Showing posts with label Criminal Justice Act. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Criminal Justice Act. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 08, 2021

Compilations against the Criminal Justice Act

The mid-1990s movement against the British Government's Criminal Justice Act, and in particular it's 'anti-rave' police powers, was one of the more exciting episodes of that time (see my Datacide article 'Revolt of the Ravers: the movement against the Criminal Justice Act, 1993-95). Naturally this movement found musical expression including a number of disparate compilation albums.

The one with perhaps the biggest names - some of them surprizing - is Criminal Justice! (Axe the Act), with tracks from Jamiroquai, Radiohead, The Shamen, Stereo MCs, Aswad, Orbital, Dodgy, Corduroy, EMF and a frankly bizarre Duran Duran cover of Public Enemy's '911 is a joke' in a Beck style. In between the tracks there's spoken work narration from Malcolm McLaren. 
  


The 1995 release was billed as a benefit for the Coalition Against the Criminal Justice Act. Initiated by the Socialist Workers Party, the Coalition was viewed with some suspicion by many of those in the anti-CJA movement though it did manage to get various trade union branches and civil liberties groups to affiliate. I doubt whether many of the acts on this CD were being played out on free party sound systems at the time with the possible exception of Orbital, still fair play to these bands for putting their names and music to the cause. 


'Taking Liberties' (Totem Records, 1994) was closer to the actual soundtrack of the movement, featuring mainly electronic/dance music acts including The Orb, The Prodigy, Loop Guru, Tribal Drift, Trans-Global Underground, System 7 (with Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy from Gong), Galliano, Fun-Da-Mental, DreadZone,  Ultramarine, The Drum Club, Test Dept and Zion Train. The Shamen and Orbital feature on both this and the compilation above.


Proceeds were ear-marked for the Freedom Network and the sound systems' based Advance Party (who had jointly kicked off the grassroots anti-CJA movement), along with civil rights organisation Liberty and Squall magazine.


The cover art, reflected on the cassette tape version too, was by Jamie Reid.


 
'NRB:58 - No Repetitive Beats' refers to clause 58 of the initial Criminal Justice Bill which infamously defined raves as including music characterised by repetitive beats. It is basically a compilation of fairly mainstream house music of the period including a mix version by Hacienda DJ Graeme Park. It has some great mainly US/Italian tracks on it by the likes of Loleatta Holloway and The Reese Project (Kevin Saunderson),  not sure if any of them specifically endorsed the campaign but there was a promise of a donation from each sale to famous Nottingham based free party sound system DiY Collective and its associated anti-CJA campaign 'All Systems No!'




'For every copy of No Reptetitive Beats sold Network will pay a royalty to DIY/All Systems No! (an advance payment of £3000 was made before the release of the album), the monies will be used by DIY/All Systems No! towards the cost of a sound system which will be on hand to replace any sound equipment seized by the police using draconian powers granted to them by the Criminal Justice Bill... Fight for your right to party'




Finally and on a real DIY tip is 'They call this Justice?' a benefit for the Freedom Network put out on cassette by Spanner in the Works, a label started by London-based Earzone zine


No famous names, but just the kind of bands you would find playing at squat/benefit gigs at this time, like Scum of Toytown, 70 Gwen Party, Electric Groove Temple, Spithead and Blind Mole Rat.

Notice of compilation from Earzone zine





'About the Freedom Network' article from Earzone, with contact addresses of various anti-CJA grops from Football Fans Against the CJA to the Hunt Saboteurs Association

[I have Taking Liberties and NRB:58 on cassette. I have never heard the other two compilations though familiar with some of the bands/tracks. Intrigued in particular by the Malcolm McLaren contributions to Criminal Justice!, would like to listen to them if anybody can help me out. Thanks to nobrightside for Earzone pictures]

 See also on the CJA:

Marching against the CJA, July 1994

Eternity report of July 1994 anti-CJA demo

Revolt of the Ravers – The Movement against the Criminal Justice Act in Britain 1993-95


Friday, January 22, 2021

Revolt of the Ravers – The Movement against the Criminal Justice Act in Britain 1993-95

by Neil Transpontine

[first published in Datacide: magazine for noise and politics, number 13, 2013]

It is now twenty years since the British government first announced that it was bringing in new laws to prevent free parties and festivals. The legislation that ended up as the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 prompted a mass movement of defiance with long lasting and sometimes unexpected consequences.

Many people would see the origins of the story in the Castlemorton free festival in May 1992. Thousands of people had headed into the English West Country in search of the planned Avon Free Festival. After a massive police initiative – Operation Nomad – they ended up at Castlemorton Common in the Malvern hills. The festival that kicked off there featured sound systems including Bedlam, Circus Warp, Spiral Tribe and DiY. It soon became too big for the police to stop as up to 40,000 people from all over the country gathered for a week long party – many of them attracted by sensationalist TV and newspaper coverage.


It was the biggest unlicensed gathering of this kind since the state had smashed the Stonehenge festival in the mid-1980s. What made Castlemorton different was not just the soundtrack but the crowd. The free festivals of the 1970s and early 1980s grew out of a post-hippy ‘freak’ counter culture, later reinvigorated with an infusion of anarcho-punks and ‘new age travelers’. The growing free party scene in the early 1990s included plenty of veterans from such scenes, but also attracted a much wider spectrum of ravers, clubbers and casuals. The traditional divide between marginal sub-cultures and mainstream youth scenes was breaking down as people from all kinds of social, cultural and style backgrounds converged to dance together in warehouses and fields. What’s more, the movement seemed to be expanding rapidly beyond anybody’s control.

Castlemorton, 1992

Soon there were calls for new police powers. In a parliamentary debate in June 1992, the local Conservative MP, Michael Spicer, spoke of the festival as if it had been a military operation, describing it as ‘the invasion that took place at Castlemorton common in my constituency, on Friday 22 May… On that day, new age travellers, ravers and drugs racketeers arrived at a strength of two motorised army divisions, complete with several massed bands and, above all, a highly sophisticated command and signals system’. He went on, ‘The problem of mass gatherings must be dealt with before they take place… chief constables should be given discretionary powers to ban such gatherings altogether if they decide that they are a threat to public order’.

In fact, there were already laws that the police could have used at Castlemorton, the problem was they were more or less unenforceable because of the sheer numbers involved. Another Conservative MP told parliament, ‘There is only so much that one can do once a crowd of 20,000 has assembled. It would have been of no benefit to local residents that May weekend if insensitive action had provoked a full-scale riot’ (Charles Wardle MP, 29 June 1992). As the Government put its mind to new legislation a key focus was on how to stop such numbers assembling in the first place.

In the meantime, it was by using existing laws that the state sought to make an example of people suspected of being involved in organising Castlemorton. At the end of the festival the police ambushed vehicles leaving the site. 13 people – most of them associated with Spiral Tribe – were arrested and charged with ‘conspiracy to cause a public nuisance’, carrying a likely jail sentence if convicted. Legal proceedings dragged on for nearly two years, until in March 1994, the jury acquitted all defendants of conspiracy after a ten week trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court. By that time Government actions seemed to show that it was the whole free party and festival movement that was in the frame.

The Government signaled its intention to bring in new powers against ‘raves’ in March 1993, and in November of that year confirmed that this would be included in a new Criminal Justice Bill with what a Government minister described as new ‘pre-emptive powers to prevent a build up of large numbers of people on land where the police reasonably believe that a rave will take place’ (Hansard, 23 November 1993)

The Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill was brought before Parliament in January 1994 and included increased police powers to stop and search people, and to take intimate body samples; provisions against squatters and travellers; and the criminalisation of many forms of protest with a new offence of ‘aggravated trespass’. And then there were the infamous ‘powers in relation to raves’. These included giving police the power to order people to leave land where they were setting up, awaiting or attending a ‘rave’, and to direct anybody within five miles of a rave away from the area. The police were also authorised to seize vehicles and sound systems before or during a rave.

Of course all this involved some tricky legal definitions – what made a ‘rave’ different from any other gathering of people where music was being played, such as an opera festival? Hence the notorious definition of a rave as ‘a gathering on land in the open air’ with music that ‘includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats’. Ironically by this point hardly anybody involved was still calling these events ‘raves’ – a word that already sounded dated was soon to become enshrined in law.

The movement against the Bill grew quickly out of the overlapping squatting, road protest and free party scenes. In October 1993, Advance Party was launched after a meeting in a squatted launderette in north London. As they declared soon after: ‘‘Unite to Dance! For the right of free assembly. Our music, our festivals, our parties, our lives… Enuff’s Enuff!. Defend the vibe against road blocks, arbitrary arrests, confiscation of rights, laws unfairly used, Criminal Trespass act, Anti-squatting laws, Caravan sites act, Public order act and general harassment and mass criminalisation… Join the Advance Party Collective” (Advance Party Information, Issue 1, February 1994).


If Advance Party was specifically linked to the free party scene, the Freedom Network sought to be a slightly broader network of ‘squatters, travellers, free party organisers, hunt sabs, road protestors etc’. By 1995, they said that they were made up on ‘80+ independent local groups who are trying to wake up their communities to the dangers of the Act’.

Around the UK, groups opposed to the Criminal Justice Bill came together. The scope of the movement is shown in ‘The Book’ a ‘directory of 200 active collectives in the UK’ published by Brighton activists in 1995. More than 60 groups were listed as having an ‘Anti-CJA’ focus (by this point ‘the Bill’ had become ‘the Act’ as it had passed into law). As well as the national contacts such as Advance Party and Freedom Network, numerous local collectives were included: Freedom Network local groups in Cheshire, Leeds, Lincoln, Manchester, Oxford and elsewhere; Campaign or Coalitions ‘Against the Criminal Justice Act’ in Dorset, Exeter, Hull, Isle of Wight, Leicester, Norfolk etc. North of the border the Scottish Defiance Alliance was made up of ‘over 30 different organisations from Glasgow’.

Freedom Network benefit gig at Cool Tan in Brixton, the squatted former dole office

In these early days of the internet, there was some information available online through Green Net and pHreak (an ‘underground culture’ online network). But these were very limited and few people had internet access. Written communication was still mainly by the old methods of print, paper and post. Important sources of information included Squall: Magazine for Assorted Itinerants and the various local Free Information Network newsletters. There were various zines including Pod (‘the magazine for DIY culture’), Frontline and later Schnews, developed in Brighton as a weekly printed round up of resistance to the Act once it had become law. There was also coverage in Alien Underground, predecessor zine to Datacide.

Another medium of information was ‘video magazines’ featuring footage of protests and related news, such as Undercurrents (based in Oxford), Conscious Cinema (Brighton) and Hackney based HHH, who put out a ‘Criminal Injustice Bill’ special in 1994.

But it was primarily through the network of underground parties, clubs and gigs that news of the CJA spread through stalls, leaflets and word of mouth. In 1994, it seemed that virtually every party flyer had an anti-CJA slogan on it, and there were numerous benefit events.

Squatted spaces were important as bases of opposition, some short-lived and some lasting for months or longer. CJB activists initiated the six week occupation of Artillery Mansions, a 3,000 room empty building in Westminster first squatted in February 1994 (nicknamed ‘New Squatland Yard’ because of its proximity to the Metropolitan Police HQ at New Scotland Yard). Cool Tan, a squatted ex-unemployed office in Brixton, hosted many anti-CJA benefit parties, as well as housing the office for the Freedom Network. In North London, there was the Rainbow Centre in a squatted church in Kentish Camden Town, and in Brighton, the Justice? Collective squatted a Courthouse. In Oxford, riot police evicted an occupied empty cinema within 24 hours of it being squatted by anti-CJA activists in August 1994; 200 people later demonstrated in the city centre against police actions (Squall, Autumn 1994). There were also CJB ‘protest squats’ in Swansea (a church hall), Rugby and elsewhere.

Also significant were the big free festivals still taking place in London parks, linked to the squatting scene but having permission from Councils to party for a weekend: not pseudo-free festivals behind big fences with lots of private security, but proper sprawling mildy-chaotic events with sound systems, dance tents and lots of bands. Two of the biggest were the Deptford Urban Free Festival and the Hackney Homeless Festival. Up to 30,000 people attended the latter in Clissold Park, Stoke Newington in May 1994 with acts including anti-CJA bands such as The Levellers, Co-Creators, Fun-Da-Mental and Back to the Planet. 30 people were arrested later after riot police piled in after the festival outside the Robinson Crusoe pub.

There were several anti-CJA music compilations, notably ‘Taking Liberties’. With a cover design by Jamie Reid, it featured acts including Transglobal Underground, Orbital, Test Dept, The Orb, The Shamen, The Prodigy, Galliano and DreadZone. A house tracks compilation ‘No Repetitive Beats’ was also put out. Autechre released their Anti-EP on Warp Records with a message declaring that two of the tracks ‘contain repetitive beats. We advise you not to play these tracks if the Criminal Justice Bill becomes law. “Flutter” has been programmed in such a way that no bars contain identical beats and can therefore be played under the proposed new law. However, we advise DJs to have a lawyer and a musicologist present at all times to confirm the non-repetitive nature of the music in the event of police harassment’



While all this was going on the police were certainly not waiting around for new powers. There was to be no repeat of Castlemorton – the following year (1993), a massive police operation was mounted to stop an attempt to hold an Avon Free Festival, culminating in a police road block that closed the M5 motorway – ’12 people were arrested for Blocking the Highway – exactly what the law had been doing earlier on’ (Festival Eye, 1993). In the South of England, police established Operation Snapshot to gather intelligence on parties, festivals and travellers, with the Southern Central Intelligence Unit maintaining a database with personal details and vehicle registration numbers of thousands of people. The Luton-based Exodus Collective also faced an ongoing campaign of official harassment. In February 1994, a police seizure of equipment and arrest of collective members prior to a planned party led to 4,000 people surrounding the local police station.

If all this fuelled a culture of opposition to the Criminal Justice Act, its public presence was marked by a series of three large demonstrations in London in 1994. The first major event was called by Advance Party on May Day 1994. Around 20,000 people took part: ‘all those involved in the alternative culture, ravers, protestors, squatters, travellers and all sorts, came together… it was a jubilant display of people power’. It started off in Hyde Park and ended in Trafalgar Square: ‘Eventually the armoured vehicle rave machine kicked in and the whole square erupted into dance and party’ (Frontline, No.1, Summer 1995). After the demo, sound systems including Sunnyside, Vox Populi and Desert Storm (whose armoured vehicle had been in the Square) put on a party in woodland on Wanstead Common in East London.

The second demonstration took the same route on Sunday 24 July with estimates of the numbers attending ranging from 20,000 (police) to 50,000 (organisers). Politically there were a number of tensions – the established Left, the Socialist Workers Party in particular, had woken up to the emerging movement. Their organisational skills may have helped increase the turnout, but some complained that something that was fresh and creative was being funnelled back into the traditional routine of A to B marches with speeches at the end. 

Still, it certainly didn’t feel like a traditional demo at the end. Trafalgar Square once again became a big party, with people playing in the fountains on a sunny day, lots of drumming and some music from the then ubiquitous Rinky Dink cycle powered sound system. There were clashes with police in Whitehall, after some people tried to scale the gates guarding the entrance to Downing Street. Police on horseback charged the crowd there, and 14 people were arrested.

The largest march against the Criminal Justice Bill took place on October 9th 1994 shortly before it became law. Perhaps 100,000 people took part, this time ending up in Hyde Park. Trouble started after police tried to block two lorries with sound systems entering the park:

‘A big crowd was gathered around dancing in the streets and refusing to be intimidated. There were people on top of a bus stop and at one point a couple of people even climbed on top of a police van and started dancing. The police put on riot gear, a few missiles were thrown, and somebody let off some gas, but after a standoff it was the cops that backed down and let the trucks carry on. The lorries headed off into the park with the crowd partying on and around them. People pulled police barriers across the road behind the crowd to prevent the police horses who were following from charging into us’ (The Battle for Hyde Park: radicals, ruffians and ravers, 1855-1994).

'The Battle for Hyde Park: ruffians, radicals and ravers, 1855-1994'
(written by me as part of previous Practical History project)

Police horses charged the crowd but were driven back out of the park. For several hours the park was a largely police-free autonomous party zone, while at the edges police launched baton charges and were repelled with bottles and sticks. Many people were injured on the day, and 48 arrested. Later the police launched “Operation Greystoke” to identify and arrest more of those involved, and the courts ordered the press to hand over film and photos to the police.

Right wing newspaper the Daily Mail carried the headline: ‘Revolt of the Ravers’ going on to report that the ‘flashpoint came when thugs opposed to legislation against raves tried to turn the park into a giant party’ and warning readers of ‘The ravers who call the tune- behind a front of legitimate protest, the underground party organisers who have spread misery throughout the country – music that became a rallying cry for violence’ (Daily Mail, 10 and 11 October 1994).

Within the movement there was a polarised debate about violence that became characterised as ‘Fluffy’ vs. ‘Spiky’ or ‘Chill the Bill’ vs ‘Kill the Bill’. Leaflets from the fluffier faction repeatedly urged people to ‘keep it sweet, keep it right, remember this is a peaceful fight’. One activist later reflected: ‘We wasted a lot of time feeling forced to pick between two equally-badly-defined boxes… Either you were a ‘fluffy’ and all that implied: you’d gladly lie down and let the police ride their horses over you… Or you were ‘spiky’: hard as nails and twice as loud…threw things from the back of the crowd and managed to injure or just offend most of your fellow demonstrators’ (Schnews at Ten, 2004). If there were certainly some very naïve ideas about how good vibes could sway the powers that be, it was also true that many more traditional ‘revolutionaries’ were out of their comfort zone in the unpredictable arena of techno-charged collective sociability and found it hard to conceive of escalation beyond the usual horizon of set piece confrontations with the cops.

The Act finally became law in November 1994 – the next day, five people climbed on to the roof of Westminster Hall at the Houses of Parliament and unfurled a ‘Defy the CJA’ banner. Later in the month several hundred people protested in Home Secretary Michael Howard’s front garden in Folkestone, Kent (Schnews, 23 November 1994).

At the end of that month, the police evicted the squatted Claremont Road in East London, preparing the way for the houses to be demolished as part of the M11 motorway development. A TV programme covering the police’s ‘Operation Garden Party’ included the classic line: ‘Claremont Road was notorious among locals for its psychedelia, squatters and new age travellers. But everyone living in this time-warped street of the 60s knew the rave had to end sometime’.

Hunt saboteurs and road protestors were soon being arrested for the new offence of ‘aggravated trespass’, but it was not until April 1995 that all the anti-rave powers came into full effect. Soon the powers were being used. In May, the first seizure of equipment took place when police broke up a party on a traveller site in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk. Road blocks were set up to turn people away, and vehicles and equipment were seized from Cheba City Sounds, Virus and Giba sound systems (Schnews, 12 May 1995).

By this point there were different views about how to proceed. With the political process seemingly exhausted, many of the sound systems took the view that it was time to get back to basics. Pulling together under the umbrella of United Systems ‘the International Free Party Network’, they argued: ‘Free parties, and gatherings, along with the right to attend a free celebration, will not be saved by political campaigns, by TV chatshows, by magazine articles, by speech makers or celebrity appearances. Nor by flyers, newsletters, posters or stickers. Only free parties can save free parties!!! Only by the continued ‘input’ into our culture may our culture survive’.

In Spring ‘95, they reported ‘Every single weekend, without fail, since the enstatement of the act a huge party has gone on, without interruption from the law. Sometimes one, sometimes two, sometimes seven soundsystems. A brand new wave of enthusiasm has swept the country as ‘every posse and crew out there’ has said ‘fuck it’’.


In this climate, an effort was made to organise a festival on a similar scale to Castlemorton as an act of mass defiance. The 7/7 ‘Mother’ of all festivals was widely publicised in advance and the police were determined to prevent it, co-ordinating action across the country with helicopters and road blocks. On the weekend of July 7th 1995, they carried out dawn raids on the houses of people believed to be involved in organising the party, including Debbie from United Systems and Michele from Advance Party, and charged eight people with ‘conspiracy to cause a public nuisance’ (charges later dropped). They used Section 60 of the new CJA to set up five mile exclusion zones around potential festival sites at Corby (Northants), Sleaford (Lincs.), and Smeatharpe (Devon). They also seized and later destroyed the sound system belonging to Black Moon, a free party collective based at Buxton, Derbyshire. Three people were prosecuted under Section 63 of the CJA for failing to dismantle the rig quick enough, the first arrests under this part of the Act.

Thousands of people took to the roads in search of the festival, and despite the efforts of the police several smaller parties did happen, including at Grafham (where over 1,000 people partied) and at Steart Beach near Hinckley Point in Dorset where 150 vehicles managed to gather. But there were to be no more big, unlicensed free festivals and there haven’t been since.

Twenty years later the police are still making use of their ‘anti-rave’ powers, but nevertheless free parties are still happening all over the country. For a start, the Act only ever covered parties in the open air, not those in buildings. Open air parties in remote areas still go ahead because they are unreported, or because the police cannot mobilise the resources to close them down. Clearing even a few hundred people from a beach or field in the middle of the night is still not easy.

The Act had some unintended consequences, perhaps chiefly in uniting large parts of a generation against the Government. In September 1994, Brighton’s Justice? wrote an open letter to Home Secretary Michael Howard: ‘We are writing to thank you for the positive effect the Criminal Justice Act has had on our community. Your attempt to criminalise our culture has unified it like never before… Your inspiration has made us work closer together. Networking is happening across the nation – Road Protestors and Ravers, Gay Rights Activists and Hunt Saboteurs, Travellers and Squatters and many more’.

One result of this unity was the development of new tactics. After the ‘Battle of Hyde Park’, the Metropolitan Police paper The Job warned ’The business of allowing large, mobile sound systems in political demonstrations is a serious new problem that we will have to deal with’ (October 14, 1994). The practice of combining sound systems with protest was soon to be taken to the next level by Reclaim the Streets.

Their first big party took place in Camden High Street in May 1995, where 1,000 blocked the road and partied. But it was the ‘Rave Against the Machine’ on 23 July 1995 that really upped the ante with a sound system in an armoured car and thousands of people dancing on an occupied Upper Street in Islington. The anti-capitalist/alter-globalisation movement that developed over the rest of the decade had its roots in the anti-CJA campaign, culminating in the huge ‘Carnival Against Capital’ in June 1999 where the pounding of sound systems accompanied riotous scenes in the financial heart of the City of London.

Another effect of the repression of festivals and free parties in the UK was their spread on continental Europe, the virus transported by sound systems leaving Britain – some for long periods, some just for a break in sunnier and less hassled environments. Spiral Tribe had first headed to France in the aftermath of Castlemorton and in the summer of ’94 they were joined by others who collectively detonated the ‘Teknival’ explosion. In Milau in the South East of France, Spiral Tribe, Bedlam, Circus Irritant and Desert Storm were among the UK systems joined by local crews such as Nomad and Psychiatrik. In August, the largest Teknival so far took place in the hills of the Massif Central, brought there by 200 vehicles. The first Czech teknival took place that summer too, and at the end of the year there was a New Year’s Eve event in Vienna (Frontline, Summer 1995). Soon enough the authorities in some of these countries were framing their own new laws, but once again the genie was out of the bottle and could never completely be put back in.

There was some paranoia in the mid-1990s that the Criminal Justice Act was just the start of a more generalised offensive against dance music that would soon close down clubs as well as free parties. But this was not to be. Instead the CJA had the effect of strengthening the commercial clubbing sector as people were driven indoors to places licensed by the state for dancing – even if some of them were run hand in glove with gangsters! Mainstream dance music publication Mixmag (Jan. ’97) was to look back on 1996 as the year ‘Everything Went Nuclear’, as corporate superclubs expanded their brand, superstar DJ fees went through the roof, and huge commercial festivals like Tribal Gathering took off.

Recently UK business magazine the Economist reported ‘raving is back, but in a calmer, more mainstream form… From the Teddy Boys to the Sex Pistols, British popular music history is full of examples of edgy outsiders who horrified the establishment, then, not much later, dominated it. Rave, it seems, has taken its place in that pantheon’ (The new ravers: repetitive beats, 17 August 2013). Whether the emancipatory potential of beats and bass has really been exhausted remains to be seen, but the Criminal Justice Act of the mid-1990s was certainly a key turning point for everyone involved.

Back copies of Datacide, including this one, can be ordered here

Neil Transpontine (2013) 'Revolt of the Ravers – The Movement against the Criminal Justice Act in Britain 1993-95' in Datacide: magazine for noise and politics, 13. https://history-is-made-at-night.blogspot.com/2021/01/revolt-of-ravers-movement-against.html

This article was published (without pictures) in Datacide magazine, number 13, 2013. A version of it has been up on their website for some time but facebook is not currently allowing links from that site to be posted. For that reason I have decided to repost it at this site. 

I gave a talk based on this article for the Datacide 13 launch event held at Vinyl in Deptford in October 2013. The article also served as the starting point for an event on the anti-CJA movement held at the May Day Rooms in October 2014.

See also on the CJA:

Marching against the CJA, July 1994

Eternity report of July 1994 anti-CJA demo

Compilations against the CJA

Friday, February 23, 2018

Police and Free Parties 2018

It's been a long time since I've done one of these posts, but important to remind ourselves that the anti-rave Criminal Justice Act from 1994 is still in effect, and that free parties are continuing nevertheless... these days it's the kids of the 1980s/90s ravers out there, but the story hasn't really changed.

'Illegal rave shut down' in Shoebury Essex
Basildon, Canvey Southend Echo (30 January 2018)

'A crowd of people were dispersed from an old church after attempts were made to organise an illegal rave. Neighbours from homes near the decommissioned Garrison Chapel, in Chapel Road, Shoebury, were forced to call the police after about 30 people congregated and a professional sound system had been set up on Saturday night. An advert for the event, seen by the Echo, suggested a £5 donation on the door and promised to be the “most ambitious party in Southend history”.

One witness, who has asked to remain anonymous, said: “Police were called to disperse people from the church and surrounding area...The police sent about seven cars, including unmarked ones, and they were roaring up and down trying to catch people running away from the church. This resulted in what sounded like a massive fight near Sainsbury’s. The noise was horrendous and woke up my young daughter who was trying to sleep.”

Police confirmed they were in attendance and dispersed a crowd from a disused church using powers under Section 63 of the Public Order act'.

'Reveller bitten by police dog in illegal rave chaos'
Newbury Today, 31 January 2018

'The chaos as police officers tried to close down an illegal rave in Burghfield was recounted at Reading Magistrates’ Court last Thursday. Up to 300 people are believed to have attended the unlicensed event in a field, with noise prompting complaints from surrounding homes and villages. More than 50 police officers with dog units and a helicopter attended the scene on land between Burghfield Road and Berry’s Lane on Saturday, November 18 [2017].

Two of those arrested on the night appeared in the dock, where Hasrat Ali, prosecuting, said: “Police had ordered people to leave the site and repeated that order several times". Many people refused to leave, the court heard, and more people were still arriving in taxis. As a result, magistrates were told, officers moved in with dogs.

[MR], aged 29, from London Road, Reading, and 18-year-old [EB], of Byworth Close, Reading, each admitted failing to leave the area when ordered in the early hours of November 19 last year. Sally Thomson, defending both, said: “It was a very confused situation with a lot of people and a lot of pushing and shoving going on. Mr Richards ended up being bitten by a police dog and sustained some injuries. In the melee, he was knelt on and struck in the face. It wasn’t a very pleasant experience and I ask you to take that into account.”

Both men had initially denied the charge they faced because they wrongly believed police could only invoke the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 when 100 or more people were in the area and, when they were arrested, only 20 people had remained in the immediate vicinity. The act became infamous for its attempt to define rave music as “sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats”.

Presiding magistrate Nicola Buchanan-Dunlop told both men they would be made subject to a six-month conditional discharge. In addition, they were each ordered to pay £85 costs, plus a statutory victim services surcharge of £20'.

Bristol partygoers 'smashed down warehouse walls' for illegal rave with 300 people
Bristol Post, 5 Feb 2018

'A warehouse has been left in ruin after an illegal rave attracted hundreds of partygoers.The horde descended on the warehouse in Albert Road, in an industrial area near Bristol Temple Meads station and Motion nightclub, on Saturday, February 3.The unlawful event was reported to police in the early hours of Sunday but the party raged on until beyond 10am before it was finally shut down.

It took the Avon and Somerset force until 11am to clear all the attendees from the site... police spokesman said: “We can confirm we received a call during the early hours of Saturday morning about an unlicensed music event taking place on Albert Road, Bristol. When officers attended a large number of people were already at the location. The music was turned off at about 10.15am and those in attendance subsequently left the scene by 11am.”

The spokesman explained why the police had waited before closing down the event. He added: "If we are aware in advance about a potential event the law allows us to take action to close it down and seize whatever music equipment is on site before it gets fully under way. However, if it has already started and there are a large number of people on the site, an assessment has to be made whether safe and proportionate action can be taken at that moment"'.

Meanwhile in Kerela, India...

'Rave parties to avoid police glare'
The Hindu 17 February 2018

'With the police cracking down on ganja abuse, urban youth have switched to holding rave parties in remote areas in the district where more potent narcotic substances are use. Three youths from Ernakulam were arrested with 20 LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) stamps (small pieces of blotting papers soaked in liquid LSD) during a raid on a rave party at a homestay at Suryanelli, near Munnar, on Wednesday..

The raid was conducted on the homestay at BL Ram, near Suryanelli, on a tip-off by the Excise Department. As many as 29 youths, including a woman, from Kochi were present at the party. An Excise official said rave parties were being conducted in remote areas with the police increasing surveillance in metro cities such as Kochi. The targeted youths were from well-off families, including those who studied outside the State. He said the hosts of such parties changed the location often to avoid public glare. The attendees keep in touch online and on social media, he said'.

Friday, December 30, 2016

Acid House in the National Archives

The National Archives has today released Prime Minister’s Office and Cabinet files from 1989 and 1990, including discussions amongst Ministers and officials of how to clamp down on 'Acid House' parties.

A letter from the Home Secretary to Geoffrey Howe from 2 November 1989 reported: 'We understand from the Metropolitan Police that so far this year 223 such parties have taken place in London and the South East, of which 96 were actually stopped after they had begun. A further 95 planned parties have been prevented by pre-emptive action by the police or local authorities' (letter 2 November 1989).

In a hand written comment, Prime Minister Thatcher wrote ‘if this is a new “fashion” we must be prepared for it and preferably prevent such things from lasting’ (6 September 1989).



After reviewing the powers available to the authorities, the Government concluded that the way forward was to increase the fines for existing licensing offences, rather than bring in new powers as such. The result was to be the Entertainments (Increased Penalties) Act 1990 - 'An Act to increase the penalties for certain offences under enactments relating to the licensing of premises or places used for dancing, music or other entertainments of a like kind'. The question was of course to be revisited a few years later when the Government introduced the Criminal Justice Act which gave the police more direct powers to intervene to stop parties.

'Acid House Parties - the Prime Minister has seen the Home Secretary's letter of 2 November to the Lord President. She was content with his proposals to increase the penalites for illegally organising acid house parties and for making the profits from such parties libale to confiscation' (4 November 1989)

In the mean time, the police and local authorities were encouraged to make more assertive use of existing powers. The papers include a press clipping praising Operation Jute, a massive police operation to stop a party in Kent: 'Drug busting police sealed off an entire town twice at the weekend to claim thier first victory over the Acid House cult. Six thousand revellers were turned back from Chatham, Kent in the early hours of yesterday after a specially trained squad of 250 officers outmanoeuvred them across three counties' (Daily Express, 9 October 1989).


Monday, October 26, 2015

Magic Feet (1990s zine)

'Magic Feet' was a 1990s Nottingham-based dance music zine. Here's the front and back cover of the first issue from November 1994 promising 'hard house, ambient, electronic, acid, trance, techno, whatever you want to call it', and featuring Stefan Robbers, Innersphere and Warp/GTO charts.


The back page includes an article from the Brixton-based Freedom Network about the then ongoing campaign against the Criminal Justice Bill and its 'anti-rave' powers. A demonstration in London's Hyde Park in the previous month- on October 9th 1994 - had ended in clashes with the police and the article calls for witnesses to come forward. Forthcoming events mentioned include more Anti-CJB actions in Guildford, Barnstaple and elsewhere, the launch of the 'Taking Liberties' compilation (an anti-CJB LP featuring Test Dept, The Orb, Loop Guru and others) and a benefit for Squall magazine at Megatripolis - the alternative techno/trance club held in London on Thursday nights. I think I went to that night, anyway I remember seeing a film/talk about the Newbury road protest in the somewhat incongruous setting of a banging Thursday night in Heaven.



Monday, September 15, 2014

Criminal Justice Act 20th Anniversary Event coming up at MayDay Rooms (London)

Daily Star, 10 October 1994 (from Datacide archive)

Revolt of the Ravers: The Movement Against the Criminal Justice Act, 1994

Sunday October 19th 2014, 2 pm –  7 pm,  at MayDay Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1DH
(Admission free)

Twenty years ago, on 9 October 1994, a huge demonstration against the Government's Criminal Justice Act ended in London's Hyde Park with riotous clashes, police horses charging, and people dancing to sound systems. The Act brought in new police powers against raves, squatters, protestors, travellers and others, and was passed amidst widespread opposition.

This event will include memories of this movement, its ways of organising and representing itself and will feature displays of its ‘material culture’ such as zines, flyers, cassettes and letters.

There will also be a panel discussion looking at the related radical/techno zines of the 1990s, in what was one of the last musical and social movements mediated primarily through print rather than digitally.

The talks and discussion will be followed by films and music from the period.

It is hoped that the day will be a catalyst for a process of archiving, circulating and discussing materials from the radical social/musical movements of the 1990s.

Supported by MayDay RoomsDatacide magazine, Cesura//Acceso journal, History is Made at Night.


Hyde Park, October 1994  - Copyright © 1994 Andrew Wiard
My Datacide article on this subject is here. If you were involved in the anti-CJA movement come along and contribute - we would be particularly interested in hearing from Michelle Poole from Advance Party or Debbie Staunton from United Systems, get in touch if you're out there! (transpontine@btinternet.com) Of course if you weren't there, or maybe weren't even born, come along  anyway and find out more.

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Panacea: 1990s Cardiff zine from 'techno underground'

Panacea was a mid-1990s zine from Cardiff ('Panacea West') and Southsea ('Panacea South').


Panacea 'future sounds collective' aimed 'to provide information distributed from the techno underground, bring quality music to your ears, and find ways of getting to best future sound parties'.


This issue (number 3) from 1995, includes articles on Jeff Mills and DJ Torah, and a round up of London techno nights, including Digital Nation at Bagleys, Kings Cross and of course Dead by Dawn: 'next Dead by Dawn will continue the party with cutting edge hardcore and hard experimental sounds to challenge the techno establishment. The next Dead by Dawn (121 Railton Road, Brixton) is on Nov 4, line up includes Torah'. I remember chatting to the Panacea crew at Dead by Dawn, nice people.


The front page mentions 'Insurrection in Hyde Park' and the issue includes a review of the pamphlet I wrote at the time about the October 1994 anti-Criminal Justice Act riotous demonstration in Hyde Park, 'The Battle for Hyde Park: ruffians, radicals, and ravers 1855-1994'.



With Datacide magazine we are planning an event at the May Day Rooms in Fleet Street, London,  on October 19th 2014 looking at the anti-CJA movement and also featuring a panel discussion on the radical/techno zine scene at that time. Put the date in your diary, it will start at 2 pm and carry on into the evening with films and music (further details here soon).  We would be interested in hearing from people involved in that movement/demonstration, if anyone from Panacea is out there (Arlene/Sian?) get in touch as we'd like to have you there too!

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Anti-CJA Protest July 1994: Eternity report

I posted some photos and memories recently of a demonstration in London against the Crimininal Justice Act (and its 'anti-rave' powers) in July 1994. Here's a report by Rosey Parker of the same demonstration from dance magazine Eternity (no.21, 1994). The march of around 50,000 people went from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square, via a brief altercation in Whitehall when some people tried to climb the Downing Street gates and were charged by mounted police. It finished with people playing in the fountains of Trafalgar Square on a very hot July day (click images to enlarge)



'The march started at 2:30 pm. It seemed to take ages to filter slowly out of the gates onto the road, and the first thing most people noticed was the huge police contingency. Rows upons rows of expressionless policemen to being with, a police helicopter buzzing frantically above and the odd photographer milling around. Several mobile sound systems (one on a bike) rode around playing music that made everybody smile with delight... everywhere you looked all you could see was smiles and hot people. All age groups, all races, all religions, were there. It was wonderful'

'everybody continued moving toward Trafalgar Square peacefully. People spalshed in the fountain and soaked everybody walking past. Because of the heat, being splashed was an indescribably orgasmic delight! What a day! What a vibe! The whole of Trafalgar Square was full of people, thousands of people, music of varying types, percusssion instruments, dancers, everything'




Tuesday, October 08, 2013

Datacide zine London launch event

The 13th issue of Datacide, the international magazine for noise and politics, is out this week. As well as a conference and release party in Berlin this weekend, there will be a launch event on Sunday 20th October 2013 in London, 7 pm to 10 pm. The event will take place at Vinyl (4 Tanners Hill, SE8) the new record shop/cafe/gallery in Deptford. It will feature talks from Datacide contributors, including me looking back on the movement against the 'anti-rave' Criminal Justice Act, and Christoph Fringeli on Datacide magazine. Further details to be announced. 

Sunday nights sounds courtesy of DJ Controlled Weirdness, and there will be a bar.



Update: now confirmed that event will include talk from David Cecil:

- 'Confessions of an Accidental Activist – Sexual politics and homophobia in Uganda'. David was arrested in Uganda and deported earlier this year. He found himself in the media spotlight after he produced a comedy drama in Kampala (Uganda) which was mistakenly portrayed as a piece of ‘gay activism’. The US evangelist movement, international rights activists and the mainstream media have all contributed in different ways to misleading perceptions of sexuality in Uganda. Meanwhile, more substantial and complex factors of post-colonial socio-economic transformation have been (deliberately?) overlooked, along with the actual experience of daily life for LGBTI people in Uganda.


Friday, August 30, 2013

Marching against the Criminal Justice Act, July 1994

Doing some research/recollecting the movement against what became the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 with its notorious police 'powers in relation to raves'. There were three large demonstrations against the Criminal Justice Bill/Act in London - on May Day 1994, 24th July  1994 and 9th October 1994.

This leaflet is for the second demonstration, from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square on Sunday 24 July. Estimates of the numbers attending ranged from 20,000 (police) to 50,000 (organisers).

'Supported by Bernie Grant MP, Tony Benn MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Paul Foot, Arthur Scargill (NUM President), Brenda Nixon (Women Against Pit Closures), Winston Silcott Campaign, Justice, Advance Party, Socialist Workers Party, No M11 Campaign, Hunt Saboteurs Association, Forgive us our Trespasses, Mike Mansfield QC, Squall'


Politically there were a number of tensions - the established Left, the SWP in particular, had woken up to the emerging movement. Their organisational skills may have helped increase the turn out, but some complained that something that was fresh and creative was being funnelled back into the traditional routine of A to B marches with speeches at the end. 

If there were any speeches at the end though, I certainly don't remember them. Trafalgar Square felt like a big party (though I don't think any sound systems were present other than cycle powered Rinky Dink), with people playing in the fountains on a sunny day.







'I squat therefore I am' - the proposed laws targeted squatters as well as free parties


There were some clashes with police in Whitehall, after some people tried to scale the gates guarding the entrance to Downing Street. Police on horseback charged the crowd there, and 14 people were arrested.




(all photos taken by me on the day - anyone got any memories of this demo or the others?  -more to come!)

See also: Report on this demo from Eternity magazine