With race riots on the rise and the populist right gaining traction, we ask how the UK can push back
Silencing the Streets
The 47-page report, “‘Silencing the Streets’: The Right to Protest Under Attack in the UK,” documents that the UK’s Labour government has failed to reverse sweeping anti-protest laws introduced by the previous Conservative government. Instead, Labour has attempted to expand them with the Crime and Policing Bill 2025 and through the unprecedented misuse of terrorism legislation to target and criminalize peaceful protest. The Crime and Policing bill, pending before parliament, is to be debated in the House of Lords in January 2026.
Elon Musk’s Race War Just Took Darker Turn—Time for a Global Response
The violent fascist riots in Belfast reveal the future that the trillionaire really wants. We need an international movement to constrain him.
Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization without Political Consequences
POLITICS AFTER THE END OF THE END OF HISTORYWhat happens when politics is everywhere, yet nothing seems to change? From the abandoned dance floors of Thatcher’s London to the mass mobilizations of Black Lives Matter, Anton Jäger traces how public life has become infused with protest, spectacle, and moral urgency — while the old infrastructure of parties, unions, and civic solidarity has been hollowed out.Hyperpolitics revisits the illusions of the “end of history” and dissects the strange energies that replaced them: viral outrage, endless culture wars, and the digital rush of causes that flare and vanish overnight. Jäger shows how the promises of post–Cold War liberalism gave way to a restless, unsteady public sphere where private passions overflow into politics but rarely build enduring power.Ranging from Guy Debord and Wolfgang Tillmans to Houellebecq’s disenchanted fictions, Hyperpolitics makes sense of a world in which collective action remains fragmented and the social fabric thinner than ever. For anyone trying to grasp why our age feels so charged yet so inconsequential, this book offers a vital map through the new contradictions of our hyperpolitical moment.
Volunteer with the Victorian Greens
Volunteer and join our movement for a better world. We're fighting for a better politics - for climate justice, affordable housing for all, tackling the cost of living, and more.
Far-right chaos won’t define Northern Ireland – solidarity will
While extremists grabbed headlines, hundreds of ordinary people mobilised to protect our neighbours
Labour’s muddled migration policy won’t stop thuggery
A government that can’t distinguish between ‘legitimate concerns’ and open racism is only making things worse
Real Problems, Real Solutions: A Messaging Guide to Move Beyond Racial Scapegoating in the Victorian Election
The Commons is an online library for the change makers of the world and for those interested in social change, activism, organising, advocacy and justice.
Hospicing Modernity
The book “Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism” was published in September 2021. If you are in Canada, you can purchase the book …
2026 Victorian Election
Take action now DONATE TO POWER THE CAMPAIGN This state election will determine what climate policies guide us into the next decade. Will we abandon our hard-fought progress, or will we ramp up ambition? None of us can change things as individuals, but together we can change what’s politically possible. In the coming months
A Letter on Justice and Open Debate
July 7, 2020 The below letter will be appearing in the Letters section of the magazine’s October issue. We welcome responses at letters@harpers.org Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and […]
Alex Colston on Twitter / X
People are complaining about no good leftist analysis on the riots in France. Don’t do that. Read these instead.https://t.co/fkdOrmiygOhttps://t.co/QQZHYl0Fcahttps://t.co/H9atg8mrNA— Alex Colston (@re_colston) October 18, 2026
What’s happened to the UK’s climate consensus?
Opposition, apathy and the voters in-between
Crossing the divide: reaching Reform voters in a fractured Britain
Winning back Reform voters starts with introspection - progressives must face their own role in Britain’s divide
Data Feminism for AI
Attacks on women and trans people are not happening in a vacuum. Communications scholars W. Lance Bennett and Marianne Kneuer recently argued that we are witnessing the intensification of "illiberal public spheres" around the world (Bennett and Kneuer, 2023). These are characterized by a set of anti-democratic communications tactics that include the denigration and exclusion of minoritized people, targeted attacks on the press and political institutions, and transgression of norms of civil discourse. Such tactics are enabled and amplified by the social media platforms owned by Big Tech, whose business model elevates attention above all other metrics, such that they profit richly off extremism, threats, spectacle, and lies. The success of this corporate partnership with right-wing extremism is evident in the proliferation of book bans (Magnusson, 2024), the demonization of DEI and critical race theory (Crenshaw, 2022), and mob tactics to doxx, intimidate, misrepresent, and otherwise silence people that study misinformation, speak out against racial and gender violence, or rule against insurrectionists (Edmonds, 2024). At the same time, we have seen the continued work of feminists, including Latin American, Indigenous, and abolitionist feminists in the US and globally, doing the work of imagining alternate worlds (Cullors, 2021; Davis, 2022; Ricaurte, 2019; Simpson, 2017). This paper represents our own first attempt to imagine a more equitable, sustainable, feminist world for AI research.
How we’ll fight the platform war against Big AI - Anil Dash
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
How we’ll fight the platform war against Big AI - Anil Dash
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.