Bristol and Empire

Speakers: Edson Burton, Lawrence Hoo, Madhu Krishnan, Jasmine Ketibuah-Foley (chair)

Bristol, despite it's liberal posturing, is a city who's history is intrinsically linked with the British Empire, slavery and the historic crimes that went with it.

So much of the effort to engage with this History is stuck simply trying to stop the open celebration of the perpetrators of these crimes.

In this panel we will be trying to move beyond this. We'll ask, what would a radical approach to engaging with Bristol's imperialist past look like? What can activists themselves do to resist the empire apologists and to force the city to engage with it's dark past and take meaningful steps towards making amends?

Getting real with strategy

Speakers: James Meadway, Sarah Jaffe, Archie Woodrow, Kulsoom Jafri

There has been a resurgence of leftwing organisations, think tanks, activists, politicians and ideas in recent years, and in America it seems the left is on the brink of power. But all of this happened almost accidentally, and without serious strategic thought. In this session we ask activists from the UK and the States how the left can coordinate with effective strategy to win power.

No Human is Illegal

Speakers: Lowkey, Sabrina Huck, Alena Ivanova, Nadine El-Enany, Ben Smoke

With the rise of disaster nationalism, the climate emergency, devastating conflicts, children in cages on the US border and tragic deaths from human trafficking in the UK, all this and more surely goes to show that borders equal violence and discrimination in the 21st century. In this session we explore the possibilities of a world free from the violence of borders, and how we can get there.

Make all drugs legal?

Speakers: Dr Emily Crick, James Nicholls, Thangam Debbonaire MP, Tommy Corbyn

We will discuss the pitfalls of existing drug policy, and issues with policy processes, blocks and the potential for movement in Parliament. We will also discuss the possibilities for drug reform with reference to policies internationally, nationally and in a local Bristol context.

We Can't win without Trade Unions

Speakers: Robert Wotherspoon, Robert Maisey, Joanne Kaye, Narzanin Massoumi

Trade Unions are the foundation of the socialist movement and the welfare state, but they risk crumbling under assault from Tory legislation diminishing membership and a changing economy. Workers are producing unprecedented wealth while ever fewer billionaires hoard it. To change the balance of forces, and to unleash the potential of our society its only the organised working class that has the power to do it.

This panel brings together representatives from across the union movement to talk about the threats and the opportnites for the union movement.

ACORN

ACORN have a solid, proven track record in winning what they fight for through organising for power in neighbourhoods, cities and across the country.

Focusing on issues around housing, transport, local services and whatever else members want to campaign on, the fast growing union has a solid model - they win the campaign whilst building the union ready for the next bigger fight - organising for power.

In this part practical, part discussion based workshop ACORN members will take you through how we work, why we do what we do and what sets our model of community organising apart from other methods.

Student housing: university in crisis

Ruth Day, Scotty Jennings, Amelia Horgan, Cllr Paul Smith

Student housing has always been a contentious issue but the explosion in student numbers following New Labour’s Higher Education push has stretched some cities to breaking point. At the same time, developers and wealthy investors have seen the market potential in student housing and have pushed for the further commodification of the student experience. Think £800 a month rooms in an apartment block with a swimming pool and cinema! How do city councils navigate their relationships with Universities, who on the one hand bring investment and employment to a city but on the other expand too rapidly, placing strain on resources and the housing market? How can students who seem powerless to the forces of landlords and capital resist this process?

Community Wealth Building

Speakers: Martin Parker, Malu garcia, Anita Mangan, Jules Peck, Neil McInroy

After the 2019 election many of us were left wondering - where do we go from here?

We may have lost the battle but the war isn’t over. We have a network of activist ready and rearing to go. What better way to channel that energy than into community wealth building projects?

But what is community wealth building (CWB)? It's predicated on the idea that the best way to reduce excessive wealth inequality, and promote universal prosperity, is to build a system where people share in the wealth they collectively produce. This is achieved by promoting cooperative businesses, community land trusts, housing co-ops and other such initiatives. In short – CWB aims to transition towards a cooperative economy from the bottom up!

Sound good? In this panel we discuss the successes of previous CWB projects, such as The Preston Model, and how we can replicate it here in Bristol.

Political Blackness

Speakers: Edson Burton, Samuel Kalejaiye, Rahila Gupta (Southall Black Sisters)

Historically in the UK many migrants and descendants of migrants organised together to combat racism under the banner of Political Blackness. People of different national and ethnic backgrounds fought racism here and organised against injustices taking place abroad, such as Apartheid in South Africa, using this organising principal, often drawing inspiration from Anti-Colonial and Anti-Racist movements and thinkers internationally. Today it has become increasingly common for people and activists of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds to move away from this sort of collective organising and to identify more closely with a particular ethnic, national or religious identity. Some would argue this allows for more nuance and specificity to enter the discourse around race and racism. Often the difference of emphasis emerges from a generational divide. Are communities of visibly ethnic difference benefiting from a more nuanced a particular approach to the question of ethnic identity, or are we losing a sense of solidartity and collective endevor, or does the answer lie somewhere between?

Mindfulness, Capitalism, and Mental Health

Speakers: Stephen Stanley

Mindfulness is now a common feature of many workplaces. Yet the number of sick days due to stress continue to rise year on year. Often mindfulness is used in place of meaningful change in workplace conditions a way to paper over the contradictions of our current economic system. In this workshop with Cardiff UCU activist and psychologist Steven Stanley, you can explore how mindfulness is used by capital to placate workers and resist structural changes. Further, you will discuss how the left can reclaim the benefits of mindfulness, meditation, and contemplative practices and integrate them into our praxis.

Arguments against Neo-classical economics

Have you ever heard an economist or right-wing politician say something you know just isn’t right – but you can’t quite place your finger on what it is? It's easy to get lost when economists and politicians use confusing jargon to obfuscate the truth, masquerading political-ideology as fact. Are skinny jeans and avocado toast really the reason that young people these days can’t get on the property ladder? (...of course not!)

In this workshop we give you a crash course in debunking right-wing economic tropes, giving you the tools you need to start deconstructing the jargon to get to the facts!

This workshop will be run by the Rentier Abolition Project (see rentierabolition.org). Bo Donoghue is a doctoral candidate in Public Policy at the University of Bath and Raven Hart a financial analyst with a Masters of Research in Political-Economy.

Path to Power Policy Lab

Over the past few weeks, RLB has been setting out her path to power - a four-point plan to win the next election and give people hope that change is possible.

But to make it a reality, she needs you. Our team are running Path to Power policy labs in over 25 locations across the country so you and other Labour members can help develop our plan.

We can only build our path to power as an engaged, participatory and collective movement. At these policy labs, you'll participate in facilitated discussions on the four-point plan and put forward ideas to be adopted by the campaign.

Speaking to your neighbour about Politics

Speakers: Leo Nikolaidas

Do you find it difficult to speak about politics to friends and family? This workshop looks at why this can be so difficult, and how we can overcome it and make politics accessible and even fun to talk about! Come along to practice these discussions in a relaxed, friendly environment, and think about how we can look at political discussions differently!

Watch the Rugby With Comrades

Politics is, of course, important but it's Wales vs England in the 6 Nations... Come to the lounge and watch the match together.

You can talk about its political implications if you want... just do it quietly.

Art, Power and Ideology

Speakers: Will Taylor, Juliet Jaques

Does art reflect society or does society reflect art? Art and culture contribute to the lenses through which we all view the world. Whether mainstream music and films, a feminist exhibit in a community centre, or this week's episode of Love Island, nothing that's produced is neutral in the ideas that underpin it.

With arts funding increasingly centralised in large institutions such as the Arts Council this discussion will look at who gets to make the decisions on what is deemed acceptable or socially useful and what that might mean for the wider cultural landscape. When marketisation is the driving force behind so much of our culture, does what we're consuming propagandise those markets without us realising.

Despite the constant lip service paid to diversity in the arts, structurally the industry is more exclusionary in many ways than it was 30 years ago. This results in what is being produced, for the most part, reflecting existing power structures rather than being allowed to challenge them. It will look at how middle class 'taste' and large funding bodies such as ACE determine what is produced and for who, re-enforcing the status quo and making it harder for radical artists and the left as a whole to tell their stories.

Imperialism Isn't Dead

Speakers: Alice Proctor, Shabbir Lakha, Narzanin Massoumi

Imperialism as we know it — central to the destruction and exploitation of autonomous states and peoples — did not end centuries ago. Instead of colonising through brute force, today’s imperialism has the face of capital along with the threat of colonial rule. From debt and arms sales to cultural domination and biased curriculum, imperialism is embedded in our society in all forms. What are the available tactics for resistence, and how can we move toward at true end to imperialism? This panel sheds light on the current campaigns for revolutionary, global change.

Green New Deal: What's next?

Speakers: Chris Saltmarsh, Zarah Sultana MP, Karen Bell, Daniela Gabor

The election result was a blow to climate activists, our hope of having a government that would implement the Green New Deal vanished before our eyes. We have 10 years left to prevent irreversible damage to our climate and a government that won’t engage seriously with the climate crisis. So where do we go from here? How do we adapt the Green New Deal strategy now the Tories are in government?

History of Socialism - This Isn't Our First Rodeo

Speakers: Jayne Pascoe, Rhian E Jones, Jack Shenker, Marcus Barnett

In the shadow of a December election which saw a significant defeat for the resurgent British left, we look to the history of socialism and its movements in this country and around the world in an effort to place the current political moment the historical context. We will be discussing how the left has recovered in the past and what we can learn from that work. Join us as we look to learn from our past and what it means for our future.

Progressive Nationalism

Speakers: Harriet Protheroe Davies, Dan Evans

Nationalism is often demonised on the left. It is used as a shorthand for reactionary little Englanders. Rebecca Long-Bailey was criticised by many for daring to suggest that the Labour Party implement progressive nationalism as part of their programme.

Yet just down the road from Bristol, in Wales, many of the most progressive politicians and political actors come through the nationalists movement for Welsh Independence.

This panel is an exploration of whether nationalism can play a positive and negative role as part of a Socialist project and debate whether the idea of "Progressive Nationalism" needs to be taken more seriously by the British left.

Sex Work & the Fight for Decrim

Speakers: Trixie (SWARM), Charlotte (ECP), Katie Cruz

Sex work is often described as the world's oldest profession. Why then are so many in the Labour party and union movement hesitant to recognise sex workers and their rights at work as equal to other workers? We shall look to discuss the various legal models proposed to make sex work safer and empower workers, and why the left is having such difficulty coming to a consensus on this, often ignoring the voice of workers in favour of moralistic and dangerous solutions. Various campaigns exist to tackle this: worker-led SWARM and ECP Decrim Now in the labour party to union branches of GMB and UVW, workers are fighting to be heard and have their rights taken seriously.

The School to Prison Pipeline

Speakers: Lana Crosby

No More Exclusions (NME) is a new UK radical grassroots coalition movement. Their mission is to bring about an end to the persistent race-disparities in school exclusions in the next five years and to affect change at a legal, policy, practice and cultural level in education and society as a whole over the next ten years.

In this workshop you will learn more about NME and the context in which it fits not just in schools but the subsequent trends of excluded children, disproportionately BAME and SEND, who are ending up in our prison system. In addition to contributions from parents, educators and activists you will have a chance to hear from young people who’ve experienced the exclusion system for themselves as well as testimonials of people still incarcerated.

In the short time since it’s founding NME has already made significant inroads in the discussion around exclusions through media coverage and the hard work of it’s activists. Come and find out more about this movement and how you can be part of creating an education system that works for all.

What does a left community utopia look like?

Speakers: Owen Hatherly

With at least five years of Conservative rule ahead of us, power will not be changing at the top anytime soon in this country. One question the new left formed under Corbynism will face, now that we’ll never see a Corbyn government, is: can you create an enclave of socialism in capitalism, and build out from there? If we do try to protect ourselves over the next few years and carve out our own spaces, we’ll be following in the footsteps of 200 years of utopian experiments in this country, managing to exist both within and against capitalism and the capitalist state, all the way from New Lanark in the 1810s to the Greater London Council in the 1980s. What sort of socialist spaces have been carved out in capitalist circumstances? What sort of socialism did they imagine? Which of them managed to endure, and what can we learn from them today? And what sort of experiments might be possible in the immediate future?

The Glass Half-Empty

Speakers: Rodrigo Aguilera

Book Launch for The Glass Half-Empty: Debunking the Myth of Progress in the Twenty-First Century

Environmental Activism: Strategy Matters

Speakers: Dr Oscar Berglund, Chris Saltmarsh, Izzy Smythman

With 10 years left to prevent irreversible damage to our climate and a government utterly uninterested in engaging seriously with climate change, we have to step up our fight. But how? We’ve had decades of letter-writing, lobbying campaigns, direct action on fracking sites and coal mines, divestment campaigns targeting businesses and Universities but is this enough? Should we be changing our strategy, moving onto the streets, causing disruption to big businesses in the City? Or will getting arrested save the planet?

In the past two years, Extinction Rebellion, Youth Strike for Climate, Labour for a Green New Deal have all emerged fighting. Do these new organisations have the answers to fight climate change?

Work: Data & Resistance in the Gig Economy and Beyond

Speakers: Lina Dencik and Alex Wood

The rapid development of technologies powered by the collection of data is said to be transforming key aspects of social life, not least the nature of work. Much attention has been on the advent of automation as potentially displacing jobs, or on new forms of labour emerging on and through platforms in a growing gig economy. Standard employment, from retail to hospitality, is also being transformed with the implementation of data-driven tools. Premised on promises of greater efficiency and cost-savings, these technologies are quickly becoming attractive for hiring, directing, monitoring, and assessing workers, often undermining the conditions and rights of workers. How can we resist the exploitative nature of the algorithmic workplace? In this workshop we will discuss different strategies for worker resistance in a digital age, looking at ways of using technologies to mobilise, game and organise alternatives in the gig economy and beyond.

How to start a co-op

Speakers: Alon Avriam

Co-operatives give us an insight into a different way of organising our economy. Business where the workers are in control rather than the bosses.

They allow for businesses that are centred on human flourishing and community rather than greed and profit.

Join Alon from The Bristol Cable, Bristol's very own Cooperatively run community newspaper, to learn from his experience and discuss how to go about setting up your very own cooperative.

Faiza Shaheen: Continuing to Build Left Ideas and Policy

Faiza Shaheen, Director of CLASS think tank, economist, writer and activist will be joining us to host a workshop titled Continuing to Build Left Ideas and Policy:

What do we know about Johnsonomics so far and what does it mean for the arguments we should be making? Join this session to make sense of what we are likely to see in Chancellor Sunak’s first Budget next week, and how we cut through the propaganda to explain the need for a Green Industrial Revolution, ending austerity and tackling inequality (for real!).

Worker Power in just over an hour

Strong workplace unions mean better safer and happier jobs, Burt dignity at work doesn't come easy.

This practical and interactive workshop from Bristol Union school uses proven strategies help you andbgiven an understanding of what union organising is and how to systematically and effectively take the first steps to a strong workplace union of your own.

Saving Neurodiversity from Capitalism

Rob Chapman

While societies need all kinds of minds to flourish, we have pathologised, disabled, and medicalised a sizable minority of the human population. This is what the neurodiversity movement arose to resist, showing how neurominorities provide niche contributions that are often overlooked on overly individualistic, deficit-based medical models. In this roundtable discussion, we will discuss how this reframing relates to the association between value and productivity prevalent in capitalist societies, how neurodivergence interacts with neoliberalism and intersects with other identities, and the emancipatory potential of the neurodiversity paradigm.

Zine making with UCU Anti-precarity Cymru

Rowan Campbell, Grace Kraus

Anti-Precarity Cymru is a collective of precariously-employed staff and students in Higher Education. Since the UCU strikes of 2018, we've been creating zines as a way to show solidarity, raise awareness of various issues in HE, and provide a bit of irreverent humour to help us deal with our experiences working in HE. Zines are DIY mini-magazines with low production values (can be reproduced using work's photocopier...) and a radical nature, as they are not made for profit and allow voices outside of the mainstream to be heard. This workshop will introduce zines as creative resistance to precarious working and living situations, and will be a hands-on session with a few formats and prompt questions to work with so please don't be shy if you've never 'zined' before!

Unlock Democracy: Constitutional Reform

Rob Abrams

In this workshop, we will work together to gain a basic understanding of the British constitution and the worrying changes proposed by the Tory government.

We'll explore the question of what we mean by ‘constitutional reform’ and demonstrate how this goes beyond changing the electoral system.

Commonwealth: Green New Deal

Josh Gabart-Doyon

The next stage for a just transition, looking at trade and finance in the post-Brexit context, the role of local authorities, and how we can use public health and social care to understand how to design just and equitable economic and climate policy, as part of an ambitious decarbonisation plan. A crash course in what's next for green activism and policy work from Common Wealth.