Workshops 2026

What is required of us to meaningfully support Palestine Liberation? Why and how should we block the flow of weapons with our bodies? Expect exploration of block tactics and open discussion on what works

Food Shortages and Community Prepping

Trinity

10:30 to 11:30

The Environment Secretary has warned that Households should stock up on food to prepare for extreme weather, in the face of “probably the largest El Nino that has ever been seen”. While the National Audit Office (NAO) warns that Britain’s food supply chain will face escalating threats from the climate crisis, wth rationing before 2030 being expected. It’s not looking pretty.

How can working class communities protect ourselves from the ongoing preasure of rising food prices and short term food shortages? Are food coops the answer? How do you start one? What can we do to support local growers and start to scale food soverignty? Lets face the where we are and dig in with some practical solutions together.

Digital Security as Solidarity

East Bristol Books

10:30 to 11:30

Bring your laptops and devices for a practical, hands on session. We will go through some basic security tips and help each other install more secure apps & plugins. As well as explore & put into place some better digital security practices to try and make us all a safer and a
little less leaky with our data. This is part of building more resilience in our communities and reducing our reliance on the state and big corporations.

This is an open, inclusive event suitable for anyone new to or comfortable with digital security. No techy experience or prior knowledge is necessary.

Anti-fascism, fascism and the surveillance state – Undercover Research Group

Quaker Meeting Room

10:30 to 11:30

Evidence heard at the Undercover Policing Inquiry has revealed Special Branch’s historic interest in anti-fascist groups. It has also released a remarkable amount of hitherto restricted information, not just about the spying but also about public order policing.
Using case studies of the iconic anti-fascist and anti-racist battles of Lewisham (1977) and Southall (1979) and similar, we show how the information released by the Inquiry has changed our understanding of these historic events.

The evidence also reveals the relationship between the Metropolitan Police and fascist organisations such as the National Front who were challenging multi-racial communities and the left for control of the streets in the 1970s.

If you would like to learn more or view the (redacted) Special Branch documents released into the public domain by the Undercover Policing Inquiry, please visit the the Undercover Research Group website at Spycops research

The work to collate, assess and analyse the documents in this highly unusual snapshot of part of the secret state continues. Phase 1 covering the years 1968 to 1982 is close to completion, there is plenty more to come.

Bridge Across Time: From the Spanish Civil War to 80s Britain – Miguel Garcia’s Centro Iberico 1971-1983 Nick Soulsby

Quaker Library

10:30 to 11:30

An abandoned school…Squatters with a link to The Clash…Anarchopunks in need of a gig space…Spanish youths avoiding the draft…The Angry Brigade…And a veteran of the anarchist unions in Spain, the Republican war effort and Franco’s jails…

This is the untold story of a legendary community space in London where anarchy meant action. A sanctuary for radical organizing and a crucible for underground sounds, the Centro Iberico was the UK’s only enduring anarchist center of the 1970s-1980s. It served as a vital hub that connected international political prisoner support efforts led by the Anarchist Black Cross to anarchist movements abroad, while sustaining its own activities in support of the cause.

Anarchism in Spain – Origins to revolution. James Yeoman

Quaker Hall

10:30 to 11:30

This paper will provide an overview of the history of anarchism in Spain prior to the Civil War of 1936-39. Themes to be explored include:
• The origins, strength and longevity of the movement, and comparison to Spanish socialism
• Anarchist culture, education and feminism
• Violence and repression
• Anarchism and worker organisation, and the formation of the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT)
• Developments in the Second Republic, from 1931 to the outbreak of Civil War
This discussion will provide useful context for the rest of the Bristol Radical History Gropu Stream of talks in the main hall, situating the monumental events of the Civil War and Revolution within the deep tradition of anarchism in Spain.

11:50 to 12:50

Resisting Immigration Raids Bristol Anti Raids

The Exchange

11:50 to 12:50

How can we deal with the violence of the borders hidden just below the curface of our city? Immigration Raids have increased by 75% since 2024, but resistance is growing to. This workshop will talk you through identifying and reporting sightings of immigration Enforcement, the legal rights you can share and the tactics you can use to support those being targeted. The second half of the session will give you a chance to practise engaging with ICE on the streets, in scripted small group role plays and skillshare experiences

Masking Up Against the Crime and Policing Act – NETPOL

Trinity

11:50 to 12:50

Under the new Crime and Policing Act 2026, police can declare an area a ‘mask-free zone’ for up to 24 hours around a planned protest, arresting anyone who covers their face ‘to conceal their identity’. Yet people need to cover their faces for good reason: clinically vulnerable protesters, for religious observance, or to protect your identity from the far-right. This leaves us facing a terrible choice: caught between the risk of arrest, or staying off the streets.

This workshop will examine what the new laws say about masking, what this means for us in practice on the streets, and how we can build solidarity to keep each other safer. The workshop will also carry copies of Netpol’s new zine, ‘To Mask is to Care’, for distribution.

Right To Roam

East Bristol Books

11:50 to 12:50

Land- who owns it, who controls it, who gets to live on it and use it, and who is allowed to access it – lies at the core of all our lives. England and Wales have some of the most restrictive land access laws worldwide: rights of way give us access to only 8% of land.

We’ll have a quick look at the history of land ownership here, it’s relationship to power, wealth and government, and how that is managed by laws of tresspass. We’ll aslo look at thow to go about tresspass safely, and how you can go on a fun friendly tresspass with with Bristol Right to Roam Group!

Building Relationships & Security – Not another talk about tech

Quaker Meeting Room

11:50 to 12:50

You know when you’re in a regular chat and have no idea who’s behind those nicknames and emojis? When you’re with your comrades and you realise you actually know nothing about their lives or what they do? How we entre spaces and relate to each other while pracitseing what we know as security culture can become a challenge that creates barries or alienates people.

Let’s explore how to build communities of resistance strong enough for the struggles ahead while strenginging security and privacy. When we need to to amp up our security, and when that might be counter to our aims. This is not a space to discuss linux, calyx or graphene. We want to discuss relationships

Disclosure: Uncovering the Spycops Files Kate Wilson

Quaker Library

11:50 to 12:50

Join Kate Wilson for a talk about uncovering the secret police operation behind her relationship with ‘Mark Stone’. Drawing on the evidence revealed in the ten-year legal battle that followed Mark Kennedy’s exposure in 2010, Kate explores what the police files reveal about the scale and methods of undercover policing, the personal costs and the ongoing struggle to expose the truth.

Spain – The Revolution of July 1936 – Danny Evans

Quaker Hall

11:50 to 12:50

This talk will address the strengths and limitations of the Spanish revolution, which began in the summer of 1936. It will cover phenomena such as the socialisation of industry and collectivisation of agriculture, the militia system and the anarchist takeover of the Franco-Catalan border. It will end by considering the socialisation campaign of 1937, through which anarchist activists attempted to address and go beyond some of the stumbling blocks to revolutionary transformation that had arisen since the previous summer.

13:10 to 14:40

Anarchy 101

The Exchange

13:10 to 14:40

An interactive workshop that combines participatory elements and individual reflection about anarchist ideas, values, and practices. Rather than focusing on theoretical debates, this workshop invites people to consider how anarchist principles and actions are already showing up in their everyday lives.

This is an entry level session providing an opportunity for people to ask questions in an open and welcoming environment.

What Solidarity do Bristols Global Majority Want?

Trinity

13:10 to 14:40

Bristol Community Action are a Majority World led grassroots group doing community organising around resistance to the far right. Their work has included self defence training for targeted communities and Assemblies in the wake of the racially aggravated shooting of a 9 year old in Brentry last year

This September they held and event asking fellow Black and Brown Bristolians what sorts of solidarity they were looking for from each other and their White neighbors. This session will be an opportunity to hear about their work and learn what their research has uncovered.

Queer and Trans Mutual Aid

East Bristol Books

13:10 to 14:40

The world is fast eroding our chances of survival, happiness and freedom. In the UK, trans and queer people are one of the scapegoats and obsessions of the ruling powers. What do your Queer and Trans comrades need in these moments? How can we build alternative access and support? Join TRAN+ to understand these questions and build links and communities

ECHO Mobile library: 10 Years of Books Against Borders

Quaker Meeting Room

13:10 to 14:40

ECHO Mobile library is a 10-year strong multilingual lending library on wheels based in Athens, Greece, which travels 300 miles every week to reach communities forced to live in isolated refugee camps: a mobile community space and a bridge to the city.

Through the lens of the library, we go through 10 years of transformations of asylum policies in Greece and Europe, culminating with recently adopted European Pact on Migration and Asylum. 10 years in which migration to Europe has been increasingly criminalised – with people killed at borders, imprisoned in detention centres or deported. But also 10 years in which initiatives of practical resistance have flourished, rooted in the histories and experiences people carry with them, and have shown us glimpses of alternative worlds.

Eclipse 2029: Strengthening Anarchist Organising in the British Isles

Quaker Library

13:10 to 14:40

The Eclipse network aims to strengthen the anarchist movement, to both counter the far-right and offer a meaningful alternative to electoral politics. We aim to facilitate co-ordination between anarchists, share infrastructure, host annual in-person & online assemblies, and popularise anarchism through education and organising public events. The workshop will introduce the Eclipse, and show what we’ve done so far and our visions for the future.

Oral histories of the Mujeres Libres Isabella Lorusso

Quaker Hall

13:10 to 14:40

Italian historian and writer Isabella Lorusso presents her research on Spanish anarchist women whom she had the opportunity to meet and interview in Spain and France during the 1990s. These women were active in the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (Iberian Anarchist Federation, FAI) group but they also established their own autonomous anarchist-feminist organization, Mujeres Libres (Free Women), which boasted a membership of approximately 20,000 women. They fought not only against Fascism and Stalinism but also for the right to abortion, divorce, education and free sexuality and struggled against the patriarchal society embodied by their fathers, husbands, and comrades.

Isabella met many of the founders of Mujeres Libres, such as Pepita Carpena, the group’s propaganda officer; Suceso Portales, who lived in exile in London before eventually returning to Madrid and the female militia members such as Blanca Navarro and Cocha Perez, who fought at the front against the fascists.

Isabella’s book Fighting Women: Interviews With Veterans of the Spanish Civil War was published by Freedom Press in 2020.

13:10-14:10

Keep Calm and SHIELDWALL!

Outside

Think their riot lines are immovable? Come learn how to make wobble. This workshop dives into how to use a shield for community defence, how they’re used against us, and how we might turn the tables. We’ll cover the police tactics, as well as using a shield yourself not getting bowled over. Expect laughs, learning, and a bit of riotous clatter. It’s a physical session, but accessible, whether you’re up for trying moves, observing, or strategising from the sidelines, there’s a place in the wall for you

14:30 to 15:30

Bristol Radical Histroy Group Steam

The Friends of Durruti and the Maydays in Barcelona (1937) Lee Groves

Quaker Hall

14:30 to 15:30

The ‘Barcelona Maydays’ were an uprising in May 1937 in response to the Republican Government’s attempt to seize power in revolutionary Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. Tensions had been building over several months between the anarcho-syndicalist CNT membership and the Soviet controlled Republican army which centred on the questions of militarisation and ‘War or Revolution’? When armed Communist Party units attacked the telephone exchange in Barcelona, thousands of workers responded with an initially successful armed insurrection.

The Friends of Durruti group were central within this opposition and openly criticised the collaboration of the CNT leadership with the Republican Government. This talk will examine the events of May 1937, why and how the insurrection was eventually defeated as well as the actions and arguments of the Friends of Durruti group. The fundamental question remains ‘should the anarchists have seized power to further the revolution’?

13:10 to 14:40

Anarchy 102

The Exchange

13:10 to 14:40

An interactive workshop that explores the question ‘how do anarchists actually organise?’

We’ll look at some of the ways that anarchist organise and make decisions together, both within small groups and between groups on a larger scale. We hope the session will empower people to learn about themselves, how to put anarchist values into application and action and
become agents of change.

This is still an entry level session with no dense theory or history and where questions and exploration are welcome. Note – You do not need to have attended an Anarchy 101 session to attend this session.

Data Centres: a big bad opportunity? – Axe Drax

Trinity

13:10 to 14:40

What takes vast quanties of water, requires power on the scale of a town, bumps up your bills and fuels the AI billionaires arms race? This year the potentially catastrophic consequences of the Data Centre boom started become apparent – with over 100 being proposed, and approvals being granted in places like Avonmouth. Not since fracking have we seen a threat on this scale. How do we build an effective local campaign to turn this around? Can we make it into a movement that reignites the power of grassroots ecological action?

Public Order Games

Outside

13:10 to 14:40

Practise some approaches to standing strong and moving together, as well as ways to thwart Snatch Squads. The physically limited and the street action cautious especially welcome

Radical Accountability in a Messed Up World – SLEEC

Quaker Meeting Room

13:10 to 14:40

In the current state of the world, where accountability is absent or failing, and violence and harm is normalised, practicing radical accountability and priorising community care is fundamental.

In this workshop we will explore how to centre integrity, prioritise safety and dismantle internalised cop culture when in conflict.

We will look at the way in which internalised patriarchy and male violence shows up in ourselves, in our communities and in our organising groups and how this impacts true accountability.

This workshop is about reminding ourselves that building a more accountable, less harmful world is a collective responsibility and necessity right now.

This workshop is for all genders.

Join ISM solidarity work in Palestine

Quaker Library

13:10 to 14:40

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is an anti-zionist, Palestinian-led movement deploying international volunteers to Palestine to support communities resisting ethnic cleansing, colonialism and the genocide of the Palestinian population. It uses non-violent, direct-action methods and is based on consensus. We go where Palestinians themselves have invited us, to stand alongside them offering solidarity in the face of oppression and dispossession.

The workshop will introduce you to our work, and you will hear first-hand from members who have provided solidarity presence in communities facing settler violence in the Jordan Valley, Masafer Yatta and elsewhere in the West Bank. Right now, international comrades are answering the call from Palestinians to join them during the olive harvest, and fight settler intimidation. But volunteers are needed all year round.

Come to the workshop to discover more about how you can resist the occupation and dispossession in the West Bank.

15:30 to 16:30

Panel discussion – The Spanish Revolution

Quaker Hall

15:30 to 16:30

The Spanish Revolution was a seminal event in the history of anarchism. The success of resisting a fascist coup led by elements of the armed forces in July 1936, remains a quite remarkable historic achievement. But questions remain, could their victory have been total? Why did some anarchist areas fall to the fascists? Should the anarchists have seized power?Why were the Spanish colonies not declared independent?

The revolution marked in concrete terms the seizure of the means of production by the working class. This expropriation and and associated collectivisiation was not a seamless process, bringing up issues of individualism versus the communal, private property and social property, and how to transform the social relations of capitalism.

Other key issues include:
• How deep was this social revolution was in practice, did it transform relationships between men and women, in families and in public life on a mass level?
• Although the use of violence was clearly necessary, how much was this reciprocal ‘red terror’ rather than anti-fascist resistance? Was the ‘red terror’ counter-productive?
• How do we understand the ‘war or revolution’ dilemma?
This panel brings together all the speakers, James Yeoman, Danny Evans, Isabella Lorusso and Lee Groves plus we are very pleased to have Nick Heath joining us.

16:50 to 17:50

Memory, archives and oral histories in eco-anarchist resistance

Quaker Meeting Room

16:50 to 17:50

What is invisible, unseen or barely remembered in the last 30 years of eco-anarchist resistance in the UK? Why are some radical histories celebrated by future generations while others appear to be forgotten relatively quickly? How can we celebrate our successes while recognising how much we still have to fight, and learn from them even though our context is always changing? This talk (with pictures!) will consider these questions through the campaign against genetically modified crops in the UK, the early climate movement and the radical media that shared stories of some of these actions.

Beyond the Sourdough: Trad Wives and the Far Right

Quaker Library

16:50 to 17:50

What can sourdough, staying at home and a carefully curated Instagram feed tell us about the rise of the far right? The “tradwife” has become a hugely successful social-media phenomenon amassing millions of followers and launching the careers of ‘Ballerina Farm’ and Nara Smith as the social media founders of the ‘tradwife’ label having a joint 15.2 million followers. Curated feeds presenting traditional femininity, marriage, motherhood and staying at home as an escape from capitalism and patriarchy are being marketed as a radical act of reclaiming what it means to be a woman and wife. But what happens when an supposedly apolitical lifestyle becomes part of a much wider political and cultural project? This workshop will look beyond these aesthetics and explore the people who are funding this content, how it is marketed to young women, and how it connects with wider far-right ideas around gender, race, religion and family. We will look at the contradictions of influencers selling a return to the home whilst being ‘business owners’ providing financially for their families through lucrative personal brands and businesses, and ask why the tradwife we see online is so often young, white and conventionally feminine. This isn’t about demonising women who choose to stay at home, but about understanding the bigger picture and why this message is resonating with people who are fed up with capitalism. As anarchists, it is important for us to see what we can learn from the tradwife movement and what alternative visions we can offer.