LONDON CALLING: Newsletter of London Class War
www.tao.ca/~lemming/classwar/londoncalling.htm

January 2002


Resistance Is Sprouting

Demonstration against the European Summit in Brussels December 13th-15th

From South Wales CW: Managed to get a cheap crossing on Wednesday night to get to Brussels on the Thursday morning. Just in time for a big trade union demo, which was cack, they kept throwing firecrackers on the floor for no apparent reason which was a bit odd. Still beer was cheap, strong and plentyful, but it was a totally useless demo where zero of interest happened. On the Friday morning went for a bit of a look around the city's historical sites and managed to be stood in the road when all the delegates were being shipped in by police escort in limos. As there was only four of us somewhat hungover and tired flicking V signs and abuse was all we could muster, shameful really.

The main demo was also disappointing, very few of the demonstrators even considered ignoring the police approved route (despite no police in sight) meant we went nowhere near the red zone. Some banks and a police station (sadly no gun store, people did check) got done, as did a bunch of posh cars, all seemed a bit easy. Then we went back to the convergence centre - the police laid seige to the place, the use of watercannon was horrible as it was fucking freezing the whole time (-4C), a bit of to and fro and they backed off, people left. We stayed until 10 then left, apparently at 10 past 10 the cops came back, beat up and nicked everyone who was left which was about 150. Bastards.

The Saturday was the anarchist demo which was good and it started with only a few thousand people. The march went through a poor immigrant area of Brussels quite peacefully, then went into a posh area and people took out banks, posh shops and cars. When some posh twat started to complain that his Merc was being smashed up he got a volley of bricks - nice! Police seemed to be fucking pussys but it in other parts of the demo there ware some nickings and the use of water cannon was fucking vile. However considering the amount of Molotovs and other stuff they got thrown at them, the police barely seemed able to respond.


Hackney Not 4 Sale

Hackney Not 4 Sale campaign against the selling off of council properties in the borough to various fat cats and developers. As we know flies hover around shit, and as Hackney has slowly collapsed through the incompetence of party politicians these freeloaders are looking to make a fast buck at our expense. The group now has a postal address and a website is being set up. People are invited to send ideas as to what it should contain and to get involved.

Hackney NOT 4 Sale
Box No 7
136-138 Kingsland High Street
London
E8 2NS
Tel 07950 539 254

As they point out "If all Hackney residents, community groups, and workers who are under threat got together; we wouldn't be under threat!"


Booing Blunkett

A small, freezing but positive picket of the Home Office was held on 21 December in support of Mark Barnsley. The cockles of our hearts were warmed however by the arrival of Home Secretary David Blunkett who stumbled straight through our picket! He may be blind but he is certainly not deaf! This is now the third time Blunkett has faced campaigners for Mark, perhaps by now the message is getting through!


Who Are The Real Terrorists?

If there's one thing the Metropolitan Police can be relied upon for, it's brassneck. Whilst on the one hand telling us they cannot cope with an explosion in street crime (all papers/TV channels 4th Jan and more) because of the force's increased anti-terrorist activities, the Metropolitan Police Special Branch still found time to spin yarns about anarchists in the Sunday Telegraph on 30th December.

The Movement Against the Monarchy's (MA'M) quip on their website about pumping laughing gas into St Paul's Cathedral on June 4th during the service to celebrate the Queen's Golden Jubilee managed to provoke a front page article by the seriously under employed Jenny Booth and David Bamber. Special Branch, supposedly working night and day to thwart the plans of Bin Laden's henchmen, managed to take time off to warn of the threat that could be posed by evil anarchists in a confined space (?) such as St Paul's.

Last month it is alleged that a British Muslim, Richard Reid attempted to blow a plane from France to America out of the sky. If he had been successful hundreds of passengers and crew would have lost their lives. The police and media's attempts to portray the anarchist and direct action movements as terrorist looked pretty ropey before September 11th. Now it actually begins to look sick.

Even if you think campaigning against the royals is a "distraction from the real work" you would be seriously blinkered in your judgement if you ignore what some anti royal people/groups are doing and the attempts of the secret state and journalists to smear us... Of course the 'real work' is motivating the millions of closet republicans to do something. Campaigning against the jubilee is the best time to do it cos they will all be pig sick of the idle parasites in papers, on the TV and the forelock tugging nonsense that the journalists spout!!

MA'M are encouraging events (gigs, demos, actions) around the Queen's Jubilee tour of the country, details of which can be found on www.fuckthejubilee.com and from MA'M, P.O. Box 14672, London, E9 5QU. If you want to set one up JUST DO IT and let us know...


It's Good To Talk

There is now a cheeky Class War discussion site for everything concerning Class War the newspaper and Class War the Federation. To find it just go to  http://flag.blackened.net/wwwthreads/wwwthreads.php. Alternatively you can access it via our website: www.tao.ca/~lemming/classwar.


Yuppie Eradication Project

The Mission Yuppie Eradication Project is a class struggle group based in San Francisco fighting the good fight against gentrification and the attack on our communities. London CW has copies of their anti-yuppie posters available free of charge (please send an A4 SAE with 33 pence in stamps) to the London CW address and we will send you the posters. Alternatively they can be downloaded from the internet at www.infoshop.org/myep/cw_posters.html.


Gerry Where's Me Troosers?

We were greatly amused to see the latest splutterings from the Searchlight camp, the book "White Riot" a supposed investigation into the Nazi group Combat 18. A close inspection of the cover picture reveals that one of the two gun toting Nazis appears to have extreme difficulty doing up his trousers! That, and the fact that he is pointing his gun at a fellow nazi sums up C18 as an organisation better than any book!


Hard To Conceive

Amongst all the sympathetic media coverage following the news that Sophie Rhys-Jones, wife of the great Prince Edward, had lost her baby, we were stunned that nobody asked the question that occupied the minds of the nation. Who the bloody hell could the father have been?


Tough Titty

"Basically I'm a spiv" he says with a broad grin. "I like to gamble and take chances". Former England Rugby Union star Andy Ripley, quoted in Sunday Business 4/11/01.

Ripley is now heading the campaign by Railtrack shareholders to receive compensation following the governments decision to stop propping up Railtrack. Two days before they did this Ripley had invested £70,000 in Railtrack shares, which 48 hours later were worthless. He now expects the taxpayer to compensate him, and the thousands of other Railtrack investors for their loss. Tough titty.

The whining of the Railtrack shareholders, who previously had been laughing all the way to the bank, is taking the piss. Shares can go up as well as down, and when they were making out a mint out of a company heavily subsidised by the taxpayer we did not notice to many shareholders complaining then. They are spivs, they gambled and they lost. Tough titty. The poverty stricken Railtrack investors are being represented by two leading law firms - Edwin Coe and the amusingly named Class Law. Why not phone them up and do your impersonation of the laughing policeman? Edwin Coe - 0207 691 4000. Class Law - 0207 724 2526.


Xmas Social

London Class War would like to thank everybody who made the Xmas do probably our best yet. Those who sat there captivated by the Incitement To Riot video can buy it from us for £6!


The Enemy Is...

Surfing on the net recently we came across the website of the Openly Classist group (www.openlyclassist.org.uk). Openly Classist are perhaps best known for publishing "The Enemy Is Middle Class" by Andy and Mark Anderson. The late Andy Anderson was a self-confessed former US and British intelligence officer.

In the late 1990s, when we were getting ourselves sorted following the 1997 split, Openly Classist could be found stirring up apathy around the fringes of Class War, and in particular the London and South Yorkshire groups. We did not, it seems, come close to meeting their lofty standards or impeccable working class credentials. Not enough intelligence officers in our ranks clearly.

So what does cut the mustard as far as Openly Classist are concerned? At one point we were told it was the campaign to free Mark Barnsley. Class War members attending events for Mark in 2001 did not spot anyone from Openly Classist, and funds allegedly raised from earlier punk gigs organised by one Openly Classist supporter in London certainly never reached Mark. So who then? Whilst there is no link from Openly Classist's website to www.freemarkbarnsley.com one group they do advertise is the Scottish Separatist Group. The SSG, run by Adam Busby has one of its core aims "The halt and reversal of mass English immigration into Scotland". Quite how this is going to be enforced is not made clear, or whether a Separatist Scotland is willing to take back in return high profile Scots like Gordon Brown, Tony Blair or Robin Cook, who in case the SSG have not noticed, have pretty senior positions in the British ruling class!

The SSG acts as the political wing of the Scottish National Liberation Army. The SSG website is on a Russian Maoist server (the views of Chairman Mao on Scottish Nationalism are not recorded) and the website seeks to make a distinction between the SSG and SNLA rather similar to the division between Sinn Fein and the IRA.

In recent years the SNLA have been linked, in the media, to attempts to poison the water supply and attempts to post anthrax to Prince William. Red Action allege Busby posted them a letter bomb. Despite all this Busby lives a remarkably charmed life as far as the authorities are concerned.

The SSG/SNLA look suspiciously like some intelligence officer's bad joke. That they seem to be one of the few organisations Openly Classist support is certainly raising eyebrows.


Membership News

Class War membership costs £12 for the calendar year (£6 unwaged). To get more involved please contact your local group. Any members who have not renewed for 2002, please get your skates on! Finally we now have a members only email discussion group up and running. Details of this were sent out with the conference minutes - again get signed up to get involved. Just Do it.


Diary Dates

Genoa Justice Campaign - Public Meeting: speakers Jeremy Corbyn MP (tbc) Nerys Lee (Amnesty International) Jonathan Neale (Genoa Social Forum) Norman Blair (Genoa protester) and report back from recent protest at the EU Summit in Brussels. Plus a screening of the film of the Genoa protest 'Un mondo diverso e possible' made by directors including Pontecorvo (Battle of Algiers).
Venue/time: Tuesday 22nd January 6.30pm-9pm Room G2, SOAS Main Building, Thornhaugh Street WC1, nr Russell Square Tube.
www.genoajustice.org

Saturday 26 January 10.30-5pm - Prison Abolition or More Prisons? A conference on the abolition of prisons and what we can do to bring it about. Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R (tube Holborn)

Sunday 3 February 7pm - London Class War meeting at a top central London location.

At some stage in 2002 - A Hackney Community Conference, organised by Unison is planned. (Tel: 020 8985 7134) This could be a positive development, especially if Unison restrict political pontificating and sales of leftie rags inside and outside the event! Date to be announced.


Odds and Sods: The large and glossy Class War Anti Royal 2002 Calender is now only £4 from the usual address, cheques/POs payable to "London Class War".