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Why Did Lily Allen Just Follow a Bunch of Anarchist Twitter Accounts?

The Tory-hating pop star seems to have outed herself as an anarcho-syndicalist.
Simon Childs
London, GB

As the UK General Election results rolled in this May, pop star Lily Allen was distraught at seeing her beloved Labour lose out the Conservatives. Now it looks like she's looking elsewhere for sources of resistance to Britain's Tory overlords. The last four accounts she's followed on Twitter are all from SolFed—or the Solidarity Federation—an anarcho-syndicalist group that wants to abolish capitalism and the state through revolutionary trade unionism.

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I suppose if the Tories were to win, it might bring on the revolution quicker. — lily (@lilyallen)May 7, 2015

On the night of the election, she tweeted her wish for the revolution to come a bit quicker thanks to a resounding victory for Prime Minister David Cameron and his Etonian chums, so perhaps her interest in anarchism isn't a surprise.

What with its hatred of hierarchy and people telling other people what to do, anarcho-syndicalism is a super-democratic form of organizing. Unfortunately, that means it would take a while to get a comment from SolFed, because they'd all have to discuss it and agree on it, according to an anarchist source.

But, the former SolFed member I spoke to was happy to talk to me and use this unexpected propaganda opportunity to reel off a wish list of stuff anarchists like campaigning about. "Perhaps she's looking to fight wage theft in the music industry, or is after information on opposing the neo-Nazi White Man March in Liverpool the Saturday after next," he said.

He also hoped that she would "use her celebrity to stand up for the rights of sex workers against the celebrity backlash currently underway," referring to the furor over some celebrities who are campaigning against the decriminalization of sex work.

After Russell Brand's revolution, and Charlotte Church's Prosecco socialism, maybe we'll see Lily Allen trying to collectivize her backing band, before kicking her label manager's severed head around like a football.