An invitation from the West Midlands Anarchists

What? The Confederation of British Industries’
National Conference.

When? The opening cocktail reception that we are
targeting is at 6pm on Sunday the 16th of November
2003

Where? The ICC, Birmingham

Why? Because the CBI is essentially a bosses’ union
which calls itself “the voice of British business”. It
lobbies for a “competitive atmosphere” for business,
which obviously translates into attacks on workers,
the environment, and pretty much everything that we as
activists oppose. This event is even billed as “the
most high profile business event in Europe outside
Davos”, so it seems a worthy target to us. Just have a
look at their own website at
www.cbi.org.uk/conference2003/.

How? However you like! In recent years the police seem
to have cottoned on to our tactics and have become
irritatingly effective at stopping some of them. You
have only to look at the recent DSEi protests: the
tactics which worked were those carried out
unannounced by small affinity groups, whereas the
announced street party was an abysmal failure with
people walking straight into a police cordon.

To avoid a repeat of this and recent May Days, the
West Midlands Anarchists are encouraging you and your
group to come up with your own way of disrupting the
CBI’s dinner. We have provided a map of the area (and
a plan of the building?), and nearer to the date we
will provide anyone interested with any other
information that we have. We would ask any groups who
are likely to come to Birmingham for this to let us
know if you will require accommodation, and to contact
us to help co-ordinate actions etc., although you
should obviously use your own judgement as to how much
information you share with us. If there is sufficient
interest then we will hold a meeting to plan and
co-ordinate protest before the event.

In recent years Birmingham and the West Midlands has
seen very little activism, so we really do not know
how the police will react to this demonstration. We
would like to use it as an opportunity to break away
from always tagging along to boring left
demonstrations and spread our ideas as a separate
movement, as well as if possible developing more
effective tactics.