

 Brian Bamford

Editor Adam Barr replies to Freedom's Critics!

Freedom Editor - Adam Lawrence Barr

Dear Brian (Bamford: an editor of Northern Voices),

Not that modest really (your Our Friends in the North program).  Just FYI the we've just raised the money for a website redesign and we should be receiving sketches and quotes today or tomorrow. What you are suggesting is pretty unanarchist, an attempt to steal away the means of production from the workers using it by a bunch of old irrelevant white men.  Judging by the content you put out on Northern Voices it seems your pretty out of touch with actual anarchist politics today.  I would direct you to the work done by Corporate Watch or Haven Books, or the Advisory Service for Squatters or any of the other groups who use the building to put further anarchist politics but I'm sure you wouldn't really care. I'd have been quite happy to discuss the problems with the website at the last London anarchist bookfair (which i believe you attended) but you didn't seem too interested on that occasion. I have to thank you for your donation for one of the freesheets we were distributing though! We got rid of all 1000 copies over the course of a month you'll be happy to hear.

Adam (Barr):  the latest editor of Freedom.

Only One Prosecution For Blacklisting

Blacklist campaigner highlights injustice

ONLY one person has been prosecuted for their criminal culpability in the blacklisting scandal, with not a single construction director behind the illegal operation having faced charges.  However, Ian Kerr, the former head of the Consulting Association – the industry financed organisation that spied on union and safety activists and provided the information to major site firms – has now been joined by award-winning human rights campaigner Dave Smith, as the focus of a prosecution.

Smith, a blacklisted worker and secretary of the Blacklist Support Group, was found guilty last week but discharged at the City of London magistrates’ court for disrupting traffic in Park Lane, London, in a blacklisting protest in March last year.  Commenting after his conviction, he said since the scandal erupted:

'Only two people have ever been convicted because of their involvement with blacklisting — Ian Kerr and me.'  

Smith was not fined but the offence will be held on his record for the next six months.

The Green Party has come out in support of calls for a public inquiry into the practice of blacklisting trade unionists and campaigners.  Outgoing Green leader Natalie Bennett said:

'The time has come for a public inquiry into the shameful practice of blacklisting. It’s vital that those who were discriminated against, and the public, gain an understanding of how this information on suspected trade unionists was collected and how it was shared with prospective employers.'

Green Party member of the House of Lords, Jenny Jones added that companies caught using blacklisting should not be left with the responsibility for ridding the industry of the practice.  'That’s why parliament must step up and kick-start a public inquiry into blacklisting,' the baroness said.  'I’m also urging any worker who was discriminated in this way to speak to me about their experiences. I’ll do all that I can to take this forward in the Lords.'

Ÿ  Blacklist blog. Green Party news release. Morning Star.Road block: How blocking roads has become a great way of making employers change direction, Dave Smith, Hazards, 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.

Bristol History Group & War Resisters

Discovering British War Resisters 1914-1918 Hoped-for outcomes and challenging surprises
Date: Monday 20th June, 2016
Time: 7:30 pm
Venue: Friends Meeting House, Champion Square, Bristol BS2 9DB
Price: Donation
With: Cyril Pearce

Cyril Pearce is Britain’s foremost researcher into World War 1 conscientious objectors (COs) and war resisters. His book ‘Comrades in Conscience‘ looked at the anti-war movement in Huddersfield. Since then, Cyril has extended his work to look for other ‘Huddersfields’ and has created a database of British COs – the Pearce Register of British Conscientious Objectors The database currently contains details of almost 20,000 men who refused to fight in the war and is an invaluable tool for any local research. The 350 names we have published for Bristol are extracted from Cyril’s database.
The database has enabled the creation of maps of all the British counties plotting numbers and densities of COs and identifying anti-war ‘hot spots’. This research process has exposed hitherto hidden aspects of the anti-war phenomenon among them an underground network of safe houses and hiding places and, with the collaboration of Irish rebels, an escape route to North America.
Come and hear Cyril talk about his research, including stories of Bristol people who opposed the war.
Cyril Pearce is an Honorary Research Fellow at University of Leeds, School of History.
For more information email rememberingrealww1@gmail.com