IMAGINE A WORLD 5 YEARS IN THE FUTURE…

A “NO DEAL” BREXIT ON 1ST JANUARY 2020 LEFT THE UK IN TURMOIL

With food shortages and the cost of goods increasing quickly over the course of a year, riots and looting were common and the government scrambled to regain control of a public in the grip of deep panic. Northern Ireland held a referendum which began the process of unification, sparking a short but bloody conflict. The relocation of families as part of what the Home Office called the “Patriot Refugee Programme” was part of the strategy to meet a 2024 date for United Ireland.

With the campaign for Scottish independence gathering momentum, tensions on the island of Great Britain resulted in even more violence. Westminster took the drastic step of forcibly closing the remaining devolved parliaments, creating a new state with one central government: United Albion.

As the early years of the 20s progressed, it became clear that the infrastructure and distribution networks in United Albion were inadequate. A shortage of agricultural workers was solved by relocating benefit claimants to temporary accommodation hostels to perform manual labour in three month “Pick For Albion” work placements. On the 16th of August 2022, a train carrying these workers derailed, killing 187 people. The riots that ensued led to a declaration of martial law.

Some cities were able to organise, holding out against the armed forces; brutal bombing campaigns targeted hospitals and universities in an attempt to force them to surrender. The international community stepped in during 2024 with strict sanctions if the attacks on Albion’s own citizens continued. By this time, the Conservatives had little choice but to acknowledge that in order to maintain vital trade links, they would have to observe a tenuous peace between those in the occupied rebel cities and the rest of the country.

The rebels survive by establishing farms and exchanging resources between themselves, often traveling under cover of darkness to avoid the vigilante “St George’s Militia”. International Aid is received by the People’s Republic of Liverpool and distributed via secretive networks that stretch from Camp Camber in the south to Dundee and beyond. Making use of the products left in abandoned shops, local resources and their ingenuity, emerging collectives have begun to create their own structures for decision making & resource allocation.

Their goals: mutual aid, resistance and a desperate fight for survival.

Journalist Pandora Sterling-Morgan writes about an organisation

which supports the children in rebel cities

ARC Programmes (Aid for Rebel Children) is a Community Interest Company which sells jewellery made by rebels in Dundee, exchanging goods for medicine of equal value using old Dept for Health & Social Care data to ensure only prescriptions for specific children is distributed. Amanda Cavendish’s delicate work must avoid being seen as “helping domestic terrorists”

Anarchist witches say… “Some Gods, No Masters!”

I created the world, but micromanaging the idea would be against my values, no?

In order to create stories from multiple points of view, and allow a collective approach to the world building, I have started a Rebel Cities Discord which uses prose to roleplay within the commune. Using our imagination and modelling low stakes collective action could inspire us to look at getting more involved with our communities.

Will you visit Hannah, a beekeeper who brews mead and raises her grandchild on the allotments, or meet Sean, the ex-accountant who oversees stock levels in the food stores because he desperately needs the comfort of columns of numbers?

Write a paragraph from your character’s perspective and create stories organically!

90s music to contemporary English folk, by way of mixed feelings about being too young to vote for New Labour

(AKA Phonomancy for Beginners (ref. Kieron Gillen) …)