Celebrating 30 years of the Base for Anarchy and Solidarity in Easton (BASE)
Photo: BASE volunteers.
As the winter of 1995 drew in, a group of Bristol’s anarchist squatters started to talk about where to go next. One comrade heard that a building at 14 Robertson Road, which had previously housed the Bristol One Parent project, had been empty for over six months.
The squatters soon found a way in, and set about making it their home. Little did they know their squat would turn into Bristol’s longest standing anarchist space, part of a wider network of radical social centres across the UK, and globally.
Lucy*, a BASE stalwart involved in opening up the building, told the Cable that some of their squat crew had experienced the thriving anarchist social centres in other parts of Europe. They saw potential for transforming the building into a vibrant community hub, where they could enact their politics, and organise as anarchists.
Anarchism is a political philosophy based on the conviction that people can struggle against oppressive hierarchies, and that communities can govern themselves without the state, by cooperating together at a grassroots level.
Organising ‘without profit-motives, leaders or hierarchy’
The centre was initially named Kebele Kulture Projekt (KKP). ‘Kebele’ is an Amharic word, from Ethiopia, which was used by Rastafarians involved in the 1979 revolution in Grenada to refer to spaces that were set up to build community autonomy. In 2018 the name of the centre was changed to the current name, BASE, as no-one involved in the collective at that time had any links with Ethiopia.
“It no longer felt appropriate to be called Kebele. None of us involved in the project had links to Ethiopia and most people who came through our doors or website didn’t know from the name what the space was about.”
From the beginning, the squatters began running a Sunday Squat Cafe, offering affordable food, activities for kids and info nights. Local projects like Bristol Housing Action Movement used rooms in the building as office space.
It was the height of the campaign against new road-building in the UK, and a time when diverse anti-state and anti-capitalist political movements and ideas were building momentum in Bristol.
Barry got involved in 1997, as the squat was being used to support local eco-defence camps which were resisting the Batheaston bypass and Syston Ring Road. Barry told the Cable that Kebele was a go-to place for those who wanted to get involved in movements and campaigns.
Lucy says the centre was also used to organise practical solidarity for the Zapatista revolution in Chiapas, Mexico.
Volunteers from the cafe and info shop began to cook meals at community events, festivals, and anti-capitalist mobilisations. This provided people with affordable food, and also served as an important outreach strategy.
“We wanted to create and maintain spaces where people could organise freely together for autonomy, and demonstrate what’s possible when we organise together without profit-motives, leaders or hierarchy,” says Barry. “To put anarchist principles into practice, and show what can be done.”
A model that lives on today
14 Robertson Road, owned by Bristol One Family Project, was repossessed by Lloyds Bank some time before 1998. By the time attempts were made to evict Kebele, the community had already built up a lot of respect for the project. According to Barry, “there was a lot of dialogue with people living in the surrounding streets about what they would like to see the building used for, which informed the sort of activities that went on.”
The bank was faced with the prospect of either making an agreement with the squatters, or having to contend with an unpopular and well-resisted eviction of a valued community space. They chose the negotiating table, and eventually made an offer to sell the building for a meagre £19k. Kebele Housing Cooperative was formed to buy the building in 1998, through donations from supporters, community fundraising events, and a loan from Triodos Bank.
Kebele continued, providing a base for those organising the early–2000s anti-capitalist protests including the big Mayday mobilisation of 2000, and mobilisations against international summits. It also became a resource for the Bristol animal rights movement,hunt saboteurs, and prisoner solidarity organisers.
We wanted to create and maintain spaces where people could organise freely together for autonomy, and demonstrate what’s possible when we organise together without profit-motives, leaders or hierarchy
Barry, former BASE volunteer
In 2005, the housing co-op was disbanded and the building was brought under the collective control of the Kebele Community Co-op. The small mortgage had been paid off so there was less need to generate income through rent.
The new collective ownership structure meant that the different projects within Kebele – the library, cafe, info shop, bike project and soundsystem collectives, would meet together to collectively run the space through consensus decision-making, and following principles of non-hierarchy.
This model, more or less, is the way that BASE Community Co-op works today.
Standing up to police repression
Despite providing crucial support for the local community, BASE has had its fair share of police repression. Volunteers from BASE were snooped on by several undercover spycops in the 2000s, as part of a broad undercover operation on British anti-capitalist movements. More recently, in 2023, police put BASE under surveillance during a controversial operation against well-known anarchist Toby Shone.
At the time, the BASE cooperative told the Cable, “There is a suggestion that there is some shadowy criminal anarchist group behind BASE so that the cops can expand their fantasy of ‘anarchist terror’… “Back in the real world, BASE is a much-loved and long-standing autonomous social centre that hosts community [events]”
Barry recalls an occasion more than ten years ago when police tried to enter the building during an animal rights gathering, an event that coincided with raids elsewhere in Bristol. volunteers called for support, and a crowd soon gathered, forcing the cops to retreat. For Barry, this demonstrated “the strength of our community, and that people really value BASE, what it stands for, and are prepared to defend it.”
Jumping forward, when the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, BASE volunteers began discussing how they could support the community. They decided to start a mutual aid vegan food project to deliver food boxes and cooked meals throughout Bristol.
Food was donated by local shops, and tens of thousands of pounds were raised to support the BASE & Roses (B&R) project. The whole lower floor was dedicated to storage. Scores of volunteers were involved in outreach, cooking, packing and delivering free food to 160 households first every week, then every other week for over two years. Pamphlets were included with the food boxes, explaining the principles of the project, and touching on other important political issues.
Many of the volunteers that the Cable spoke to mentioned B&R as one of their most positive experiences at BASE.
B&R volunteer Katka explained that the project demonstrated “in our own lived experience that anarchism can work practically, not just as a fantasy project.” Seeing that a “relatively small group of people without big financial resources are able to produce so much actual material and emotional support for the community was a life changing experience.”
Katka said that the project was based on “solidarity, instead of the patronising and classist charity model” and with a “horizontal structure” and a “comradely supportive spirit”.
Longstanding, volunteer-led projects
One reason BASE has been able to survive for so long is thanks to its dedicated volunteers. The Cable spoke to some of the people who are involved in BASE today. The longest running collective is BASE cafe, which provides cheap vegan food every Sunday, often together with political talks or film screenings.
Zoe, who has been volunteering since 2023, said the collective recently organised a Christmas day community meal, and that the cafe “offers a space for people to connect over a meal, which maybe makes it easier to meet and chat.”
Food is provided on a donation basis, and no-one is ever turned away for having no money.
Sarah, who volunteers with the BASE library collective, says that the archive has “radical publications going back decades”, and that the library is a place where people can “learn together” and celebrate “our histories of resistance”, and that BASE offers “a unique resource in an increasingly corporate and gentrified Bristol.”
Another longstanding project is BASE Bikes, established in 1997.
Every Tuesday, local people come and fix their bikes together with the help of volunteers. The collective also takes donations of old bikes, which they fix up and sell at affordable prices.
The Cable spoke to Bill, who told us that “the most important thing is that it’s not a for-profit bike workshop” and people “are surprised by how cheap” it can be. BASE Bikes has donated surplus money to support people in Gaza and survivors of the earthquake in Southeast Turkey.
They have been able to offer “small bits of solidarity”, like donating a bike for one of the Kill the Bill prisoners after they were released. The people who come and use the project are diverse, including a fair few local families. Bill says that you see “a lot of folks come through the door, including refugees and ‘asylum seekers’”.
The Cable received many more contributions from BASE’s volunteers than we were able to publish, showing the breadth of impact that the grassroots organising at BASE has offered over the last three decades to the local community.
All of BASE’s Collectives are open to new volunteers. Anyone can come and get involved. If you are interested in attending an event at BASE, booking the space or becoming a volunteer get in touch via their website or email basesocialcentre[at]riseup.net.
Take a look at Social Centre Stories to learn more about the network of radical spaces in the UK and globally.
*Several of the names in this article have been changed, at the interviewees request
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