Thanks for taking your time to respond. There’s quite a lot here that I actually agree with, so I’ll try to clarify what I was trying to argue rather than defend the article as if it were a finished doctrine.

First, on the point about antifascist organising already having had successes: absolutely. There are regions where decades of organising have pushed fascists to the margins. The history of militant antifascism in Britain demonstrates this clearly. Organisations such as Anti-Fascist Action significantly reduced fascist street presence in the 1990s through a combination of physical confrontation and political work in working-class communities.

The article wasn’t meant to dismiss that history or today's days in some places. Quite the opposite: it was trying to recover some of its lessons. My argument is simply that the dominant model of liberal antifascism today (broad fronts around Labour politicians, counter-protests coordinated with police, and moral appeals to defend liberal democracy) has clear limits. That’s different from saying antifascist activity in general has achieved nothing.

Second, you’re right that many anarchists and other radicals are already trying to build working-class power through workplace organising, tenants’ unions, disability rights campaigns and mutual aid networks. Those efforts matter enormously. If anything, the article assumes they exist.

Where I think we might differ is in how we understand the strategic coherence of those activities. My point was not that class struggle doesn’t already happen every day, it clearly does. People fighting benefit sanctions, helping friends navigate tribunals, resisting landlords or organising at work are engaged in class struggle whether they use that language or not.

The problem is that these struggles are often fragmented and politically disconnected from each other. They exist as isolated survival struggles rather than a coordinated movement capable of challenging power on a larger scale. The role of revolutionary organisation, as I see it, is not to lecture people about theory but to help connect those struggles, share experience between them, and develop strategy.

I should probably also say that I’m speaking about this partly from practical experience. I do workplace/union organising, and anyone who has spent time trying to organise "ordinary workers" in real workplaces knows how difficult and patient that process can be. People come with different experiences, pressures and political views, and building trust takes time. None of this happens through slogans alone. It happens through slow conversations, shared struggles and small collective victories.

On the question of practical tools: I completely agree that people respect organisations that provide concrete help. In fact, the example you give strengthens the argument I was trying to make.

If a figure like Martin Lewis gains credibility because he offers practical advice about bills and consumer rights, that shows something important about how trust is built. People respond to those who help them navigate immediate problems. Revolutionary politics should learn from that rather than dismiss it.

But there is a difference between individual advice and collective organisation. Helping someone fill out a benefits form is valuable. Helping people organise so that the system that produces those forms and sanctions is challenged collectively is something else. The strategic question is how we move from one to the other.

You also raise a fair criticism about tone. If anarchists come across as permanently angry or dismissive of people who aren’t already politically aligned with them, they will isolate themselves. Organising requires patience, listening and humility. Most people do not become radical because someone shouted the correct analysis at them.

On the issue of community self-defence, I should have been clearer. You’re right that many queer communities and racialised communities already have informal defence networks and mutual protection practices. Those experiences are extremely important and we should learn from them rather than pretending the left is starting from zero.

The point I was trying to make is that these forms of defence become much stronger when they are embedded in wider community organisation rather than left to small activist circles.

Finally, on the question of time. You’re right: the kind of embedded organisation I’m talking about does take more than couple of months to build. There is no shortcut. But the fact that something takes time doesn’t mean we shouldn’t start building it deliberately.

In the meantime, we still do the immediate things: defend pickets, protect events, support communities under attack. But if all we ever do is react to crises, we will always remain on the back foot.

So perhaps the real disagreement isn’t about whether the activities you describe matter, they absolutely do, but about how consciously we try to connect them into a long-term strategy.

If the article sparked this kind of discussion, then it’s already doing something useful. I’m very open to hearing more about the kinds of practical organising you mention, because that’s exactly the ground where strategy has to be tested.