The Angry Brigade

The Angry Brigade
Angry Brigade Resistance Movement Participant in the Opposition to US involvement in Vietnam and The Troubles
Logo associated with the Angry Brigade, used on the cover of The Angry Brigade by Gordon Carr
Active	1968–1970, 1980s
Ideology	Anarchist communism
Area of operations	Great Britain
Strength	1 slightly injured person
Part of	Irish Republican Socialist Movement

The Angry Brigade were a left-wing revolutionary group responsible for a series of bomb attacks in England between 1970 and 1972.

In mid-1968 demonstrations took place in London, centred on the US embassy in Grosvenor Square, against US involvement in the Vietnam War. One of the organisers of these demonstrations, the well-known radical Tariq Ali, has said he recalls an approach by someone representing the Angry Brigade who wished to bomb the embassy; he told them it was a terrible idea and no bombing took place.

The Angry Brigade decided to launch a bombing campaign with small bombs – in order to maximise media exposure to their demands while keeping collateral damage to a minimum. The campaign started in August 1970 and continued for a year until arrests took place the following summer.

Targets included banks, embassies, the Miss World event in 1970 (or rather a BBC Outside Broadcast vehicle earmarked for use in the BBC's coverage) and the homes of Conservative MPs. In total, police attributed 25 bombings to the Angry Brigade. The bombings mostly caused property damage; one person was slightly injured.

In the 1980s the Angry Brigade resurfaced as the Angry Brigade Resistance Movement – part of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement (IRSM).

Jake Prescott, whose origins were in the mining community of Dunfermline, was arrested and tried in 1971. Melford Stevenson sentenced him to 15 years imprisonment (later reduced to 10), mostly spent in maximum security jails. Later he said he realised then that he "was the one who was angry and the people [he] met were more like the Slightly Cross Brigade". The other members of the group from North-East London, the "Stoke Newington Eight", were prosecuted for carrying out bombings as the Angry Brigade in one of the longest criminal trials of English history (it lasted from 30 May to 6 December 1972). As a result of the trial, John Barker, Jim Greenfield, Hilary Creek and Anna Mendleson received prison sentences of 10 years. A number of other defendants were found not guilty, including Stuart Christie, who had previously been imprisoned in Spain for carrying explosives with the intent to assassinate the dictator Francisco Franco, and Angela Mason who became a director of the rights group Stonewall and was awarded an OBE for services to homosexual rights.