Are we witnessing the beginning of a new era of protest and collective action? Certainly political events in the UK seem to have long demanded one. A better question than “why now?” might be “what took us so long?”. The decade of austerity since the financial crash of 2008, the hollowing out of public services, the broken housing market, the sight of British people queueing at food banks and children going hungry at school, the ever greater gap between the haves and have-nots, the many environmental crises, all seem for too long to have been measured not in shared demands but in individualised anxiety. Since the 1980s we have become used to solidarity being replaced by precariousness, with all the consequent fallout in living standards and mental health.
This winter however – beginning with Saturday’s “day of action” – promises strikes across the workforce, from criminal barristers to nurses, teachers to postal workers. Beyond that, a generation that has grown up atomised and anonymous on social media appears to be slowly discovering the power of a collective voice in groups organised outside or alongside political parties and trade unions.
We talk to some of the most effective leaders of those new protest groups, from the mother of three grown-up children who has come late to civil disobedience to the teenage veteran of four years of targeted activism. If the protesters have a joined-up rallying cry it is that shared sense, emphasised by reaction to the ideological extremism of the incoming government, that “Enough is enough”. As Ian Byrne MP, one of the organisers of the new and growing movement of that name, argues: “We are faced with a winter in which millions of people, many of them in full-time work, will be unable to pay for their food or heating or housing. It’s an event, socially and politically, that none of us have seen in our lifetimes. And, as we are also seeing, people won’t accept it.” Tim Adams
Ian Byrne: ‘There’s got to be a complete rethinking of how the economic system works for people’
Labour MP for Liverpool, West Derby and co-founder of Enough is Enough
Before he became Labour MP for Liverpool, West Derby in 2019, Ian Byrne was a veteran of several campaigns. He was properly politicised, he says, by the struggle for justice by the Hillsborough families – Byrne was 17 when he witnessed that tragedy in 1989, having gone to the game with his father, who was injured in the crush. In recent years, he mobilised a related network among football followers by organising Fans Supporting Foodbanks, which began as an initiative among Liverpool and Everton supporters in 2015 to donate or volunteer alongside rival fans under the motto “hunger doesn’t wear club colours”. The power of that issue to cut through tribal loyalties – Celtic and Rangers fans recently teamed up to volunteer for food banks in Glasgow – was part of the motivating spirit behind the “Enough Is Enough” campaign, which Byrne now helps to organise and lead.
To begin with, he says, earlier this year, Enough Is Enough was just a conversation between some union leaders and Tribune writers and one or two MPs, including Byrne and Zarah Sultana, and people from the Acorn community reform group. “We were all getting emails from people who were using that same phrase,” Byrne says. The idea was to create an umbrella movement of activism that captured that collective feeling. “I never for a moment thought that, within a month, we would have 800,000 people signed up and packed-out venues wherever we go to speak,” Byrne suggests. “But there’s a massive appetite for change. People need a different direction.”
Enough Is Enough has five general aims: proper living-wage rises, decent homes for all, higher taxes on wealth and windfalls, and an end to poverty of food and heating. It promises to mobilise a national network of support for coordinated demonstrations and strike action on these issues, beginning with its first “day of action” on 1 October in towns and cities across the country.
Memes of fellow organiser and RMT leader Mick Lynch schooling breakfast TV presenters in the basics of picket lines and democratic protest became the headline act of the movement. “I think what Mick said sounded to a lot of people just like common sense,” Byrne says. “I was at a fair the other week, in my constituency, and a lady come up to me, a care worker. She worked 60 hours a week. Her husband was a prison officer doing all the overtime he could. They had three children and she said, ‘We just can’t pay the bills’. The old adage that work can lift people out of poverty is clearly not happening, is it? Instead, we have that horrible phrase ‘in-work poverty’.”
One of the things Byrne saw with Fans Supporting Foodbanks was not only that there was an enormous need for food donation, but also there was a powerful desire for more community solidarity. “This isn’t one sector,” he says. “You’ve got barristers out on indefinite action, as well as cleaners from hospitals. There’s incessant pressure on a whole spectrum of society. I’ve been on many picket lines over the last few months and people say the same thing: ‘This isn’t militancy. This is need’. We are fighting against the whole culture of the last 40 years, which has placed greed above need. There’s got to be a complete and utter rethinking of how the economic system in this country works for people.”
Byrne’s party leader, Keir Starmer, has, of course, been reluctant for his frontbench to get four-square behind the recent industrial action, including the rail strikes, banning them from picket lines. Does Byrne think it’s important for groups such as Enough Is Enough to exist outside mainstream political parties?
“I think it’s really important to have both,” he says. “A lot of the people who care about these issues are not necessarily affiliated to a political party. I’ve sat down with Conservative ministers who’ve got the levers of power to actually effect the change, and I say to them: ‘I’m on a humanitarian mission, not a sectarian mission. We’ve got millions of kids going to school hungry.’”
Does he sense that the Hillsborough families provided a potent model for the possibilities of collectivism? “Obviously, we never got proper justice, because the people involved were not put behind bars,” he says, “but we got close to the truth after one of the longest legal fights in history. It was a powerful example of how working-class people can come together to fight the establishment. And there are now many more out there.”
If you could make one change to policy what would it be?
As a Labour MP, it’s up to me to push for a party manifesto that includes provision for universal free school meals and a welfare system that’s not sending millions to food banks.
Who in public life gives you hope?
One of the most powerful phrases I’ve ever heard anybody say, from a trade union perspective or as a politician, was Mick Lynch’s line: “We refuse to be poor any more”. That just encapsulates everything, doesn’t it? Tim Adams
Tracey Mallaghan: ‘I hate disrupting lives. But people can see the sense in what we are asking for’
Activist, Insulate Britain
Tracey Mallaghan never considered herself to be politically minded. The single mother of three grown-up children was a healthcare assistant until 2011, when she lost her job due to illness (she has fibromyalgia, anxiety and depression). Her life changed in 2019 after she saw a news report about the Extinction Rebellion protests, which led her to research the climate crisis online. “I realised my kids were in real trouble, and I couldn’t understand why the government weren’t doing anything about it. I hadn’t left my house on my own for two years – but I knew I had to get to London.” She travelled from her home in Milton Keynes to see the protests, suffering a panic attack on the train on the way. “I got to Trafalgar Square and saw all these people on the road – and had this bizarre feeling that I had to sit down, too.”
It was the beginning of a journey that has taken Mallaghan deep into the activist movement and to what she calls the “pointy end” of civil disobedience. She has taken part in actions for XR, Burning Pink (which campaigns for civil assemblies) and Insulate Britain. As a result, she now has a criminal record – for painting graffiti on the windows of the Department of Health – and has served a week-long stint in HMP Bronzefield. “It was a sad, dry place. I had the overwhelming sense that whatever we were all doing there, it wasn’t about benefiting society.” She has been wearing a tag for the past 11 months after breaching bail conditions, and only got it removed last week. It’s been quite a metamorphosis, both for her and for her family, who took a while to come around. “The first year and a half [of being involved in activism] were very challenging for the family. But my kids love me and now they are really supportive.”
Insulate Britain became famous – or in some sectors, notorious – for its confrontational tactics. The group staged a series of occupations of major roads in autumn 2021, infuriating many motorists, and sparking a frenzy of hostile responses from the media and politicians (Boris Johnson called the activists “irresponsible crusties”). Its demands, in fact, were eminently practical: that the UK government insulate social housing by 2025, and implement a legally binding plan to retrofit all homes in Britain as part of the transition to zero carbon.
Mallaghan was a spokesperson for the movement at the peak of the controversy, facing down criticism from motorists and hostile interviewers alike (Richard Madeley apologised after patronisingly calling her “darling” during a heated exchange). How did all the criticism affect her personally? “I hated it then and I hate it now. I hate the fact that in order to get media attention we have to disrupt people’s lives. None of us enjoy that. But after the initial anger settles, many people can see the sense in what we are asking for.”
After a respite from campaigning, Insulate Britain has announced it will be back on the streets from 1 October in response to the government’s approach to the energy and cost of living crisis. “Liz Truss isn’t going to do the right thing; she would rather hand money to profiteering oil companies. We have a concrete demand and a solution – insulation is the most credible thing we can do. It was even in the Tories’ manifesto. We always had some support, but I think people are more aware of this issue now – they know that what’s coming down the line is way worse.”
If you could make one change to policy today, what would it be?
To implement Lord Bird’s Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill, obliging the public sector to consider the long-term impact of all decisions.
Who in public life gives you hope?
Every conversation I have with someone furious with me, who ends up understanding – that’s what gives me hope. Alice O’Keeffe
Christina Adane: ‘Ending food poverty shouldn’t be a battle, but the work has to be done’
Food activist, Bite Back 2030
Christina Adane, 19, is already in her fourth year of campaigning for better free school meals provision. In 2020, she started a petition against the withdrawal of free school meals during lockdown, which was signed by 450,000 people and helped to inspire Marcus Rashford’s campaign (followed by a hasty government U-turn). With such a success under her belt, she had hoped to find herself redundant by now.
“I shouldn’t still be doing this,” she says with an exasperated smile, when we meet on a video call. “Ending child food poverty shouldn’t be a battle. It’s not fun, but the work has to be done.”
Sadly, there is plenty of work still to do: Adane is campaigner in residence for Bite Back 2030, a youth movement founded in 2019 by Jamie Oliver and Norwegian philanthropist Nicolai Tangen. Its aims are to extend free school meals to the 800,000 children in England who officially live in poverty yet don’t meet the threshold (only children whose parents earn less than £7,400 a year are eligible).
Bite Back also campaigns for restrictions on junk food advertising: children in England see nearly 500 junk food adverts a second online, and one in three leave primary school overweight or obese. (The new government seems set on heading in the opposite direction, with Liz Truss having paused the government’s entire anti-obesity strategy.)
“It’s become a politicised issue, which is a big problem,” Adane says. “The government says the parents of these children aren’t working hard enough – but most of them are working. They don’t believe in handouts or intervention – so young people and children have to pay the price.”
From a working-class immigrant background – her parents are from Tigray, Ethiopia, and she grew up in south London – Adane knows the effect of food injustice only too well. “I know what change is needed because I was in the system. I know it from my own experiences, and from the experiences of friends around me who didn’t have enough money and who experienced hunger at school – it’s crazy.”
Adane was politically engaged as a child – her first campaign, at the age of 11, was a bake sale to raise money for communities affected by Ebola. But it wasn’t until she went to a training session with Bite Back that she developed an interest in food justice. “I’ve never felt such anger and shock,” she says. “I learned that I was twice as likely to develop obesity because of where I lived, and that my area was a ‘food desert’, with no access to nutritious food at an accessible price.”
Adane took her A-levels – in history, geography and economics – earlier this year, combining her studies with her activism. “Campaigning on free school meals puts everything else into perspective – A-levels didn’t seem so important.” She has just started her gap year, working full-time at Bite Back 2030, before taking up a place to study anthropology at UCL. “I’d love to expand my work into other countries – uniting the food justice movement across the west.”
If you could make one change to policy today, what would it be?
Provide nutritious free school meals to every child in poverty.
Who in public life gives you hope?
Young campaigners. On issues like food, climate and race, young people are standing up to people in power and for their rights. AO’K
Aditi Jehangir: ‘There’s definitely a lot more visible anger. You can see that people are more energised than ever’
Campaigner, Living Rent
On 6 September, Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, announced a rent freeze for tenants in Scotland, along with a ban on winter evictions, in an attempt to tackle the cost of living crisis. Although it’s a temporary measure, effective until the end of next March, the freeze represents a hugely impressive victory for the Scottish tenants’ union Living Rent, which campaigned hard for the government to take action in the face of rent increases and poor housing conditions across the country.
The campaign was won in a number of ways. “It was partly through meeting politicians at a local and national level, and collecting information about rent increases from our members and getting their stories out there,” says Aditi Jehangir, who chairs the union’s Gorgie-Dalry branch in Edinburgh.
It also built on years of dedicated grassroots work by Living Rent, which launched as a campaign group in 2014 before becoming a union and now has several thousand members across Scotland. Jehangir, a charity worker, joined in 2020 after Living Rent helped her recover an overdue deposit. Now she supports other tenants in difficulty and helps raise awareness of housing issues through street stalls, door-knocking and online outreach. “We’re the only tenants’ union in Scotland,” she says, “so we’ve been the leading force in terms of bringing that conversation nationally around rent controls and improvements to housing systems.”
One thing Jehangir has been struck by, when out campaigning, is the strength of public feeling around housing and other problems. “The cost of living crisis has made people feel more comfortable in questioning the system and there’s definitely a lot more visible anger,” she says. “You can see that people are more energised than ever.”
The freeze is a step in the right direction, she adds, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. “Rents have risen by 63% in the last decade in Glasgow and Edinburgh, far outstripping wage rises, so it’s been a really difficult time for tenants. We really welcome the rent freeze, but rents need to come down, not just stay the same.” The government has promised to reintroduce rent controls, capping rents on a more permanent basis, before the end of the current parliament. This could be as late as 2025, but, Jehangir says: “We cannot wait years. We need rents to be coming down now.”
If you could make one change to policy today, what would it be?
I would bring in rent controls immediately.
Who in public life gives you hope?
Members of our union and union movements as a whole. It’s been really inspiring to see all the industry action this summer. People were genuinely really supportive. That’s something that I’ve not experienced in my lifetime. Killian Fox
Kwajo Tweneboa: ‘I don’t want to be here in 20 years, advising them on things that still need to change’
Housing activist
“This is going to be the busiest winter,” says Kwajo Tweneboa, who campaigns for better housing conditions in the UK by sharing videos of neglect on social media and shaming landlords into action. “Things are bad already financially, but we know it’s going to get a lot worse, especially for tenants in social housing. Come January, I’m going to be flooded with people asking for help.”
The often desperate state of social housing in the UK is something the 23-year-old has experienced first-hand. After years of living in poorly maintained properties, his family ended up in a flat in south London that was “in disrepair from the get-go: mice, damp, mould, you name it. It was falling apart”. His father was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in 2018 and lived out his last days in conditions that Tweneboa says were “completely unsanitary”. The family complained repeatedly but their housing association, Clarion, took action only after a tweet that Tweneboa posted about the flat in May 2021 went viral.
Sensing the power of social media to force further changes, Tweneboa started visiting his neighbours on the Eastfields estate in Mitcham and posting videos of their living conditions, which he says were often far worse than his own. Then people began contacting him from further afield and his campaign quickly spread countrywide. Of the hundreds of messages he’s received in the past 16 months, “pretty much all” of the cases he highlights via Twitter, Instagram and TikTok have been addressed, he says. “It’s a full-time job without being paid.”
Now Tweneboa, who has just completed a business degree in Leicester, increasingly spends his time speaking to people with the power to tackle these issues. Michael Gove consulted him on the social housing bill, when Gove was housing secretary, and he recently had a meeting with G15, an organisation of London’s largest housing associations. It’s not lost on Tweneboa that a 23-year-old without formal qualifications is telling high-earning professionals how to do their job.
“If they’re going to try to fix this crisis, they need to do it properly,” he says, “and they need to do it once. I don’t want to be here in 20 years, advising them on things that still need to change.”
If you could make one change to policy today, what would it be?
I would get rid of the right to buy scheme and focus on the mass building of quality social homes to meet demand.
Who in public life gives you hope?
Marcus Rashford. He’s someone from humble beginnings who has made a successful career and uses his platform to tackle injustice and provide a voice to those without one. KF
