I still feel strongly that the demise of the Freedom newspaper was a loss to the anarchist movement in the UK. 128 years of of a chequered history down the tubes with the statement, "Kropotkin
might have started it, but we fucking finished it!" which to my mind seems an unfitting comment, which only adds insult to injury. It is good to know that there are those who are fighting hard to see the paper rise from this degrading epitaph, and once again become an important part of the UK anarchist movement. Hopefully, as they say, from the ashes of disaster, grow the roses of success.
This latest report from Northern Voices:
Read the full article HERE:REGULAR readers will recall this series began as an analytical report on the destruction of FREEDOM, the world’s oldest radical newspaper. Further investigation revealed that the Board of Trustees (FFP) legally responsible for safeguarding the newspaper was as seriously dysfunctional as the FREEDOM collective.Our immediate fear was that having closed down the paper in 2014, the collective would sell off the FREEDOM PRESS building and walk away with a million pounds to use as they wished. Unless we could quickly reactivate FFP there was nothing to stop them and they were already discussing the idea.UPDATE THREE briefly outlined the decline of Friends of Freedom Press (FFP) and reported our successful campaign to have it re-constituted. As our ultimate aim was always to restore intellectual, ethical and political integrity to a re-launched FREEDOM newspaper we chose not to emphasise individual responsibility for the fiasco of FFP. On 24th June 2015, the first meeting of the newly reconstituted FFP recognised that without the Northern Voices' campaign FFP would have languished. However, Richard Parry, one of the individuals involved now rejects that view, claiming, 'If anyone was pushing to get FFP working it was me!'Parry challenges our account and accuses Northern Voices of inaccurate reporting so we will now analyse his response. (To minimise blame and antagonism we identify individuals only where essential and apologise in advance for necessarily tedious detail).
Northern Voices is the source of the recent Private Eye piece, which is so inaccurate it names someone as a major influence who hasn't been in the collective for three years! The actual signing-off article (as opposed to the context-free comment picked up on by Brian) is as follows:
ReplyDeleteSince Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism first appeared in 1886 it has been in the form of a newspaper to be sold. Now the Freedom Collective has decided that we shall move content online accompanied by a freesheet after publication of the upcoming second issue of 2014.
We have come to realise that a sold hardcopy newspaper is no longer a viable means of promoting the anarchist message. Despite a huge publicity boost to Freedom following the firebomb attack last year (shop sales rose 50%) there has not been a corresponding increase in distribution of the paper. Only 29 shops, social centres and individuals now sell it and the number of paying subscribers has fallen to 225.As a result annual losses now amount to £3,500, an unsustainable level for our shoestring budget.
Readers will have noticed that the paper has struggled to come out on time for some while. An underlying problem has been a lack of capacity to sustain it. We had hoped that Freedom would be adopted as THE paper of the anarchist movement. Despite a great deal of goodwill from anarchist groups and individuals over the years, sadly this has not been the case.
Although Freedom Press has changed from a political group with a particular point of view to a resource for anarchism as a whole, we have not managed to shake the legacy of the past and get different groups to back it as a collective project. We hope an online version and freesheet will make that possible.
Subscribers will be offered a refund or book in lieu but we are happy to accept donations towards the costs of the new project.
Charlotte Dingle will remain as editor and of course the shop, publishing and book distribution will continue as normal. As will the use of Angel Alley for meetings, events, offices, postal address and drop-in protest advice.
The print version could not have continues so long without the generosity of Aldgate Press, currently amounting to a subsidy of nearly £10,000 a year. They have very kindly agreed to print a regular freesheet/news compilation to enable us to keep in touch with our readers who don’t have the internet, and a special final edition, which will be released for the London Anarchist Bookfair in October.