Getting a reaction...

A short while ago, we put up this post signalling an evolution of our tactics back towards using old school, analogue means of getting our message across: Moving back towards analogue? 28.2.25. This is in recognition of the fact that our online reach is being steadily throttled out of existence, and also that the honeymoon period we’re currently enjoying here on Substack isn’t going to last much longer.

On Saturday March 8, when it comes to analogue methods, we weren’t just talking the talk, we were walking the walk, quite literally in fact! The two of us spent an afternoon walking a loop around the centre of Bristol, putting up ‘We Do Not Consent To WW3!’ stickers, one of which is shown in the photograph above. This is after having put up a smaller number of stickers in Keynsham where we live. These anti-war stickers are not pulling any punches – they’re a statement of defiance that’s designed to get a reaction.

Well, the ones we put up in Keynsham did generate a reaction! Around three quarters of the stickers we put up had been torn off after just a couple of days. Needless to say, we’re replacing any we see that have been torn off. We’re not the kind of people who give up that easily.

So, when we went to Bristol to put up these stickers, informed by the number of stickers that were torn down in Keynsham, we were a little bit wary. Not because we feared any physical attack but more because we didn’t want the tedium of finger wagging, middle class liberals getting in our faces. Fortunately, apart from one disapproving cough as we were getting the last of the stickers up, the afternoon passed off without incident. Operating in plain sight and all that...

How much longer we’ll be able to put up stickers without any being challenged is anyone’s guess. It depends on how many mugs buy into the seemingly relentless barrage of propaganda telling us that we need to prepare for war, regardless of the cost in more austerity and the erosion of freedom that comes with the militarisation of society.

How long do we expect these anti-war stickers in Bristol to stay up? To be honest, probably not much longer than two to three days. We knew that before we set out to put the stickers up. If they’re only up for a few days, they’ll still be seen by more eyeballs than many, if not most of our social media posts. If out of the number of people who walk past and see these anti-militarist stickers, just twenty start to seriously think about resisting the drive towards war, we’ll have done a good job.

It’s early days getting these anti-militarist stickers out and up. We’re very grateful to our supporters who have taken bundles of them to put up in the areas where they live. What we’re interested in at the moment is getting these up in a range of areas with different demographics to gauge the reactions we get. This will include one of the local authority housing estates close to where we live. This would be to test our view that so far, the working class aren’t buying into the militarist rhetoric.

There will be another print run of these in the near future. Quite possibly, there will be another one after that...and another… We’re in this for the long haul. In this recently published piece – Some thoughts on the clamour for war 3.3.25 – I argued that for the UK to re-arm to the point where entering into a conflict with Russia would not be an act of suicide, a number of pretty drastic measures would have to be taken to achieve this:

Does a government of national unity willing to use draconian methods to achieve a rapid build up of military strength sound far fetched and unachievable? I and many others would love to think this is far fetched but, after what has happened in the last five years starting with the Covid ‘crisis’ lockdowns, I’m not so sure it is. Apart from a few fringe outfits such as George Galloways’s Workers Party of Britain, pretty much all of the political parties have in one way or another, declared their support for Zelensky. Declaring support for Zelensky is pretty much the same as supporting whatever it takes to re-arm the United Kingdom and boost the number of military personnel available – even if that means conscription and a considerable loss of freedom.

The only conclusion we can draw about the mentality of whoever has been tearing off our anti-militarist stickers is that they appear to be happy with the suggestion that the United Kingdom be transformed into a ‘warfare’ state as opposed to a welfare one. Given the increasingly fascistic tendencies of Starmer’s government, particularly the open contempt being shown to anyone who is unable to work, particularly the disabled, it looks as though the drive to a ‘warfare’ state is already underway.

How much of the populace of the United Kingdom is actually on board with this, despite obviously rigged opinion polls, is still unclear. As reports come in from the different areas where our anti-militarist stickers have gone up and how they’ve fared, we may be able to start building up a better picture of what the true state of opinion really is. We remain optimistic that support for the drive to militarisation in the name of ‘confronting’ Russia is mainly confined to middle class liberals, with the working class tending to be more sceptical about the drive to war. So, as we’ve mentioned previously, there’s everything to play for...