The Angry Brigade

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For the play, see The Angry Brigade (play).

The Angry Brigade
Angry Brigade Resistance Movement
Political positionFar-left
StatusDefunct
OpponentsUnited Kingdom
United States

The Angry Brigade was a

embassies, a BBC Outside Broadcast vehicle, and the homes of Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs). In total, police attributed 25 bombings to the Angry Brigade. The bombings mostly caused property damage; one person was slightly injured. Of the eight people who stood trial, known as the Stoke Newington Eight, four were acquitted. John Barker, along with Hilary Creek, Anna Mendelssohn and Jim Greenfield, were convicted on majority verdicts, and sentenced to ten years. In a 2014 interview, Barker described the trial as political, but acknowledged that "they framed a guilty man".[1]

History

Origins

In mid-1968 demonstrations took place in London, centred on the US embassy in

against US involvement in the Vietnam War. One of the organisers of these demonstrations, Tariq Ali, has said he recalls an approach by someone representing the Angry Brigade who wished to bomb the embassy; he told them it was a terrible idea and no bombing took place.[2]

1970s

The Angry Brigade decided to launch a bombing campaign with small bombs, in order to maximise media exposure to their demands while keeping collateral damage to a minimum. The campaign started in August 1970 and continued for a year until arrests took place the following summer.[3]

Targets included

embassies, a BBC Outside Broadcast vehicle earmarked for use in the coverage of the 1970 Miss World event, and the homes of Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs). In total, police attributed 25 bombings to the Angry Brigade. The bombings mostly caused property damage; one person was slightly injured.[3]

Resurfaced Angry Brigade of the 1980s

In the 1980s the Angry Brigade resurfaced as the Angry Brigade Resistance Movement, part of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement (IRSM).[4][5]

Aftermath

Jake Prescott, whose origins were in the mining community of

OBE for services to homosexual rights.[8]

In February 2002, Prescott apologised for his role in bombing Robert Carr's house and called on other members of the Angry Brigade to also come forward.[9]

On 3 February 2002, The Guardian reported a history of the Angry Brigade and an update on what its former members were doing then.[10]

On 9 August 2002, BBC Radio 4 aired Graham White’s historical drama, The Trial of the Angry Brigade. Produced by Peter Kavanagh, this was a reconstruction of the trial combined with other background information. The cast included Kenneth Cranham, Juliet Stevenson, Tom Hiddleston and Mark Strong.[11]

In 2009, family care activist and novelist Erin Pizzey was successful in a libel case against Macmillan Publishers after Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain had falsely linked her to the Angry Brigade.[12][13] The publisher also recalled and destroyed the offending version of the book, and republished it with the error removed.[14] The link to the Angry Brigade was made in 2001, in an interview with The Guardian, in which the article states that she was "thrown out" of the feminist movement after threatening to inform police about a planned bombing by the Angry Brigade of the clothes shop Biba. "I said that if you go on with this – they were discussing bombing Biba [the legendary department store in Kensington] – I'm going to call the police in, because I really don't believe in this."[15]

The group and trial feature in Jake Arnott's 2006 novel Johnny Come Home.[16] Hari Kunzru's 2007 novel My Revolutions is inspired by the Angry Brigade.[17] The Angry Brigade is a 2014 play by James Graham.

Attempted assassinations

1971

4 May – Attempted assassination of Marcia Anastasia Christoforides Dunn Beaverbrook. A bomb was attached to the bottom of her car, however the bomb was discovered before it exploded, and the bomb was disarmed.

12 January – Attempted assassination of Robert Carr. Two bombs exploded at the home of British Employment Secretary Robert Carr, his house was severely damaged, however nobody was killed or injured.[18]

See also

Notes

  1. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 14 November 2019.
  2. ^ Horspool 2009, p. 385.
  3. ^ a b Horspool 2009, pp. 385, 386.
  4. ^ "The Angry Brigade 1967–1984 – AK Press". Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  5. ^ "Angry Brigade: The Struggle Continues". Archived from the original on 10 October 2012. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  6. ^ "'Trick questions' protest at Carr bomb trial". Glasgow Herald. 25 November 1971. Retrieved 17 July 2012.
  7. ^ Bright, Martin (3 February 2002). "Look back in anger". The Guardian. London.
  8. ^ Horspool 2009, p. 386.
  9. ISSN 0029-7712
    . Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  10. ^ Bright, Martin (2 February 2002). "Look back in anger". The Observer. Retrieved 26 November 2016 – via The Guardian.
  11. ^ "BBC R4 – Graham White's 'The Trial Of The Angry Brigade' – Christie Books". Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  12. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  13. ^ "Campaigner accepts libel damages". BBC.co.uk. 1 April 2009. Retrieved 1 April 2009.
  14. ^ Adams, Stephen (1 April 2009). "Andrew Marr's publisher pays 'significant' damages to women's campaigner". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2 May 2010.
  15. ^ Rabinovitch, Dina (26 November 2001). "Domestic violence can't be a gender issue". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 March 2009.
  16. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  17. ISSN 0307-1235
    . Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  18. ^ "1971: British minister's home bombed". 12 January 1971. Retrieved 9 August 2023.

References

  • Horspool, David (2009). "Grovenor Square and the Angry Brigade". The English Rebel: One Thousand Years of Troublemaking from the Normans to the Nineties. London: Viking. pp. 384–386.
    ISBN 978-0-670-91619-1
    .

Further reading

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to The Angry Brigade.
  1. ^ Harris, Tom Vague, Mucous Membrane, Perry. "Vague Rants – Vaguely Definitive". Retrieved 15 March 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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