Struggle, protest, rebellion: these are great traditions in our country that we do not celebrate enough. Much of our history is a series of struggles against authority for rights and freedoms that the powerful often only grudgingly conceded. Think of the Peasants’ Revolt of the 14th century, or the English Revolution of the 17th century; the suffragettes or the Chartists of the 19th century. By using their collective power, otherwise voiceless people won dramatic and sweeping change.
Why don’t more people protest today in the tradition of our ancestors? Often there is a sense of resignation, an absence of hope or lack of faith in an alternative to current injustices. Anger is often redirected to those at the bottom of the pile: immigrants or unemployed people. People may fear consequences if they engage in political action. As our ancestors demonstrated, protest and struggle are crucial for progressive social change. We need to keep that tradition alive if we are to build a just and equal society.
Tax justice
Around £25bn is lost each year through tax avoidance in Britain, even as the wealth of the richest 1,000 Britons has doubled and services are slashed. But while tax avoidance once languished on the fringes of political debate, it is now one of the great causes of our time. Above all, that’s because protest group UKUncut occupied tax-dodging businesses, using social media to organise demonstrations and bypass an unsympathetic mainstream media. It proved that peaceful civil disobedience can pay off, forcing otherwise ignored issues onto the political agenda.
Anti-racism
Racism haunts British society, whether it’s the targeting of black people through police stop-and- search, higher poverty rates for minorities, or the negative media portrayal of Muslims. Media Diversified is fighting to have proper representation of black and minority ethnic (BME) voices, and needs support; Unite Against Fascism and Hope Not Hate take the fight against racism to the streets, and StopWatch campaigns against disproportionate stop-and-search.
Feminism
The statistics are chastening if you think equality has been achieved. Over a million British women face domestic violence a year; 85,000 are raped. Only around one in five MPs are women, and women are underrepresented in journalism, are paid less and are concentrated in the lowest paid jobs.
But there is a thriving new wave of feminism. Groups like Sisters Uncut are taking to the streets to demand equality. The White Ribbon Campaign tackles male violence against women. And groups like Calm are trying to change the damage done to men and women through the policing of gender roles, including sexism and homophobia.
Living wage
Working people are Britain’s wealth creators, and yet most Britons in poverty are in work. Billions are spent on in-work benefits that subsidise low pay, ranging from working tax credits to housing benefit. Yet there are success stories. Workers at Brixton’s Ritzy cinema staged a series of strikes and through social media encouraged customers to boycott the cinema, winning themselves a pay hike.
When workers fight for decent pay, back them: publicly boycott their employers, and even join workers on the picket line if you can.
Housing crisis
Five million are trapped on social housing waiting lists, one in four young Londoners grows up in an overcrowded home, and people are increasingly driven into the expensive private rented sector. Campaigns like Focus E15 and the New Era estate won victories, drove the crisis on to the agenda, and set an example for others to follow.
Workers’ rights
Zero-hours contracts, agency contracts; there is no shortage of attempts to strip workers of hard-won basic rights.
Tony Blair once infamously boasted that Britain had the most restrictive anti-trade union laws in the western world. We need to preserve trade unions so they can win their members a proper slice of the wealth they’re creating. Join a union – and encourage colleagues to do so too.
Environmental justice
The global crash seemed to drive the environment down the political agenda, but climate change activists are now making it a bread-and-butter issue about jobs. The anti-fracking movement has taken the fight to fossil fuels and are demanding real investment in the renewable industries of the future.
Naomi Klein’s recent book This Changes Everything underlined the existential threat posed by climate change, while the Campaign Against Climate Change staged a large show of force in London this month.
The Guardian has also launched its own campaign, Keep it in the Ground, calling on the world’s biggest charitable foundations to divest their endowments from fossil fuels. Sign up and get on board at theguardian.com.
