Haringey Solidarity Group

Last updated

Haringey Solidarity Group or HSG is a collective of community activists based in the Borough of Haringey, London.

Contents

Aims

HSG is active in a wide range of campaigns and struggles for social justice, workers' control, public services, civil liberties and a sustainable environment. It also aims to help to build stronger local communities. HSG supports workers' disputes (e.g. postal workers, tubeworkers, Visteon workers, council bin workers) and campaigns against council cuts, health cuts, the loss of local community facilities (e.g. a local park, a community pub), and on disability, environmental, housing and claimants' issues. HSG aims to resist state control by campaigning against ID cards, against racism, oppressive policing and deaths in police custody, and in support of asylum seekers and refugees. The group holds regular open meetings and discussion evenings, and produces leaflets, posters and booklets. HSG helps to set up and support similar groups in other London boroughs, under the name "Radical London", and wants to see ultimately a national network of such groups. The group aims to support local community struggles and hopes that other community groups will support them, this is the source of the word solidarity within their name. The group aims to practise, encourage and support self-organised struggles by ordinary people within Haringey, against bosses, local councils, or multi-national corporations.

History

HSG was formed out of the remains of the Haringey Anti Poll Tax Union, after the poll tax was defeated. "Originally set up to fight the poll tax, they decided to carry on after the tax was defeated." [1] Initial hopes for several groups across the Borough proved to be unsustainable and after three years the groups were combined into one group. "In April 1991 it held its first meeting as Haringey Solidarity Group and by January 1992 it had formed three separate groups around the borough in Tottenham, Green Lanes, and Wood Green. Not being able to sustain three separate groups it came back together as HSG in September 1994. " [2] In 2006 HSG set up the popular Haringey Independent Cinema (www.haringey.org.uk/hic). HSG has also put on events to bring other groups and the community together, such as Haringey Independence Day (www.haringey.org.uk/hid).

Activities

Members of HSG are active in their residents associations, [3] anti-fascism, and Haringey Against ID, anti billboards, anti debt campaigns, and various other antis. HSG continues to encourage tenants and workers self organisation throughout the borough, and have supported various workers struggles in the Borough of Haringey and beyond, including the 1995 JJ Foods Strike. [4] HSG members are also involved in organising free community festivals, the monthly Haringey Independent Cinema, and many other social events. Many of the people in HSG are involved with local resident, community and other campaigning groups around the borough. HSG regularly distributes thousands of copies of its free newsletter Totally Indypendent. The group is non-hierarchical. All major decisions are made at monthly general meetings which are open to anyone. Subgroups are formed for specific tasks (e.g. a newsletter) or to campaign on a specific issue, and these too are open to new people.

Related Research Articles

Solidarity Federation

The Solidarity Federation, also known by the abbreviation SolFed, is a federation of class struggle anarchists active in Britain. The organisation advocates a strategy of anarcho-syndicalism as a method of abolishing capitalism and the state, and describes itself as a "revolutionary union". In 1994 it adopted its current name, having previously been the Direct Action Movement since 1979, and before that the Syndicalist Workers' Federation since 1950.

Independent Working Class Association Political party in the United Kingdom

The Independent Working Class Association (IWCA) is a minor working-class political party in the United Kingdom that aims to promote the political and economic interests of the working class, regardless of the consequences to existing political and economic structures. It has been most successful in the Blackbird Leys and Wood Farm estates of Oxford East and had a councillor on Oxford City Council until 2012.

Socialist Alliance (Australia) Political party in Australia

Socialist Alliance is a socialist political party in Australia. The party was founded in 2001 as an alliance of various socialist organisations and activists. Engaging in a combination of grassroots activism and electoral politics, Socialist Alliance currently has three elected officeholders across Australia, all of whom serve on the local government level. They are councillors Sue Bolton, Sam Wainwright and Rob Pyne.

Socialist Alternative (Australia) Political party in Australia

Socialist Alternative (SA) is a Trotskyist organisation in Australia. As a revolutionary socialist group, it describes itself as aiming to organise collective struggles against oppression and inequality, while promoting the need for a revolutionary movement that could one day overthrow capitalism. Its members have been involved in organising numerous protest campaigns around issues such as LGBT rights, climate change, racism and refugee rights. The organisation also intervenes into the trade union and student union movements. It has branches and student clubs in most major Australian cities, and publishes the fortnightly newspaper Red Flag.

Poll tax riots Series of protests in Great Britain against the new taxation system (early 1990s)

The poll tax riots were a series of riots in British towns and cities during protests against the Community Charge, introduced by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The largest protest occurred in central London on Saturday 31 March 1990, shortly before the tax was due to come into force in England and Wales.

The Connolly Association is an organisation based among Irish emigrants in Britain which supports the aims of Irish republicanism. It takes its name from James Connolly, a socialist republican, born in Edinburgh, Scotland and executed by the British Army for his part in the 1916 Easter Rising.

The National Independence Party was a minor far-right party that appeared in British politics during the 1970s. The party was led by John Davis and campaigned on a platform similar to that of the much bigger National Front (NF) on anti-immigration, anti-European Economic Community, anti-communism themes.

Solidarity is a Trotskyist organisation in Australia. The group is a member of the International Socialist Tendency and has branches in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and Perth. The organisation was formed in 2008 from a merger between groups emerging from the International Socialist tradition: the International Socialist Organisation, Socialist Action Group and Solidarity.

Self-managed social centres in the United Kingdom Self-organised anti-capitalist communal spaces in the UK

Self-managed social centres in the United Kingdom can be found in squatted, rented, mortgaged and fully owned buildings. These self-managed social centres differ from community centres in that they are self-organised under anti-authoritarian principles and volunteer-run, without any assistance from the state. The largest number have occurred in London from the 1980s onwards, although projects exist in most cities across the UK, linked in a network. Squatted social centres tend to be quickly evicted and therefore some projects deliberately choose a short-term existence, such as A-Spire in Leeds or the Okasional Café in Manchester. Longer term social centres include the 1 in 12 Club in Bradford, the Cowley Club in Brighton and the Sumac Centre in Nottingham, which are co-operatively owned.

Anti-Poll Tax Unions (APTUs) were set up in local areas throughout Scotland, England and Wales to organise against the poll tax brought in by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in 1989 (Scotland) and 1990.

The All Britain Anti Poll Tax Federation, commonly known as "the Fed", was an organisation in Great Britain to co-ordinate the activities of local Anti-Poll Tax Unions (APTUs) campaigning against the Poll tax brought in by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in 1989 (Scotland) and 1990.

Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign

The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign was a non-racial popular movement made up of poor and oppressed communities in Cape Town, South Africa. It was formed in November 2000 with the aim of fighting evictions, water cut-offs and poor health services, obtaining free electricity, securing decent housing, and opposing police brutality.

Graham Keith Williamson is a long-time political activist in the United Kingdom, having been active at the top levels of various far right groups including the National Front, the Third Way and Solidarity.

Anti-austerity movement in the United Kingdom Early 2011 series of major demonstrations

The anti-austerity movement in the United Kingdom saw major demonstrations throughout 2010s in response to Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government's austerity measures which saw significant reductions in local council budgets, increasing of university tuition fees and reduction of public spending on welfare, education, health and policing, among others. Anti-austerity protests became a prominent part of popular demonstrations across the 2010s, particularly the first half of the decade.

The International Socialist Group (ISG) was a Trotskyist organisation in Britain. It was the British section of the Fourth International (FI) until July 2009 when it dissolved into Socialist Resistance.

Workers' Power is a Trotskyist group which forms the British section of the League for the Fifth International. The group publishes the newspaper Workers Power and distributes the English language journal Fifth International.

The Alliance for Workers' Liberty (AWL), also known as Workers' Liberty, is a Trotskyist group in Britain and Australia, which has been identified with the theorist Sean Matgamna throughout its history. It publishes the newspaper Solidarity.

The London Black Revolutionaries is a revolutionary socialist British political organisation centred in London. The organisation's membership is rumoured to be a mix of Caribbean and South Asian youth, who had been part of an oppositional faction and split of more than 550 members from the Socialist Workers Party (UK) in 2012–13. Its closed membership consists primarily of Black British and British Asian youths, who define themselves as a strictly working-class, grassroots organisation based on anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-homophobic and anti-sexist principles. Rejecting pacifism, the Black Revolutionaries take a militant approach to their activities, employing direct action as a tactic. The organisation is said to be primarily based in Brixton, South London.

Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh Self-managed social centre in Edinburgh, Scotland

The Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh, also known as ACE, is an infoshop and autonomous social centre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1997, although it follows on from previous groups.

Ibrahim Dogus British Labour politician

Ibrahim Dogus is an entrepreneur and restaurateur. He is founder of the Centre for Turkey Studies and Centre for Kurdish Progress, and an active organiser for the Turkish and Kurdish community in London and the UK. He is also a British Labour Party politician, serving as a Lambeth Borough councillor. Dogus was the unsuccessful parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party for the Cities of London and Westminster constituency in the June 2017 UK general election and for West Bromwich East at the 2019 general election.

References

  1. ↑ Schnews. 2001. 'Avin It In Haringey. In. Monopolise Resistance. http://www.schnews.org.uk/monopresist/monopoliseresistance/index.htm
  2. ↑ Anon. 2009. Haringey Solidarity Group - some activities past and present [1990-2005]. http://radicalhistorynetwork.blogspot.com/2009/09/haringey-solidarity-group-some.html Wednesday, September 2, 2009.
  3. ↑ "Residents take over! Community organising in Haringey".
  4. ↑ "1995: The JJ Foods Strike".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.