The Counterfire paper is already being distributed in more than 40 towns and cities across the country. We’re appealing for more help

We have had an amazing response to the Counterfire paper since the crowdfunding success in September: thanks to everyone who has got in touch. Now we’re meeting that demand - getting our paper read and our message heard across the UK. 

With the help of distributors new and old, we’ve managed to reach out to a huge audience across forty five different towns and cities, from Aberdeen to Cambridge, Birmingham to Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle, as well as smaller towns and villages like Truro, Darlington, Wallingdon and Westbury. 

Power to the imagination

Some distributors have passed the paper on to friends and colleagues, others have taken them to cafés and bookshops. Unsurprisingly, the paper has gone down brilliantly at meetings, rallies and at demonstrations. Bristol Counterfire members distributed hundreds of papers at the 1,300-strong JC4PM event at the Colston Hall.  

People are being imaginative and ambitious. A London member is distributing the paper to African restaurants in New Cross, a Unite shop steward at the Kodak plant in West London is distributing 100 to his union members and has got his Unite branch to donate £50 to the paper. In Eastbourne, Counterfire supporters asked ten newsagents if they would stock the paper; eight said yes.

Ideas matter

The mainstream media in Britain seems to be getting worse by the day. Even the ‘liberal’ press is attacking Corbyn, backing Trident replacement and repackaging racist ideas.

In the debate about the EU it is assumed that our aim should be to limit the number of refugees. The pursuit of foreign wars and the stigmatisation of Muslim communities continues day in day out. It is rare to hear any voices in the mainstream dissenting from the neoliberal economic mantras of balanced budgets, low taxes and continuing austerity.

Counterfire challenges the establishment consensus, providing arguments against Trident, xenophobia austerity economics. We need to defend the Corbyn project and socialist ideas.

Just as important, the paper tries to join the dots and show how welfare cutbacks, militarism and racism are all connected. It argues that getting a left-wing Labour leader is a great achievement, but that how we need to build the widest, most co-ordinated popular resistance to stop the attacks from the right.

These ideas matter. They can help give people confidence to argue, to organise and to fight for a better world. 

Get papers

If you would like to get some papers to hand out in your campaign, your workplace or community, just get in touch. Phone us on 07935 862633 or e-mail [email protected] with your address and how many copies you would like.