An anarchist journal of heresy and thoughtcrime

29th July 2021

Brighton is a total mixture of students, ‘anarchist’ and ‘left-wing’ virtue-signallers, hedonists, screaming teenagers, club-goers and hen partyers, ageing hippies, herbalists, alternative health practitioners and freedom lovers.

I put the terms anarchists and left-wing in inverted commas because I don’t see these a lot of them as anarchists, most being compliant with authority or expecting others to be that, and I don’t even know what ‘left’ means any more.

I knew there was something very strange going on right at the start, back in March 2020. My partner and I posted things on Facebook about the convid numbers being no higher than the swine flu ones and received scoldings for it, which shocked us as we were only giving statistics.

Then when I dared to suggest on that social media platform that the government shouldn’t be telling us where we can and can’t go I received even worse castigation.

Then we found some websites – Off-Guardian, Collective Evolution – which explained what was really going on, and it all started to make sense to us then.

Later I found some sites which resonated with me even more than those – winteroak.org.uk, architectsforsocialhousing.co.uk, nevermore.media/ and, to my surprise, davidicke.com, many others later.

During May, a friend and I were trying to find freedom protests in Brighton about which we had heard rumours. We went up to London in June to a freedom picnic with 5-a-side football and Piers Corbyn and then to a demo. As most of the anarchist movement were believing the mainstream media and health officials and the Cowley Club social centre closed two weeks before lockdown was announced, it was left to other types of people to form a movement.

I discovered the Sussex/Brighton group, formed from www.facebook.com/SaveOurRightsUK, ‘Stand Up’ and others, through a friend in London; it has grown a lot since then. It is a mixture of people, but all open to alternative theories and eager to know the truth.

A few anarchist and animal rights types have joined the movement but the rest of the Brightonian and English anarchists are involved in single issue campaigns, unable to see the elephant in the room; the revolution is under way and they don’t recognise it!

The freedom group has been meeting regularly in parks and at the beach, got pretty cold in January, though of course we also ‘irresponsibly’ went to friends’ houses. We have had local marches, travelled in a big group to huge marches in London, leafletted with a big sound system playing reggae and anti-vax hiphop, done flashmobs singing ‘Danser Encore’ and leafletted the injection centre and the injection bus (what?! You might say). There is also the Sunday Stand in the Park in various locations in Brighton.

I forget exactly how the rules have changed in England over the past 16 months. We had a lockdown from 23rd March last year; Boris (our joke prime minister) actually originally wanted herd immunity but I think was given a briefing and possibly threats by the real powers-that-be.

Lockdown here entailed being allowed out for a walk once a day (though who was checking?) and you could go for a swim in the sea but couldn’t sit on the beach; all ‘non-essential’ shops, cafes, bars, gyms, outdoor sport facilities, theatres etc. were closed and you were only allowed to visit friends if you lived on your own or something. Then they relaxed the rules a little some time in the second half of May; cafes and bars opened but you could only sit with someone you had arranged to go with.

I did have a lovely experience when I was trying to find a pub that didn’t have a queue in which to meet a friend. I went to the doorway of one. here was a staff member at the door. A woman from inside the pub called out to me ‘Anne!’ It took me a while to realise she was calling me, pretending to know me so that I could sit at her table. And I think the worker was going along with the pretence. I had a great chat with the Scotswoman when I sat down.

They brought in the compulsory mask-wearing six months after the first convid case in Brighton, in July. Then I think there was some kind of tightening of the rules in September but by that time I was so fed up with the whole thing I wasn’t looking at mainstream media at all so I didn’t know the rules and certainly didn’t obey them. Then I think they closed everything again for a month in November, including natural therapy centres, as I found out in my search to get some reiki healing. Then they opened up a little in December because convid respects Christmas but you could only visit a pub if you ate there, so people were eating even if they weren’t hungry.

Then suddenly they announced that people could only see their families for one day at Christmas, which meant any obedient people threw away a load of food, unable to travel to their families and back in one day. This next lockdown carried on until late March 2021, when they started having a series of easing of the rules but so slight, like increasing the number of friends you were allowed to have or hang round with, that you could barely notice each one, until the venues opened for outside seating, which does not accommodate the whole of pub-going Brighton so you had to book a couple of days in advance to visit one. By that time, I and many others had got so used to living outside of society that we just weren’t interested in going to pubs or organised events, preferring to hang around on the beach drumming, jamming, watching pop-up bands, dancing with sound systems – a cheaper and more chilled-out way to spend our time.

Nationally in the UK, I think it was during October that the Boris and Matt gang introduced a tier system where some areas had more restrictions than others. Manchester was one area in full lockdown. At one point they imprisoned a load of students in their own halls of residence; the students hung banners out of the windows saying ‘We are not Criminals’. This tells me not all young people are in favour of lockdown, especially when they are affected so badly by it.

Andy Burnham, former Labour MP and mayor of Manchester, complained about it being unfair that Manchester and other parts of the North were in lockdown but the south was not. But then his answer was to demand the whole country be put in full lockdown! How that would have helped the people of Manchester I don’t know.

At the end of January there was a nationwide campaign to try and get businesses to reopen. Despite a lot of effort in Brighton no business here opened their doors, people being wary of being fined. But nationally a few opened, notably in London and Liverpool. Liverpool has been one of the less compliant areas with the most people fighting back – a gym remained open, using common law, and a few other businesses I believe.

I heard that Brixton in London had businesses open during lockdown but when I visited that didn’t bear out. But generally the Afro-Caribbean and Turkish areas of London seem to have more people who disbelieve the official convid story and don’t follow the rules. This is another reason I find it so strange that the anarchist and left have been so compliant, as I thought they sympathised with ethnic minorities. Keir Starmer, the Labour Party leader, got thrown out of a pub in Bath by its landlord for providing no opposition to the government.

In a lot of ‘corner shops’ the owners and many of their customers prefer to behave sanely instead of in constant fear. Most Eastern Europeans living in Brighton and the UK also don’t believe the official story; well, they’ve had previous experience of governments lying to tyrannise and kill their own people. Another group of people who don’t believe the lies is the traveller community.

There were hundreds or even thousands at Parliament Square on Monday 19th July for the announcement of ‘Freedom Day’. Of course, we’re not getting freedom; masks and social distancing are still in place on trains; travel abroad is very difficult; mandatory jabs for care workers; other workers have been sacked for refusing the jab, many more threatened with dismissal and forced to undergo intrusive and damaging PCR tests every day.

Others have been coerced in different ways; I know someone who took the jab to go to Rebellion punk festival; he didn’t see the irony; that festival has now been postponed til 2022, like most other festivals. Others have had the jabs to go on holiday then found they still have to have PCR tests as well; and of course care home residents have had the vax forced on them. Boris dropped another bombshell that day – jabs will also be compulsory for those attending nightclubs, and large gig venues, which inevitably will include the staff.

The excellent banners and placards reflected this. But these events are always fun and celebratory of everything positive too, with sound systems, singing, rappers. One very interesting piece of information we gathered there: two different policemen, when asked, told us they have not even been offered the vax! Well of course they can’t have police getting sick from the jab, being off work or even joining us lot!

What will the future bring?; Many still wear masks, perhaps for an easy life free from judgement or because it’s become second nature, and I guess some are still scared of a virus. There will no doubt be another heavy lockdown in the winter when the next ‘variant’ emerges. Perhaps some will realise they’ve had their health damaged for nothing and they will forever be tracked?

There will certainly be more groups of people having vaccinations forced on them and soon enough, if we allow it, no entry to more places without one. Electronic wristbands? If they managed to persuade people to wear masks, even alone in their car, will they not also agree to wristbands? Or will increasing numbers see through the lies and help bring us to sanity and autonomy over our lives and bodies?

There was a ‘Right to Dance’ protest/party in London and there have been protests against the police bill which practically bans protests and the right to live in a van; if the organisers of those are not joining the dots, at least they are realising we’re losing that right!

And there was a massive freedom march the day before, a million or even 2 million attending each march these days. These London protests are generally every month. Now we’re forming very localised groups of unvaxxed ‘rebels’ to look out for each other and sort out growing food etc. But will people in England rise up like they’re doing in France? The science fiction story is unfolding but this time it’s real…