Starmer glitter bomb

The Labour Leader and direct action

It's rare a week goes by without some sort of direct action hitting the headlines.

I've said before that the shift towards DIY politics can also be viewed in terms of a search for empowerment on the behalf of protestors. In an era of globalisation, people feel increasingly marginalised and mainstream politics doesn’t satisfy their needs. Getting out and doing something helps people express their political identity in a way that letter writing doesn’t, or possibly couldn’t.

Often we see that direct action may not effect significant policy change, but it is often the preserve of groups who are unable, or sometimes unwilling, to campaign by traditional means.

One of the Just Stop Oil protestors said as much in a televised interview. 100,000 people marched through central London back in 2019 and it war barely reported. But performing a stunt that temporarily stops a sports fixture, for example, will.

The protestor at the Labour Conference in Liverpool is called Yaz Ashmawi and he claims to represent a group called People Demand Democracy. Before his stunt the groups had no more than a handful of followers on Twitter/X. At last count, they had over 600. Job done, it seems like.