How protesters use Russia’s courts to denounce the war on Ukraine

JULY 28, 2025

Simon Pirani introduces a talk he gave recently about a new book he is editing, Voices Against Putin’s War: Protesters’ Defiant Speeches in Russian Courts.

“I am using this trial as a tribune from which to denounce the war publicly,” Dmitry Ivanov told a Moscow court, just before it sentenced him to eight-and-a-half years’ imprisonment for circulating ‘fakes’ about the Russian army.

Ivanov was a maths student at Moscow State University. His ‘crime’ was to write twelve anti-war posts on a student Telegram channel that he helped to set up.

Any Russian person with a conscience feels guilty about the war, he told the court in March 2023. “We love our country, and so it is especially sickening and shameful that this inhuman war is being waged in its name.”

Ivanov was not the only anti-war protester to use a Russian court as a platform to address his fellow citizens. Dozens of others did the same.

With support from the European Network for Solidarity With Ukraine, some of these speeches will be published in English in a new book, Voices Against Putin’s War: Protesters’ Defiant Speeches in Russian Courts. I am the book’s editor, and this article is based on a talk I gave about it, by video, to a session at the Socialism 2025 event in the USA this month.

When the full-scale war broke out in February 2022, I got involved in efforts to support comrades and friends in Ukraine and Russia. In the summer of 2022, we learned of a new group, Solidarity Zone, which had been formed to support those arrested for taking direct action against the war, mainly by fire-bombing military recruitment centres. A group of us in the UK started translating their fundraising appeals and other material.

The firebombings are done when the offices are closed: they are aimed at damaging property, not persons. This became a comparatively common form of protest. There were more than 100 such actions in the first year after the invasion of Ukraine. Solidarity Zone saw that those who were detained, and their families, needed support, and particularly lawyers.

Following this at a distance, I was especially struck by some of the courageous statements made by these young people when they were brought to trial. Similar speeches were also made in court by people who had not engaged in such dramatic protests, but had simply denounced the war out loud — at a political event, online, etc — and then been arrested.

These people are victims of a general clampdown on democratic rights in Russia.

More than 30 Russians have made anti-war speeches in court all together. These, together with hundreds of others, made in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet states since the 1960s – from pro-democracy dissidents to Crimean Tatar activists and other resisters against colonialism – are gathered on the “Poslednee Slovo” (“Last Word”) site, a wonderful new resource.

Earlier this year, with our friends in the European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine, we decided to publish a collection of the anti-war speeches in English.  

There are ten speeches in our book, as well as two statements from people who appeared in court but made their statements elsewhere: from Kirill Butylin, who (as far as we know) was the first person to carry out a fire-bombing protest and put out a social media message; and from Savelii Morozov, a young man from southern Russia who was eligible for conscription but who denounced the war at the conscription commission.

The first thing that struck me about these speeches was the deeply moral tone of many of these protesters, who have obviously been prepared to sacrifice an enormous amount just to make these speeches. Igor Paskar, for example, firebombed the office of the Federal Security Services (FSB) where he lived, and then stood there waiting to be arrested. He was detained and badly tortured. When he got to court, he said: “Do I regret what has happened? Yes, perhaps I’d wanted my life to turn out differently – but I acted according to my conscience, and my conscience remains clear.”

He is now serving an eight-and-a-half years jail sentence.

The second thing that struck me is that they were addressed to the population, not to the government. Alexei Rozhkov firebombed a military recruitment centre where he lives. He was released from detention after an initial hearing — the unusual result of good work by his lawyers. Rozhkov then fled to Kyrgyzstan but was kidnapped, presumably by security forces, and returned to Russia for trial. He said: “I also have no doubt that millions of my fellow Russians, women and men, young and old, are opposed to the war too, and, like me, are convinced that the war is not a solution, but a dead end. But they have no way – without risking ending up behind bars – to do anything to be heard, to ensure their opinion was listened to.”

Ukrainian artist Bohdan Ziza splashed blue and yellow paint — the colours of the Ukrainian flag — on government offices in Crimea, which has been occupied since 2014. He filmed himself doing it and saying: “I address myself above all to Crimeans and to Russians.” In court, he said his action “was a cry from the heart, from my conscience, to those who were and are afraid — just as I was afraid — but who also did not want, and do not want, this war.”

The third thing that struck me about these statements was their very different starting points. On the central issue of the war, their views range from pacifist to defeatist. Sasha Skochilenko, an artist jailed in St Petersburg for writing anti-war messages on labels in a supermarket, was fortunately freed as a result of a prisoner exchange. When she was in court, she did not know she was going to be freed. She said: “I am a pacifist. Pacifists have always existed. It’s a certain creed of people who place the highest value on life. We believe every conflict can be resolved peacefully. I can’t bear to kill even a spider, frightened by the very thought of taking a life.”

Alexei Gorinov, a very prominent political prisoner, also expressed himself in court very much in terms of pacifism, and quoted Lev Tolstoy.

In contrast, we have the attitude of Darya Kozyreva, a St Petersburg student jailed for laying flowers at the statue of Taras Shevchenko, a Ukrainian national poet. In court, she made clear that, for her, the central issue is Ukraine’s right to self-determination and clearly justified Ukrainians asserting that right by force of arms. She said the war is a criminal intrusion on Ukraine’s sovereignty, that Ukraine does not need a big brother, and that it will fight anyone who tries to invade.

Another example is Ruslan Siddiqi, an anarchist who tried to inflict tangible damage on the Russian armed forces by detonating bombs that derailed a train taking munitions to the front. He justified this as a military action on Ukraine’s side, saying he thinks of himself as a partisan who should be classified as a prisoner of war.

The final example, who also made a very clear statement of hope for Russia’s defeat, was 68-year-old Alexander Skobov. He was first detained in 1978, in Soviet times, tried for activity in the dissident movement and subjected to forcible psychiatric treatment. This year, 47 years later, he was again in court on charges related to what he said about the war. 

In court, he spelled out three principles of his political organisation, the Free Russia Forum: the unconditional return to Ukraine of all its internationally recognised territories occupied by Russia, including Crimea; support for all those fighting for this goal, including Russian citizens who joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces; and support for “armed resistance to this aggression on the battlefield and in the aggressor’s rear”, but excluding terrorist attacks on civilians.

Overall, if we are talking about the scale of repression in Russia, I propose we use the phrase “the 21st century gulag”, which I think is fully justified. Memorial: Political Prisoners Support, one of the main non-governmental organisations supporting political prisoners, has a list with more than 3,000 names on it. The last time there were comparable numbers of political prisoners was in the mid-1970s under Leonid Brezhnev.

In addition to the people detained in Russia, there are many prisoners from the occupied territories of Ukraine. In their cases, there is a great deal of uncertainty about the numbers. The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, in a submission to the International Criminal Court, identified more than 5,000 civilian victims of “enforced disappearances” from the occupied territories. These people may be in detention or dead. In most cases their families do not know.

In 2023, two Ukrainian human rights groups, Zmina and the Center for Civil Liberties, compiled a list of 585 arrested civilians who were in detention or missing due to their political and civic activity in the occupied territories. This list included local government representatives, former military personnel, volunteers, activists and journalists.

The cases of political prisoners from Crimea are more known because of the strength of civil society organisations there. The Crimean Human Rights Group currently has a register of 265 of such prisoners, many from the Crimean Tatar community. Then, there are also thousands of civilian prisoners who have been moved from the so-called people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. They were tried under very local arbitrary legal systems and transferred to the Russian prison system.

In the world we live in, with militarism and authoritarianism on the rise, the anti-war protests in Russia have international significance.

It is worth making a comparison: in Britain, which is very far from facing the sort of dictatorship that rules Russia, or even the threats to democracy that we see now in the United States, the criminalisation of anti-war protesters follows a very similar Kafkaesque ideological logic to what we see in Russia.

Palestine Action, which organises direct action protests against arms deliveries to Israel, is threatened with a ban under anti-terror legislation. Singers who have denounced the genocide in Gaza are investigated by the police. The parallels with some Russian cases are striking.

What can be done in western countries about these political prisoners? First, we can raise awareness, particularly in left-wing circles, where the influence of campism remains strong. By campism, I mean the idea that Russia is not really an imperialist power and does not deserve the same condemnation as the US or Israel.

Another thing is writing letters, a standard form of support for political prisoners. It is very difficult to write letters from western countries: possible for Russian speakers, but in practice not for others. But we can send money to people who organise parcels and letters. Memorial is the biggest and most well-known. There is also OVD-info, which has been doing fantastic work over the past three years. And I have also already mentioned Solidarity Zone, the Crimea Human Rights Group and the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, which also has its roots in Memorial. These are all organisations that fully deserve our support.

Simon Pirani is honorary professor at the University of Durham and writes a blog at peoplenature.org. Thanks to Links journal, where a version of this article was first published.

Image: Darya Kozyreva (centre, with bright red jacket) and supporters on the day on which she was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison. Photo from Mediazona with permission https://zona.media/online/2025/04/18/kozyreva-11

UK

Andrea Egan for UNISON General Secretary!

JULY 31, 2025

The election campaign for the General Secretary of UNISON has now begun. Andrea Egan, who was President of UNISON from 2022 until 2023, has registered her candidacy to be the first ever lay member General Secretary of UNISON. 

If elected, Andrea has pledged to take the wage of a social worker and channel the rest of the £181,000 General Secretary salary into funding welfare and industrial action funds for UNISON members.

She is committed to ending UNISON’s current subservience to Keir Starmer’s Labour Party by opposing attacks on the living standards of UNISON members, opposing donations made to Labour MPs who fail to oppose welfare cuts, and launching a comprehensive review of the union’s relationship with the Labour Party. 

Andrea Egan says: “I’m standing to be General Secretary to give power to ordinary members, implement the decisions you’ve voted for, and start winning the real improvements to pay and conditions all our members deserve. I will end our subservience to the Labour Party by launching a comprehensive review of our union’s relationship.”

Andrea started her working life as a low-paid children’s residential care worker, supporting vulnerable children, going on to become an unqualified social worker before qualifying 15 years ago. She first became a steward 30 years ago and has since been successfully elected as assistant secretary, joint secretary and now the secretary of Bolton Local Government Branch.

“It’s because of the support of strong women who mentored me that I have been able to play a leading role in our union,” she says. “I am deeply committed to repaying that solidarity by developing the confidence of activists, especially those from marginalised backgrounds.”

As President, she supported the implementation of UNISON’s first Race Discrimination Panel, gave support to the launch of trans ally training and championed UNISON’s disabled workers passport. She led on the Organising to Win programme which has done so much to support members to win substantial improvements to pay and conditions.

Website: andrea4gs.org.uk/   Facebook: facebook.com/Andrea4GS/ 

X: x.com/Andrea4GS  Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/andrea4gs.bsky.social 

Instagram: instagram.com/andrea4gs

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattcornock/13487649954 Licence: Attribution 2.0 Generic CC BY 2.0 Deed

Britain’s forgotten general strike

 

AUGUST 1, 2025

Jeff Slee reviews The General Strike of 1842, by Mick Jenkins, published by Lawrence & Wishart.

This is an unusual book review, because this book in question was published in 1980. It is now out of print, but it can be bought online.

I have written this review because, although I have a fair knowledge of British working class history, I only recently found out we had a General Strike in August 1842. It was probably the first ever General Strike anywhere in the world, and the most massive industrial action in this country in the 19th century. This book is an inspiring and eye-opening account of it.

The 1842 General Strike is little covered in most of the standard histories of the British working class, such as GDH Cole’s and Raymond Postgate’s The Common People (first published in 1938) and Henry Pelling’s History of British Trade Unionism (first published in 1963).  Engels, who came to England in December 1842 – after the strike – was mistaken when he wrote in The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) that the General Strike was largely instigated by the “rich manufacturing bourgeoisie”, as part of its opposition to the landowning aristocracy and in particular its aim of abolishing the Corn Laws which, as Wikipedia says, “protected landowners’ interests by levying taxes on imported wheat, thus raising the price of bread at a time when factory-owners were trying to cut wages.”

Yet, as Mick Jenkins’s book shows, the strike was an important event in the history of our class.

The Working Class in 1842

In 1842, the industrial revolution was still ongoing. The working class was growing in numbers, in self-organisation and in experience. Cotton, the biggest industry, employed about 350,000 workers – mainly around Manchester, the centre of the industrial revolution. Other industries – coal, engineering, wool –  employed about half a million workers across the UK. Workers had already held localised strikes against pay cuts, protests where they destroyed machinery that was replacing jobs (the Luddites) and created early trade union organisations. 

Working class radicals were also campaigning for universal male suffrage, and a large demonstration for this had been violently dispersed by the army in St Peter’s Square Manchester in 1819 – the Peterloo Massacre (covered in The Peterloo Massacre by Joyce Marlow, Harper and Collins, 1971, and in the 2018 film by Mike Leigh). The Reform Act of 1832 had extended the right to vote to property owners, including the bosses of the new industrial companies, but less than one in five men – and no women – had the right to vote. The People’s Charter was launched in 1838 and soon became the main political demand of working class militants.

The Strike

The strike started in Manchester and the towns around it, against wage cuts and against unemployment.  As well as these aims, the strike also, as Mick Jenkins clearly explains, had a very clear political aim – universal suffrage so that Parliament would include workers’ representatives.

 It rapidly spread to include half a million workers, perhaps half the UK’s industrial workforce: cotton workers of course; coal miners from Scotland and the North East to South Wales; pottery workers in Staffordshire; engineering workers in London and elsewhere; and woollen weavers in Somerset and Norfolk.

The strike was led by skilled workers – mechanics, toolmakers, etc., who were self-educated and literate. Many of the strike leaders were also leading figures in the Chartist movement, though other Chartist leaders such as Feargus O’ Connor were less keen on uniting the industrial and political struggles.

The strike was organised through strike committees which held mass meetings; maintained discipline and order; collected and distributed food; issued permits to work where they decided this was necessary; and built support for the strikers amongst shopkeepers and others in their towns.

Mick Jenkins’ narrative draws on an impressive range of contemporary sources, including the Northern Star, the widely read Chartist newspaper; the Manchester Guardian, then as now the paper of the liberal bourgeoisie; records of the trials of the strike leaders; government documents; and ministers’ letters.

The Significance of the Strike

In his introduction to the book, John Foster (then and now one of Britain’s leading Marxist historians) explains the significance of the strike for the way the British trade union movement developed. In Britain in 1842, wage workers formed the majority, unlike the rest of Europe which was still largely agricultural and feudal. Governments both Whig and Tory, the bourgeoisie, the landowners, all feared that universal male suffrage would lead to the transfer of state power to workers’ representatives – a political revolution. As John Foster wrote, the strike’s “unification of wage demands with the demand for universal suffrage raised working class struggle to the level of class struggle for the revolutionary transformation of society.”

While the army and the newly-created police force were. used against the strikers, it was not they but hunger, and concessions on wages by employers, that eventually forced the strikers back to work.

After the strike, the state hled what John Foster describes as a “monster show trial” of the strike and Chartist leaders for 1843. The intention was to give them the harshest punishments for defying the state. But between the strike and the trial, government policy shifted from repression to conciliation. At the trial, none of the 31 defendants found guilty were sentenced. The government acknowledged the hardships suffered by industrial workers, and some concessions were made to alleviate the worst poverty and hunger, and to tolerate and incorporate trade unionism – but for skilled workers only. In return for which, the leaders of the Chartists, and the leaders who emerged in the trade unions after 1842, accepted the separation of economic and political demands, the authority of the bourgeois state, and accepted that agitation for better pay and conditions should be done within the capitalist system. In one word, reformism.

Jeff Slee is a retired rail worker and former RMT National Executive Committee member.

HubMP2012

Top Ten Reads for Days of Sun, Sand and Subversion

An eclectic selection for beach reading provided by Mark Perryman.

The summer: a time for the beach, sunshine, sunglasses and in between whatever takes our marine fancy for a holiday read. A bit of escapism, something for the fast-approaching start of the new football season, a challenge to prejudices old and new, words to inform, and inspire. My  selection aims to provide all of this, and more.

Red Menace: Joe Thomas

Joe Thomas was a beach read discovery last summer via White Riot, a novel that brilliantly weaved its way around the late 1970s growth of the National Front, a resistance led most spectacularly by the Anti Nazi League and Rock against Racism.  And then into the early 1980s featuring the rising number of young black men dying in police custody. It’s a political thriller with a left wing bent, the added twist being it is written from the perspective of a spycop. Oh my!  Red Menace is the second in a promised trilogy, this time taking us from the Broadwater Farm riots in Tottenham to the Wapping Picket Line. I’m not sure there’s ever been novels written with such political insight and rollicking plot lines. A writer top of my pile, second summer running.

Red Menace from here

Pitch Invasion: Karen Dobres

Karen Dobres is the face, brain and unstoppable energy behind the reinvention of non-league Lewes FC as the global trailblazing Equality FC.  To declare an interest, I’m a supporter of Lewes FC and don’t always entirely agree with the detail of the direction Karen would take the club, or indeed football, in. But that’s not the point. It’s the direction that is right, arguing over the detail shouldn’t distract from that. Where the two collide is the almost unremarked upon dominance of women’s football by the same ‘big’ clubs as the men’s game. And in the process, the almost complete extinction of autonomous women’s clubs of the sort of the glorious Doncaster Belles. Pitch Invasion provides the kind of rounded view that, if focused, could resist both these unwelcome developments.

Pitch Invasion from here

Planet Patriarchy: Beatrix Campbell and Rahila Gupta

Two long-standing feminists, writer Beatrix Campbell and Chair of Southall Black Sisters Rahila Gupta, deliver an outstanding and up-to-date analysis of patriarchy, worldwide. Much has changed in and around feminism since the heady days of the 1970s’ ‘second wave’. But as this politically spiky duo reveal, much hasn’t. Their survey of the inequality and discrimination women face globally proves that, but also the enduring commitment to change all this of its foe, feminism, a movement founded on sisterhood, solidarity and resistance. The sheer variety of expressions of this mix the authors uncover is quite breathtaking, the scale of what societies produce to deny these women liberation staggering. A potent mix for a powerful read.

Planet Patriarchy from here

The Activism of Art: Dipti Desai and Stephen Duncombe

Stephen Duncombe is one of those rare writers who combines the study of how culture shapes politics with an accessible way of describing how. The often indecipherable  language of cultural studies academics is stripped bare, to produce a new common sense. In his latest book, co-authored with Dipti Desai, these two wonderfully gifted writers chronicle the intersections between art and politics that the sheer scale of the dullness of the conventional versions of ‘doing politics’ from the parliamentary to the protest ignores, at their and our peril. In this regard, a book not simply to read but also to practise.

The Activism of Art from here

Sound System: Dave Randall

If there’s one space where the fusion of the cultural and the political has revealed the popular potential of the mix it is music.  Dave Randall is both a professional musician and a skilled interpreter of his mix.  In Sound System, sub-titled “The political power of music”, he has written an intellectual how-to guide for a movement of change in which a soundtrack is every bit as vital as the more customary baggage of worthy texts. Historical, international and practical: the three ingredients of not only this very fine book but the reasons for the huge impact of the current most obvious example of what the book might aspire to: Kneecap.

Sound System from here

The Carnation Revolution: Alex Fernandes

The kind of political fusions in their different ways that Dipti Desai, Stephen Duncombe and Dave Randall describe take their most vibrant forms in revolutionary moments. The trouble is, despite the worst efforts of Saturday morning Socialist Worker paper-sellers, those moments for most of us are either few and far between, or far away, or both. Yet for those heading to the Algarve coast for the beaches and sunshine, or Lisbon for a summer city break, Portugal was the setting of a revolution just a generation ago. The Carnation Revolution by Alex Fernandes records in thrilling detail how in 1974 Europe’s last remaining fascist regime was brought to an end: daring deeds, the courage of crowds, the rebellion of young army officers. Those were the days: a regime and its empire ended by R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N.

The Carnation Revolution from here  

The Fiery Spirits: Popular Protest, Parliament and the English Revolution: John Rees

Detailing the leadership and ideas that would lead to the deposing of King Charles (no, not that one) and his eventual execution in 1649 (ditto), The Fiery Spirits is a hugely readable account in the tradition of a ‘people’s history’ of Christopher Hill and others. This was English republicanism on the march, at war with all things regal. Yet, as John Rees details, this was a movement that knew it needed to make allies, to use the inspiration of their republican, revolutionary ideals to inspire others. No, despite the execution, it didn’t end the monarchy but it did strip them of almost all their powers, if not riches. Which left me asking after reading this very fine book: time (minus the execution) to finish the job? 

Fiery Spirits from here

A People’s History of the Anti Nazi League (1977-1981): Geoff Brown

If English revolutions are in historically short supply, the same, thankfully, cannot be said of mass movements on these shores that effect social change. In the 1930s, the Popular Front against Moseley and his black-shirted British Union of Fascists, the International Brigades who went to Spain to defend the Republic against Franco’s fascists.  In the 1950s, the rise of CND, in the 1960s the Vietnam War and in the 1970s opposition to Apartheid South Africa via stopping their cricket and rugby tours. The Anti Nazi League absolutely stands in this tradition, as detailed by Geoff Brown in his ‘people’s history’. Unselfishly galvanised by the organisational skills of the Socialist Workers Party the ANL worked because it was unimaginably bigger and broader than the self-styled ‘revolutionary left’. And everyone could be a part of it, from wearing a ‘School Kids Against the Nazis’ badge, pogoing at a Rock against Racism gig, dishing out leaflets, going on marches and, if push came to shove, stopping the fascists, the National Front, in their tracks.  Geoff Brown chronicles this  rich and plural variety which not only makes a very good read but powerfully illustrates all kinds of lessons for how we resist today the rise of the populist right and their attendant far right too.   

A People’s History of the Anti Nazi League from here 

Palestine A-Z: Kate Thompson

If the Anti Nazi League and Rock Against Racism were the movements that provided a generational moment in the late 1970s, the Miners’ Strike did the same in 1984-85.  Likewise, the Iraq War 2001- 2005, the student tuition fees protests of 2010, #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo (fill the gaps with your own memories and experiences) and now without any doubt Gaza. This last has by no means ended and the abject betrayal of Palestine by the political and wider establishment, most notoriously by this Labour government, has created a cleavage which (quite rightly) won’t be closed in a hurry. But this cannot be an excuse for narrowing the cause to the fully signed-up left.  Palestine is absolutely not a left/right issue: the cause crosses all such divisions – it must appeal, not only to those who will march and those who don’t. The potential is huge and broad yet nowhere near reached.  Kate Thompson’s delightful A-Z will convince anyone why it needs to: if not, how?

Palestine A-Z from here

FIVE STAR CHOICE

The Leopard In My House: One Man’s Adventure in Cancerland: Mark Steel

My ‘five star’ choice for this summer’s top beach read is a comically inspirational real life read out of real-life potential disaster: cancer. No, it doesn’t sound like quite the book for long-awaited summer hols but in the hands of the one and only Mark Steel anything is possible.  Cancer touches the lives of all sorts, ages and sizes, it requires all the skills the NHS can provide to detect and diagnose. The treatment is often lengthy, sometimes intrusive.  Most cancers can be moderated, few extinguished entirely, some, too many, prove lethal. Men on the whole aren’t very good talking about much, or indeed, any of this. Mark Steel is, and provides bucketfuls of laughs along the (happy ending alert) road to recovery. An absolutely superb beach read.  Five gold stars fully deserved.

The Leopard In my House from here  

Note No link in these reviews are to Amazon; if you can avoid buying from tax-dodging billionaires please do so. 

Mark Perryman’s new book, The Starmer Symptom, is published by Pluto in August, here.

UK

Reinstate the whip for the suspended Labour MPs

AUGUST 1, 2025

A statement by the Labour Campaign for Council Housing.

The decision to suspend four Labour MPs and take away the role of three trade envoys, following the row over the ill-health and disability benefit cuts, runs counter to the government’s promise to engage with backbenchers. It is completely unprecedented for 127 Labour MPs to sign a “reasoned amendment” which would kill a government Bill. That this could happen was the result of the government’s refusal to listen to the disability organisations that were calling on it to back down, and to their MPs who were inundated with angry and fearful protests from their constituents.

One of the reasons why even supporters of the leadership were threatening to kill off the Bill was that these cuts were not in the Manifesto and the government had no democratic mandate from any Labour Party structure. No government can expect its MPs to blindly follow policies which increase poverty and in which they have had no say.

That they have chosen to suspend just four out of 47 MPs who voted against the Bill because of the £2 billion cuts still contained in it, can only be seen as a warning for the rest. Disabled people can reach no other conclusion than the partial retreat on Personal Independence Payments was tactical rather than the recognition of a mistake. The government backed down because it feared it would lose the vote, rather than admitting that it had been wrong.

Ironically, in the case of one of the four, Chris Hinchliff, his suspension was said to be related to his amendments to the Planning Bill. Having refused to meet with him to discuss his amendments, the government opposed them. Now it seems, having withdrawn the whip for his ‘rebellion’ on the Planning Bill, the government has introduced its own amendment, at least similar to his.

We supported his amendments, which recognised that liberalising planning law would not resolve the housing crisis. His most important amendment was for “affordable housing” to mean “social rent housing”. The government opposed this since it is maintaining its support for the Tories’ definition of affordable housing, supporting “affordable rent” (up to 80% of market rent), “shared ownership”, and even “affordable private rent”.

As Chris Hinchliff said, the ‘developer-led model” has enriched a handful of corporations while failing to deliver the housing we need. The Bill “slashes so-called red tape, stripping back democracy and environmental protections.” He said we need an alternative – mass council house building and getting tough on developers.

Martin Wicks, Secretary of the Labour Campaign for Council Housing, said: “The action taken by the government against a small number of MPs who voted against the benefit cuts will tell disabled people that it does not admit to a mistake. It was the government that was wrong, not the MPs. No government can expect its MPs to follow instructions when they have not even been involved in discussion on policy, especially when they were being asked to vote in support of pushing 250,000 into poverty. That a quarter of the PLP were threatening to vote down the Bill was because of the intense pressure that they came under from their constituents; because of the widespread anger that the government was seeking to balance the books on the backs of the poor and the vulnerable.

“Debate, democratic discussion, cannot be silenced by bureaucratic action. If the government cannot admit to mistakes, if it tries to silence discussion by using discipline as an instrument of fear, it will reap the electoral whirlwind.

“The Labour Campaign for Council Housing is calling for the reinstatement of the whip for all suspended MPs and withdrawal of the action against the trade envoys. We call on our members and supporters and the wider movement to do likewise.”

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UK

HubMP2012

When the Lionesses win, what changes?

AUGUST 1, 2025

Philosophy Football’s Mark Perryman measures the impact of England’s Euro 2025 Victory.

The 2025 sporting summer will forever be remembered for three and a bit weeks in Switzerland and England winning the Euros. Checks notes: the Women’s Euros. A mere decade ago, when the Lionesses made it to the World Cup semi-final, losing to Japan, was the first breakthrough. One which scarcely anybody had expected, it provoked ripples of interest – but nothing compared to 2025. It has been a slow but steady growth of interest which detonated three years ago with the Euro 2022 victory and, if anything, has been even more explosive this time around. 

The miserable men who loudly decry all this as not ‘proper football’ remain a vocal minority, but they are precisely that, loud but marginal.  Never mind Wimbledon, Chelsea’s World Club Cup, the Lions, the Test series against India: this sporting summer belongs unquestionably to the Lionesses. And that’s one huge change, for the better. 

The best thirteen words ever written on Englishness were provided by the historian Eric Hobsbawm: “The imagined community seems more real as a team of eleven named people.”

England is a nation which doesn’t even have a National Anthem to call our own and a national day, St George’s Day, which, year in, year out, passes by unnoticed, dwarfed by a Guinness-driven night out for that Saint from across the Irish sea. All this changes for a Euro or World Cup tournament when Hobsbawm’s ‘imagined community’ is wrapped in the St George’s Cross. Except this was always previously for a team of eleven named men. Not anymore, the Lionesses and their support is in turn reshaping this summertime version of a popular Englishness.    

As I’ve chronicled elsewhere, it was always something of a stereotype to picture all England fans as xenophobes, racists, Far Right. And the brutish expressions of football Englishness, arms out, ‘Ten German Bombers’, beered up, ready for a fight, was a minority too. But that’s not to say this ugly mix doesn’t exist. Compare and contrast the morning of the Euro 2021 final to this summer. A pissed-up fan starts proceedings off in Leicester Square with a flare stuffed up his arse, before promptly lighting it. And it’s all downhill from there. His flare now safely extinguished, even if his backside is feeling a tad warmed up, he joins thousands of others making their way to Wembley Way. Their mission? Ticketless, to battle with police and security to force their way into the Final. Official reports estimate some 5,000 succeeded. It’s hardly essentialist to point out these were all men.

Nothing remotely of this sort occurred at the Women’s Euros, 2022 or 2025.  Does that mean this popular Englishness has been entirely transformed by the Lionesses’ success? No, of course not, but nor is it the same as what it had been.

These are changes of mood and attitude, changes ‘from below’ and on a mass scale. However, change isn’t a simple process, principally because of the forces that seek to determine what can and can’t be changed. The business that football has become does its best to eliminate the kind of risky endeavour that depends on the kind of last-minute equalisers and penalty shoot-outs that shaped the enormous impact of the Lionesses this summer. And such risk aversion is central to domestic women’s football. No club comes anywhere close to challenging the absolute dominance of Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City Women. And spot the difference with men’s football. Liverpool is the only one missing from the Premier League’s dominant quartet. But in men’s football there is the odd exception, Leicester most famously, Nottingham Forest so close last season, the multibillion petro-dollars Newcastle can rely on getting them there or thereabouts.  

In women’s football, the triumvirate appear even more impregnable that the men’s ‘big four’. But in men’s football there’s also the chance of a cup upset, a giant-killing, Crystal Palace lifting the cup.  Women’s football has even managed to eliminate this flicker of hope, the cups almost always ending up with one or other of the ‘big three’.  I follow non-league Lewes FC, mainly the men’s team. But my best ever moment I’ve had at our much-loved ground, The Dripping Pan, was when Lewes Women made it into the FA Cup Quarter-Finals to face Manchester United. United dominated, as expected, 2-0 up and then… I saw something I thought I’d never witness, a Lewes player chipped England’s first choice goalie. Never mind the gender, this was historic. Mary Earps, England hero of Euro 2022, beaten. Of course, United then brought on another England international, Nikita Parris, to finish the job, 3-1, but that moment was unforgettable.  

The big three hegemony is rarely rattled. And it gets worse: eleven out of the twelve Women’s Super League clubs are the sister clubs of Men’s Premier League clubs. The one exception? London City Lionesses, owned by an American billionairess. The Women’s Super League Two (AKA, the Championship)? The same pattern: sister clubs of Premier League and Championship clubs, with the sole exception of Durham. The modernisation of women’s football has all but extinguished autonomous women’s football clubs at anything resembling elite level, with just a handful reaching the Women’s National League North and South (AKA League One) and none coming close to being promoted. 

In 1990, All Played Out by Pete Davies was published. It was a runaway best seller telling the story of England’s Italia 90 campaign that marked the birth of what became known as ‘modern football’.  Pete’s book was second only in importance and impact to Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch. After that, Pete could choose whatever subject he wanted for his next book, publisher’s advance and support guaranteed. He chose, women’s football. Or more specifically, the Doncaster Belles.

I’ve read an awful lot of football books: I Lost My Heart to the Belles is by some considerable distance the best.  Prior to the formation of the first Women’s National League in 1991, the Belles won their regional league every season from 1976 to 1991. Then they won the National League for its first two seasons as league and cup doubles, having already won the FA Cup previously four times.

The club was founded by Sheila Stocks and fellow women who sold half-time lottery tickets at Doncaster Rovers home matches.  Sheila played for the club for 25 years. In 2003, the FA created the first women’s professional league and effectively forced independent women’s clubs to merge with professional men’s clubs. The Doncaster Belles were taken over by Doncaster Rovers, a club whose trophy cabinet was more or less bare compared to the Belles’.

Autonomy and self-organisation were founding principle of the women’s liberation movement. It is hardly ‘political correctness gone mad’ to observe that in the dash for growth, women’s football clubs subsumed into men’s has lost the kind of distinctiveness the Doncaster Belles and countless other clubs like them had.

This dash for growth driven by the Football Association and their support for the women’s game, having previously presided over a 50-year ban on women playing matches on any FA-affiliated club pitches from 1921-1971, are of course only to be welcomed. But there is a danger lurking too. This growth is driven first and foremost by the success of the Lionesses, and in particular their winning Euro 2022. The men’ game had a similar breakthrough after Italia 90 when the success of the England team reaching the World Cup semifinal and the dramatic ending, out on penalties to West Germany, reached a huge audience. ‘New fans’ emerged, escaping from the years of domestic hooliganism, with English club sides banned from European competition, and the combination of decaying grounds and poor policing that led to the Bradford Fire Disaster and Hillsborough. So, what did the FA do? They sold off the old First Division’ to be privately run as The Premier League.  

The FA in this regard is unique: a governing body effectively ceding control over the elite end of their sport. And now the self-same has happened to the women’s top two divisions too. All is fine now but as the club game grows, the concern must be that the divisions will enlarge, with more and more fixtures, pre-season tours added, and release periods for the Lionesses to prepare for, and recover from, tournaments, shortened. The primacy of the England team will be undermined. Yet it is the Lionesses’ success more than any other single factor that has driven the growth of women’s club football. 

The FA, now basking in the success of Euro 2025, should be careful what they wish for. The same warning signs should be applied to UEFA, and FIFA. Euro 2025 was a glorious tournament both on and off the pitch. It worked because sixteen teams mean just about every group stage match counts, with the turnaround between group stages and knockout rounds long enough for players’ recovery, short enough to maintain attention span. Sixteen teams is ideal for a country the size of Switzerland to host, their first major tournament since World Cup 1954. A single host stamped its identity on the competition, in the most gloriously nicest possible way.

None of the above applies to the men’s World Cup 2026, which had three hosts – USA, Mexico and Canada, with 48 teams spread across them and innumerable matches of little or no consequence. Sixteen was just right for the Women’s Euros, 32 arguably already too many for the Women’s World Cup. Bigger isn’t always better. 

The most immediate change, however: the Lionesses are expected to achieve in order to ‘inspire’, an ambition always linked to participation. It’s an expectation endlessly repeated by the massed ranks of the great and the good, from Royals to politicians, sports administrators, and the players unsurprisingly joining in too.

Sadly, this is myth-making on an epic scale. The 2012 London Olympics made the self-same claim on the biggest scale of all. After a brief spurt, year on year participation in sport has fallen ever since.

Every single piece of evidence proves that elite sporting success has next to zero impact on participation. Competitive team sport is the worst possible model for boosting participation. Not being good enough to be picked for the team means from the earliest age. If watching a game from the sofa or in the pub counts as participation, OK. Much more of anything else, forget it.

To achieve anything remotely resembling connecting inspiration to participation means entirely rethinking the latter. It means investing heavily in beginner-focused coaching. It’s the hardest coaching job of all to turn non-participants into participants; coaching elite athletes hungry for success is sublimely easy in comparison. It means transforming playing football from a talent contest, in which most will inevitably fail, into bursts of fun for all, young, old and in-between.  Combining imagination and positivity, we might call it, ‘soccerobics’ mixing ball games with fitness for fun, from the very young to those of us who were old enough to think we were past it. And in the process, when the Lionesses next turn out, feeling part of their wider community.

When the Lionesses win, what changes? We can answer that question only when we rethink the meaning of ‘change’.

Philosophy Football’s Lionesses Euro 2025 Champions T-shirt is available from here

Mark Perryman is the co-founder of the self-styled ‘sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction’ AKA Philosophy Football.