On Monday October the 9th AF members from different regions participated in the Sack Parliament action. The action was disastrous; chaotic, confusing and worst of all dangerous. Almost 40 people were arrested under the new exclusion zone laws, and one independent camera man was hospitalized by a police charge. It was both demoralizing for the participants and confusing for the public .. in many ways it represented the worst of ..activism...

AF members were involved out of solidarity with the organisers and the intentions of the action, and despite what happened on the day we think the idea behind it was justified and creative. We do not think this trend of ..direct action.. is particularly important, but reserve our criticisms for the planning and on-the-ground actions that day.

The Ideas Behind Sackparliament

Sackparliament was an initiative that came out of a group of students and anti-authoritarians who had attempted direct actions on the Lebanon war demo..s over the summer. Whilst we think their politics are so wide you could throw an aircraft carrier through them, their actions have been completely justified. They correctly see the anti-war movement as a mass movement. At times this has been undeniable, with several polls returning a majority opposed to the war in Iraq, and the numbers on the streets on February 15th 2003 were the biggest ever. The ..Day X.. actions, combined with developments like the school students strikes, showed a potential move towards mass direct action. The most important thing anarchists could have done was try and move the ideas of the anti-war movement away from the ideas of lobbying .. which criticises only this particular government, only this particular war .. and pushed for a real demonstration .. a demonstration of the will and strength of the people united in defiance.

British anarchism was going through a time of identity crisis when the war broke. Burned out from the development of Reclaim The Streets and radical ecology into the anticapitalist movement of Seattle and Genoa, those behind RTS and the Mayday riots were seeing fewer people turn up to their events .. and theirs was movement that relied entirely on events. Many young anarchists who would have taken the helm of a new movement saw little point in activism from a class perspective. Subsequently, there was no fusion of the anticapitalist movement and its tactics with the anti-war movement, apart from at the ..top.. where it never counted .. in the NGO..s, Charities and socialist parties. In a lot of ways it..s real shame.

Event based activism is pointless when the problems of capitalism and the class system need a long term opposition from the people they fuck over .. the working class. Its capitalism that causes wars, and it..s the working class that get sent to fight and die after all. Given the choice between a political strike at an arms factory and a non-violent activist blockade of the arms factory, we would want a strike. But given the choice between the blockade and sweet fuck all, we support a blockade. If the war is a class issue, support its opponents as long as they are not endorsing a political party or another form of dominance.

On this basis then, Sackparliament was something we were willing to engage with. Mostly on the strength of one of their last actions .. leafleting children being taken to an army recruitment fair with information like ..25% of rough sleepers used to be in the army... This is engaging with normal people at the point of contact with the war, where it counts. Also, kicking off outside the American Embassy on the Lebanon demo..s was justified, if a bit stupid without the numbers. Its more something you hope would happen anyway rather than something you call for!

All sackparliament propaganda was good stuff, when you consider its purpose. It was meant to unite all those against the war rather than anarchists and lefties without coming across as lobbying. It also was well produced and had a cracking sense of humour; one flier was a spoof tax return for the government from ..Inland Revenge... All MPs received a spoof P45 on the day too.

Unsurprisingly we think that no matter how good the prop was, there is not much point in isolated stunts rather than trying to build long term resistance, and we do not consider the two paths to be exclusive. Stunts and actions are fine if they feed into the wider struggle, and sackparliament might have.


(put hands on your head and lie down) On The Ground

What was seriously neglected was planning. Similarly to mayday 2003, a map with targets had been distributed and people were expected to plan actions themselves. In this case the targets were different entrances to Parliament, and the plan was for different groups to blockade different ones and delay or cancel the opening session that day. Beyond this hope, nothing was done. According to the map, the situationist inspired Space Hijackers were supposed to provide counseling for the newly sacked MPs and someone else was doing a soundsystem. Neither were in evidence on the day. Considering 500 people were not able to get a portable soundsystem into Trafalgar square this mayday and that there hasn..t been a proper soundsystem on a London action since J18 in 1999, it doesn..t seem very likely one was even secured for this venture.

The ..antiauthoritarian block.. were highly organised, meeting at several different points around London to ensure there were no tails and catching a bus into Parliament Square to avoid getting stopped on the street. Entrance to the square had been looked into properly and other routes assessed and rejected. So, we all pile out of the bus, hats and scarfs on and then.. And then? Nothing. Nobody had a plan, and the original idea .. to somehow blockade several entrances, we assume with our bodies .. totally contradicted the call for an antiauthoritarian (read: black) block. The block had a bit of a rush for the road, 40 people faced down 800 police, and lost. Pushed back into the square, the protestors were surrounded by police. Snatch squads were sent in, and scuffles broke out as the block tried to defend people. Eventually, if they weren..t arrested outright, those in the pen had their details taken and were charged with illegal demonstration.

Suggestions
- Tell people what you think they should do. If you want people to nonviolently blockade things, say so. Marks on maps mean nothing.

- Lead from the front. Anyone who is not a plastic anarchist is happy to take advice from someone with better knowledge; if you called the event, that..s you.

- ..Fill the Jails.. tactics do not work for issues like this. As anarchists, we generally try to avoid jails full stop.

- Get an idea of the numbers attending. Nobody had any idea. Someone speculated ..they..ll be lucky to get over 1000... The event got about 50.

- If you doubt the turnout, call it off .. or make more appropriate plan.

- Get an idea of who is attending .. and what they are capable of. If you have personal guarantees from people to attend, you can assign roles and make better plans.

- Most importantly: Have an exit strategy. Planning ended with the arrival of the block. How does that get us home and dry?

In the end, the gap between the potential and the reality of the action would make anybody feel pretty negative. It was well known that the police were going overboard for this since the Friday article in The Standard; plans should have changed. Or have been made in the first place.

Its important to be honest with yourselves when planning a confrontational action .. which this was, being illegal. Rather than just ..not condemning.. different tactics, think what you actually do want: do you want a riot or a stunt? There is nothing anarchic about having no plan.

That..s All Folks

The authors acknowledge the time effort and money put into the Monday, and hope the organisers find ways of making actions like this work in future, and most importantly linking them to long term issues. See you there.