Voting and the General Election, Calderdale-SolFed statement

We all know the old saying ‘if you don't vote, you can't complain’. A better one would be ‘ if all you do is vote, you can't complain’.

Dig a little deeper into the history books and what you find at the heart of change is direct action and organisation at a grassroots level. Everything from workers rights, women's rights, decent wages and even the right to vote itself have been gained this way, rulers typically resist change until they know they have no choice but to throw a few more crumbs to the people below.

Solidarity with Abahlali baseMjondolo against killing of their members

Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) is a grassroots, democratic and member-led organisation based in Durban, a city in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. AbM have an impressive record of exposing corruption and asserting the constitutional rights of thousands of the marginalised shack-dwelling people. We, the undersigned, are in support of the resolve of AbM members to strive for more participatory forms of development and to advance the struggle for access to urban land.

We condemn all assassinations, political murders and other acts of violence and intimidation against AbM members and housing rights activists. In the past 18 months, four housing rights activists have been killed. This includes two prominent AbM members:

National Delegate Council 24/01/13 report

At our national delegate council on 24/01/13, the Solidarity Federation officially recognised three new locals, in Calderdale, Hastings and the Solent. We also recognised a Belfast local as being in-formation prior to reaching a formal decision at national conference in April.

We also agreed to make regular donations to the Sparrow's Nest library in Nottingham which holds the collection of one of our members which stretches back to the Syndicalist Workers' Federation and is an important record of British anarcho-syndicalism. We will also be making a donation to the London anarchist bookfair collective and encourage others to do the same.

What is the National Delegate Council?