Direct action

It was 3am, I was chained to the Canadian ambassador’s car on the Isle of Sheppey and it was starting to get a bit nippy. I was 21 and halfway through a rollercoaster year as a community organiser, during which I forcibly attached myself to a number of people, objects and buildings – sometimes all at the same time. Peaceful direct action was a prominent tool in our armoury – in fact, it was our weapon of choice.

Other highlights included blocking the entrance to a factory in Rotherham with an articulated lorry full of chairs, occupying the conference suite at Old Trafford stadium, being driven around the streets of South Yorkshire dressed as a cat and nearly getting run over by Sir Tom Hunter (or perhaps his chauffeur) at his Scottish HQ. It was incredibly exciting. And a lot of fun. But did we actually achieve anything? It was easy to imagine that we were changing the world. We certainly saw ourselves as idealistic freedom fighters taking on a series of corrupt elites.