Anarchists in Britain Today

Abstract

IN 1965 IT WAS POSSIBLE FOR THE AUTHOR OF AN ARTICLE ON THE anarchists in Britain to begin by observing that anarchists no longer figured in the popular consciousness and that the existence of anarchists could occasion as much polite surprise as the continued existence of the Independent Labour Party. This present article and its inclusion in a special issue on Anarchism is perhaps in part a proof that this situation is no longer true, and that anarchism has recently attracted sufficient attention to justify a new and closer look at anarchists in Britain today. It would hardly be rash to argue that whatever else may be true of the Left in Britain in 1970, the anarchists’ presence deserves to provoke much less polite surprise than it may have done five years ago.This article is not, however, a description of the shape and variety of anarchists and anarchist groups to be found in Britain today. It is rather an attempt to describe one particular facet of anarchist thought which has characterized anarchism in the 1960s and to relate this to the ‘anarchhation’ of the New Left described by James Joll in his concluding article. It is to that extent an extrapolation and abstraction from a very wide range of alternatives and undoubtedly presents a picture which many anarchists would not recognize or would repudiate.