Fuck the Queen – here’s King Mob: autonomous London defies national obsession with dead lizard
On this most special day of the anarcho-calendar, we must say in unison: fuck the Queen, long live King Mob!
This weekend the autonomous movement of the Untied Krimdom came together to show the State that anarchy is alive, organized and fucking having it. In defiance of the national passion for monarchist bootlicking and despite the ultimate mega queue of grieving swan-fuckers, Anarcho-Xmas aka the Anarchist Bookfair in London took place across 4 offical venues and 3 more fringe events. Reports estimate attendance by more than 2000 people who had travelled from across the world to celebrate the most significant event of the anarchist calender. At the same time as Decolonisefest – the “punk festival by and for punx of colour” – took place in Haggerston featuring Gurnal Gadaffi, Dystopia and many more, simultaneously as a national day of action was organised to protest the homicide of Chris Kaba by cops. The bookfair itself was the climax of a week of self-organised education by the anti-university collectives.
Meanwhile, 1000s of serfs formed a 10-mile queue to see a box.
The staging of the festival is a triumphant continuation of the return to form demonstrated by the organizing crew and the autonomous community of London and beyond since the bookfair collapsed in 2017 after disruption by TERF activists. A molotov’s-throw from where anarchist bank-robbers killed 3 police officers as they raided a jewellery store to expropriate funds, the Bishopsgate Institute hosted over 40 stalls, including the Advisory Service for Squatters, Dog Section Press, Mangal Media, SolFed and many, many more.
The Toynbee Hall community centre, a charitable institution that works to address the causes and impacts of poverty in the East End of London, was plastered with images discussing forum theatre and hosted talks by Don’t Pay UK on payment strikes and community defence, Netpol on solutions and responses to the police labelling all anarchist ideas as “aggravated activism”, and Palestine Action on active resistance to the war machine, plus more.
Whitechapel Gallery, which exists just opposite Altab Ali Park – named for the 25-year-old British Bangladeshi clothing worker who was murdered in 1978 by three teenage boys as he walked home from work – provided rooms to host discussions on workplace organising by SolFed and Earth First! asking where next for the ecological movement, plus many more which as listed here.
Freedom Bookshop was open, with a creche for children in the UK’s smallest social space Decentre providing a programme on subjects such as stories about police, asking for help, community and the future. Meanwhile, Angel Alley was filled with stalls selling zines, T-shirts and much more from DIY and independent creatives, and featured street performances by militant-trans collective NFA Queer Punx and poems from Rojava by Matt Broomfield. Longtime DIY stalwarts Dissident Island Radio and sex-worker collective Radio Ava broadcast live reports from the event throughout the day.
London Action Resource Centre provided a fringe programme.
One of the Bookfair organisers said the following:
“Thank you to all in the organising collective and to all who who helped, but special thanks to all squatters, migrants, ravers, punks, queer punx, non-punk inclined queers, boat and van dwellers, artists, stoners, pranksters, crusties and the DIY-obsessed lot.
Your work often goes unacknowledged or taken for granted by the so-called “organisers” on the left, but the reality is that it is you who provided us with absolutely copious amounts of work and energy and resourcefulness and effort to make the Bookfair run as smoothly as it could. And that was pretty fucking smooth!”
After the daytime event, an afterparty featuring live 2-bit rave-punkers Killdren, honker-screechers Agents of the Lexicon and fuckloads of techno bassbeat took place at a specially seized warehouse in Edmonton that was attended by 100s of party people – no doubt rejoicing the death of the despot.
We pay tribute to our fallen comrades: Charlotte Dingle, who edited Freedom from 2013-14, who died last week; Iggy, for whom a memorial benefit was held in a squatted space near Canning Town on Saturday featuring live music from some of the finest of the underground punk scene, including Pisskreig, Eskorputas and more; Sheize, the founder of notorious chaos punk noise collective Litter Shitter; Alexia, in whose honour of a memorial gig was held at the Bird’s Nest on 3rd September, featuring the last ever Poisonous Cunt gig, for whom she drummed; we remember Agent Kingfisher – Tom Palmer – who once pissed on the doors of MI5; Dainis, the singer of the band Dearth; and the many, many more who we have lost in the struggle against State, domination and capital.
How can the loss of one lizard ever equate to the millions more who pass in anonymity?
Merry fucking anarcho-Xmas to one and all.
Next up – Temporary Autonomous Arts on the weekend of the 6/7/8 October. See you there.
Bookfair poster by Loki Gwynbleidd.
The queen was good at what she did; slick even. Her public faux pas were few, or not widely grasped enough to have wide impact.
King Charles III has no such reputation. He’s already sacked his staff and made several brattish clangers on video. He helped make a hero of his late wife Diana through his and his family’s antics, and his Jeffrey Epstein-linked brother Andrew will automatically deputise for the king in case of emergencies. On top of this, Charles has been for many years an ambassador for the British arms industry.
He must not have an easy ride, at least not nearly as easy as his life during his 73-year apprenticeship. The truth is, the king has to go, and so does the institution of monarchy. And no amount of monarchist (or republican) moralism about timing, or respect, or most laughably their ‘service’, should stop us saying it. Anything which inspires the bizarre queue – a sort of idiot ‘Human Respectipede’ – currently winding its way through London’s streets needs to go in the bin.
Immoral or ignorant?
That said, republicanism in mainland Britain is in a shocking state – despite a decent amount of support for it. Up to a quarter of Brits want an elected head of state – this goes up to 40% among young people. Meanwhile, 36% of Scottish people say the end of the queen’s reign should usher in a republic. These are sizeable minorities which are given few platforms in the mainstream media or public narrative.
And they are right to oppose it. The monarchy is a ridiculous and oppressive institution built on violence. There is no nuance to be had here: if you are a monarchist, or waver and drip over the question of monarchy (in which case, you may well be a monarchist), you are either immoral or ignorant.
If you can see the monarchy for what it is and don’t care, you’re clearly immoral. If you refuse to stop being spoon-fed lies about the British empire, you’re purposely ignorant. At least the latter category might be redeemable through education, but not with things as they are.
The only specific organisation which speaks to this grand old strain of UK politics is Republic. Liberal, reformist, and flaky, its first call upon the death of the queen was instructive: let’s hold fire on debate until a more appropriate time:
This should not shock. It is a feature of liberal republicanism that it is almost as twee and deferent as monarchism itself, and about as likely to seriously oppose the Royal institution. And this is nowhere more apparent than in the main organisation meant to oppose the Royal racket.
There isn’t really a question about whether we need to get rid of the monarchy. It’s about how we oppose it in an invigorated and non-deferent way.
The questions of;
Republicanism, rather like free speech, is simply too important to be left to flaky liberals and self-assured Tories. It must become a key part of any strategy to increase working class power and confidence.
The question now is what that looks like.
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