There’s still plenty happening in the final two weeks of September.
Tuesday 20
The national campaign against the cost of living crisis comes to Bristol, following sell-out rallies in Manchester, Liverpool and London.
Speaking at the Bristol event, to be held at St George’s Bristol from 7pm, are Dave Ward, general secretary of the CWU, Acorn head organiser Nick Ballard, UCU President Janet Farrar, and former city poet of Bristol Vanessa Kisuule.
Enough is Enough have five demands:
1. A real pay rise and an £15 minimum wage.
2. Slash energy bills
3. End food poverty, including a legal right to food.
4. Decent homes for all, including rent caps and limits on Airbnbs in an area.
5. Tax the rich.
Register for the event here.
Friday 23
A meeting of Bristol’s first Don’t Pay group, a national campaign advocating for one million people to refuse to pay their energy bills from October 1 in protest against rising costs.
Read more: Don’t Pay UK comes to Bristol
The meeting will be held at the Central Friends Meeting House, Champion Square (behind Cabot Circus car park) and will feature speakers from Don’t Pay, Enough is Enough and Bristol Energy Network.
Starting at 6.15pm the event is free to attend but registration is required.
Saturday 24
Bristol Defend Asylum Seekers Campaign (BDASC) will lead a demo at the Fountain Steps, St Augustine’s Parade, from midday calling on the government to end deportation flights to Rwanda.
The demo joins a national day of action to launch Together With Refugees’ new campaign, Fill the Skies With Hope.
Together With Refugees encourage participants to make origami heart-shaped paper planes containing messages to MPs and the prime minister asking that they call a halt to deportation flights to Rwanda.
Wednesday 28
Acorn Bristol is inviting Bristolians to gather outside City Hall from 5.30pm for an unofficial rent commission as the official rent commission meets inside.
The group is angry that they were excluded from the official commission despite being, as they claim, the largest association of renters in the city. The commission includes representatives from Fair Rent Campaign, student’s unions, Shelter and Generation Rent.
On their Facebook event page, Acorn Bristol say that the council ‘think they can carry on their cosy little club without hearing the real stories of how renters are struggling every day – think again! We won’t be backing down on this. Come and join us in making sure renters are heard all the way inside City Hall. We will not be silenced.’
Acorn made their frustration plain when they crashed the first meeting of the commission in July.
The commission was established earlier this year to explore ways of making Bristol a “living rent city”, including powers to be delegated by central government. The results of the commission will shape Bristol council’s response to the government’s Renters’ Reform Bill.
Chairing the commission is councillor Tom Renhard, the council’s housing chief, previously a prominent figure in ACORN before being elected as a local councillor in 2021. Following the refusal to allow Acorn to sit on the commission, Renhard’s membership of the union was revoked.
Thursday 29
Bristol’s Clean Air Zone looms ever closer to becoming reality, but Bristol Disability Equality Forum (BDEF) say that the way the scheme has been designed will create problems for disabled people, even leaving some trapped in their homes.
BDEF will protest outside City Hall to ‘Make Our Air Fair’. The group says it is supportive of efforts to reduce air pollution, but asks that any measure to do this take into account the needs of disabled people.
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This list is being constantly updated. If you have a protest or event to add please let us know in the comments or at thebristolactivist@protonmail.com.