Before I hop off twitter for today, a THREAD of things you can do if you’ve recently become aware we’re governed by lying bastards who don’t see us as fully human:

1. Join a union - hopefully everybody is already in one, but if you’re not, do it now. We’ll need it for strikes. Get your friends in unions, offer to pay their subs if you can.

2. Find your local mutual aid group. (There may be several using that name: look for the one that’s the most transparent and democratic). Contact the admins. What do they need? What can you do?

3. If you can’t find a local mutual aid group, or your local groups have been co-opted by the council or others, consider starting your own. It can be as simple as starting a WhatsApp with everyone in your road in it.

4. Find some voices who’ve been talking about this for a long time. Not just pointing out individual hypocrisy, but structural injustice that enables it. Find a grassroots organisation in your field working on making it more just. For educators: @edu_radical and @NExclusions

5. Use personal networks: these are politically important too! Find your friend who’s been moaning about the government for years, and who you sort of nodded along with but didn’t really quite feel it in your heart. Talk to them, or most importantly, listen.

6. I’m not going to recommend a particular leftist tendency or flavour of anarchism because frankly I don’t have one, but. Read about different radical and left histories and struggles ( @wrkclasshistory is a great place to start). Think about what you agree with and why.

7. Think about which causes and struggles stand out to you and why. Is it the ones where the people in them are most similar to you? What if you read and learned more about the struggles of people as different from you as possible?

That’s it for recommendations, next I’ll share resources to help:

To find a local mutual aid group, go here: https://covidmutualaid.org  (note that not all of these will be true mutual aid; take a look round each group first. can you see who runs it? are its principles and processes transparent?)

For resources on setting up your own local group: https://covidmutualaid.org/resources/ 

To find which union to join: https://www.tuc.org.uk/join-union 

Feel free to contact me if you’ve got any questions about any of that, if you’re feeling “I WANT TO DO SOMETHING” but can’t find anywhere to put it. There will be somewhere.