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While Rome Burns

@while-rome-burns.bsky.social

Anarchism, anti-fascism, history The past "flashes up at a moment of danger" (Benjamin, 1940) Also at whileromeburns_ on Insta https://whileromeburnsjournal.wordpress.com

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While Rome Burns@while-rome-burns.bsky.social · 3w ago

This is very impressive from @davidolusoga.bsky.social . And also impressive that it got made given the current climate of backlash against the anti-racist gains of 6 years ago. Feels slightly like an artefact of 2020 itself. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

Finding Britain’s Slave Traders with David Olusoga - Series 1: Episode 1

David Olusoga reveals the new research that uncovers how the slave trade was driven by the monarchy, beginning with Elizabeth I, and how a royal monopoly was established.

bbc.co.uk

While Rome Burns@while-rome-burns.bsky.social · last mo.

So sad and indicative that the RNLI felt they had to have an entire webpage about why they rescue migrants from the sea. RNLI volunteers are more or less the best people in Britain. If you’re having a go at them that says everything about you and nothing about them. rnli.org/about-us/our...

Why does the RNLI launch to small boats in the English Channel?

RNLI lifeboat crews have always launched to the rescue without judgement or preference. Men, women and children in danger in the Channel are no exception.

rnli.org

While Rome Burns@while-rome-burns.bsky.social · 4mo ago

The reason Keir Starmer is gone is that Labour MPs are terrified of losing their seats to Reform in 3 years time. The strategy of the Labour right to stop Reform was to chase them: drape Starmer in flags, get to him to parrot Enoch Powell, frame any form of migration as per se a problem…

While Rome Burns@while-rome-burns.bsky.social · 6mo ago

www.theguardian.com/news/2026/ap... This is pretty good from @trillingual.bsky.social Fascist Feelings link a sense of perceived relative personal decline w perceived relative national decline, and the same recipe to fix them both… Expel and punish the out group.

The impossible promise: are we witnessing the return of fascism?

Some of today’s far right is openly violent and undemocratic – and even in its less extreme forms, far-right populism is a profound threat. But that doesn’t mean it is just a re-run of history

theguardian.com

While Rome Burns@while-rome-burns.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Bristol Patriots having a shit day out today. All 40 of them, totally boxed in by hundreds of antifascists. Police turned them around and marched them back the way they came. Despite using batons and horses against antifascists, people held their ground and the fascists did not pass.

40 far right with union flags surrounded by cops on every side boxes into a small huddle
While Rome Burns@while-rome-burns.bsky.social · 7mo ago

What a world of Orwellian bullshit we inhabit. We’ve been told for years that it was only the “illegals” that people objected to and of course they had nothing against the good ones who come legally Turns out - no we just don’t want brown people. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

UK puts emergency brake on study visas for four countries’ nationals

Shabana Mahmood says UK’s generosity abused as study visas halted for nationals from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan

theguardian.com

While Rome Burns@while-rome-burns.bsky.social · 8mo ago

So the British Museum has removed the word “Palestine” from some of its exhibits after a complaint from UK Lawyers for Israel. Who out of the British Museum and a tiny pro-Israel lawfare group would we imagine to be the expert on ancient history? And yet… www.middleeasteye.net/news/british...

'Erasing history': British Museum criticised for removing references to ‘Palestine' from exhibits

Move condemned by scholars and activists as part of a ‘systematic’ attack on Palestinian cultural identity

middleeasteye.net

While Rome Burns@while-rome-burns.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Was Trump’s whole seizing Greenland plan, like the tariffs, an attempt to extract concessions by going in hard with an insane threat? This strategy relies on people thinking he just might be crazy enough to do it Then ppl scrabble around to placate him and he walks away with most of what he wants

While Rome Burns@while-rome-burns.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Worth reflecting in current fuss about defence spending numbers - Trump whinging about how Europe doesn’t pay its way blah blah… … that EU defence spending is greater than China. And if you include the UK in European defence, it’s even more.

Graph of defence spending by country 2024 taken from Statistica.com modified to show collective EU and UK plus EU numbers United States 997bn UK + EU 424bn EU TOTAL 343bn China* 314bn Russia* 149bn Germany 88.5bn India 86.1bn United Kingdom 81.8bn Saudi Arabia* 80.3bn Ukraine 64.7bn France 64.7bn
While Rome Burns@while-rome-burns.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Trump’s fascist domestic policy and his fascist foreign policy are joining up. Domestically, he has a private army of immigration goons invading cities with large non-white populations and rounding people up and kidnapping them And of course now murdering them if they get in the way.

Masked ICE agents take away a handcuffed person in Minneapolis.
While Rome Burns@while-rome-burns.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Not to mention… Are we *trying* to start a war with Russia? Sending British troops to Ukraine and then helping seize their ships in international waters? Remember when the fear of nuclear annihilation meant that we avoided direct war for 45 years?

While Rome Burns@while-rome-burns.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Is there an illegal US-backed war we won’t rush to join? Apparently the UK is now joining in with the illegal overthrow of a foreign head of state and the imposition of sanctions to pressure them to hand over all their oil to Trump.

UK confirms support to US seizure of Russian flagged oil tanker The UK Ministry of Defence has just confirmed the UK has provided "enabling support" to the US during its operation to seize the Bella 1 / Marinera vessel. Its statement said: "UK Armed Forces provided pre-planned operational support, including basing, to U.S. military assets interdicting the Bella 1 in the UK-Iceland-Greenland gap following a U.S. request for assistance. RFA Tideforce provided support for U.S. forces pursuing and interdicting the Bella 1, while the RAF provided surveillance support from the air. The UK and U.S. defence and security relationship is the deepest in the world and the UK provided enabling support in full compliance with international law."
While Rome Burns@while-rome-burns.bsky.social · 9mo ago

This is Smedley Butler At the time of his death he was the highest decorated US marine in history. He served in the military for 34 years. He also single handily saved the US from a fascist coup in the 1930s (long story). Anyway, for no particular reason he came to mind today…

Black and white photo of Butler In uniform
While Rome Burns@while-rome-burns.bsky.social · 10mo ago

This event yesterday was excellent Looking forward to reading the book There’s so much stuff that has come out of the spycops enquiry - tens of thousands of pages Huge amounts of things I didn’t know and that you won’t know unless you’ve really been paying attention

Image advertising the book talk for Disclosure at the Cowley Club in Brighton Kate Wilson discussing her book Disclosure: Unravelling the Spycops Files and what we have learnt from the ongoing Undercover Policing Inquiry. Following revelations about Mark Kennedy and the growing spycops scandal, Kate took on the Metropolitan Police for breach of human rights - and won. She had a one-year relationship with 'Mark Stone in 2003, but years later discovered he was a police officer, part of a unit that infiltrated political groups, forming sexual relationships and spying on hundreds of innocent civians. Hear her discuss how it took her over a decade to uncover part of the eerie truth about Britain's secret political police, what we have learnt from the disclosure of thousands of secret police files, and why her story and fight matter to all of us. Kate Wilson is a life-long campaigner and her landmark victory in the trial Wilson v the Commissioner' established that British undercover police operations targeting her movements were unlawful and 'unnecessary in a democratic society', and consistently violated basic human and political rights.