Blog
Call for Editors
We are seeking to expand our editorial board to meet the demands of a growing publisher and magazine, and better reflect the breadth of experiences on the communist left in Britain. Ebb invites applications to fill multiple positions as Editors.
Since the creation of the Editorial Board in 2021, Ebb has aspired to become a principled and progressive element on the Marxist left in Britain – helping to highlight the necessity of solidarity with the oppressed and drawing attention to the anti-imperialist commitments necessary for a genuine left-wing politics in the imperial centre. This includes the publication of Mahmoud Najib’s translation of Ghassan Kanafani’s On Zionist Literature (2022), and Voices for African Liberation (2024) – a collection of interviews with the Review of African Political Economy. Our first magazine issue was published in January 2024, and our next issue is forthcoming.
In addition to this work and our work on trans Marxism, anti-fascism, and Irish republicanism, there are a number of areas that we would particularly like to develop and publish on:
- Political economies of Britain and analyses of the British left 
- Contemporary Marxist debates (around degrowth, neofeudalism, etc.) 
- First hand accounts of political events, along the same vein as Sophia Alderson’s essay on the Sunderland and Middlesbrough race riots 
- Critiques of contemporary historical and contemporary fascism in Britain 
Responsibilities of those on the Editorial Board will include:
- Commissioning and writing content for the website and print 
- Editorial support including reading through submissions, proofreading, and copyediting 
- Attending monthly meetings online and occasional in-person Editorial Board socials 
- Representing Ebb at public meetings and book fairs 
- Helping publications to reach a wide readership, including through growing our social media presence 
- Taking an active role in shaping Ebb and contributing to discussions about its future and its role in the broader left landscape in Britain 
Some writing experience is necessary and editing experience would be helpful, but Ebb has an experienced group of editors able to support new members of the Editorial Board who are less familiar with the editorial process. Applications from women and from people who have not accessed postgraduate education are especially welcomed.
For applications, please email editorial@ebb-magazine.com and include one written piece and a short statement on your background and how you hope to contribute to Ebb. If you have any queries regarding the position, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Please note that all Editors at Ebb are volunteers.
Call for proposals: Legacies of Black radicalism in Britain
Ebb Magazine is seeking pitches for essays to be included in a special issue on the topic of ‘The legacies of Black radicalism in Britain’, edited by Azfar Shafi, to be published in late 2023. Pitches of 200-300 words should be sent to editorial@ebb-magazine.com by 31st August 2023.
This special issue will address the ways in which the legacy of Black radical organising, undertaken by African, Asian and Caribbean communities in Britain from the late 1960s, has been misremembered, overlooked, or internationally distorted.
It will seek to recover and reassess the histories of Black radicalism in Britain, its contributions to socialist, labour and anti-imperialist politics, and contemporary debates over the eventual march of Black politics into the institutions under Thatcher years – best symbolised by the formation of the Labour Party Black Sections in 1983.
While there has been a renewed interest of the histories of African, Asian and Caribbean organising in Britain during the 1960-80s, much of this has – with notable exceptions – functioned to retrospectively validate the shift away from autonomous Black community organising and towards a Black ‘civic’ politics centred on electoral politics, ‘representative’ bodies and professionalised antiracism over the course of the 1980s and 90s.
Often presenting Black radicalism as merely a prelude to the state multiculturalism of later decades, these retellings of Black radicalism also serve to bolster the credentials of both Black political figures and institutions of the British left who contributed to and benefitted from this civic turn. In doing so, the potent Black radical critiques of British trade union economism, labourism, imperialism, and the limits of the post-war welfare state are dismissed.
This issue intends to correct the record on Black radicalism in Britain by critically engaging the prevailing narratives of Black radicalism and multiculturalism, recovering the theoretical and practical contributions of Black radical organising on its own terms – both during its height and during the transition period of the 1980s.
We are looking for essays on the following, non-exhaustive list of subjects:
- Black worker struggles in, outside of, and in conflict with trade unions 
- Black communities’ antifascist organising and their engagement with white-led antifascism 
- Third World solidarity and anti-imperialism of Black radicalism and engagements with political organisations in the Global South 
- Black radical engagements with and articulations of socialism and Marxism 
- Black radical perspectives on the Labour Party, Labour Party Black Sections, and Municipal Socialism 
- Black feminisms, women’s organising, and their trajectories 
- Debates on the path forward for Black politics under Thatcherism 
- Profiles on Black radical organisations and organisers 
- Pitches on other related topics would be welcome. 
Final contributions are expected to be in essay form, from 2500-5000 words, though different lengths can be discussed with editors. Profiles may be shorter.
Please email a summary pitch of 200-300 words to editorial@ebb-magazine.com by 31st July with the email subject ‘Black radicalism in Britain issue’. Any questions can be sent to the same address.
Please note any previous writing or organising work that may be relevant to the topic, if applicable, in your pitch.
Meet the Editors
After posting a Call for Editors earlier in the year and receiving fantastic and incredibly encouraging responses from all the applicants, Ebb has now assembled its first Editorial Board to oversee the direction of the online magazine and its burgeoning books press. The quality of the Editorial Board and every single one of the Editors has already been demonstrated in the marked increase in quality of our articles and reviews as well as both the variety of forms and content that we have published this year, and I’m confident that this will only continue to increase over time. We have plenty of projects that we’re yet to announce in the coming months, including more books by historical figures and first-time authors along with other collaborative projects, but in the meantime you’ll find below a brief introduction to all of the Editors who now make up Ebb.
Thank you to every one of our readers for your support, in particular to our Patreons and to everyone who has purchased copies of our books.  
Alfie Hancox is a History PhD student at the University of Birmingham researching Black Power and the left in Britain. He writes about anti-imperialism, debates in British Marxism, the New Left, Leninism, and Labour movement history. In his free time he enjoys birdwatching.
Azfar Shafi is a London-based researcher with a focus on policing, counter-terrorism and imperialism. He has organised around issues such as surveillance, gentrification and Palestine solidarity.
His first book, Race to the Bottom: Reclaiming Antiracism, co-authored with Ilyas Nagdee, was published with Pluto Books this year.
Carlos Cruz Mosquera is an associate teacher at Queen Mary University and PhD candidate investigating the role of the European Union in Colombia’s peace process. He is a co-founder of ANTICONQUISTA and Red Condor Collective, organisations that provide financial support for radical Latin American activist groups.
Daniel Frost is a university worker based in south London, and a member of UCU. His writing has been published by New Socialist, red pepper, and History Workshop Online, and his research focuses upon left-wing activism in twentieth-century Croydon.
Lewis Hodder is a Founding Editor at Ebb. His writing can be found in Ebb Magazine, Liberated Texts, and ArtCritical, where it covers philosophy, aesthetics, and politics, from the Frankfurt School to workers’ councils.
His next project, Residues of Practice, critically examines what relationship critical philosophy has to practice by looking at the work of Gilles Deleuze, Mark Fisher, and others, and how this philosophy is dependent on increasingly crude caricatures of what came before it that comes to inhibit its own politics.
Louis Allday is a historian and writer. He is the Founding Editor of Liberated Texts. His writing has been published by Monthly Review, Electronic Intifada, Jadaliyya and ROAPE among others. He has a PhD in History which focused on how the British Council was used by Britain as a tool of cultural propaganda in the Arab Gulf States.
Sylvia McCheyne is a postgraduate researcher at the University of Sheffield. Her PhD research focuses on the political economy and labour relations of trans women at work. Her writing has been featured in New Socialist, Ebb Magazine and i-D and she has presented for Historical Materialism. Her work covers issues of social conservatism and inequalities in various left-wing movements in Britain.
