SQUALL Magazine Online

Archive of UK radical independent publication SQUALL Magazine (1992-2006)

In this site you’ll find frontline reportage and in-depth researched articles which capture an important period in British socio-political history: an era of widespread political activism and direct action on a range of social, political and ecological fronts (much of it regularly passed over at the time – and since – by an Oxbridge-dominated media).

To set the scene - and give a window into this archive - here's a whistle-stop tour of some key ongoing topics and epochs that unfolded across SQUALL's lifespan, which you'll find in these pages:

Early issues have extensive coverage of the infamous Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (CJA) in the mid 90s – from several angles – including its progress through parliament to becoming law, the proactive and lively oppostion which coalesced against it, as well as how the new CJA laws were used once enacted.

This focus no doubt sprung from the fact that SQUALL was produced by and for people whose ways of living happened to be directly targeted by this new legislation at the time: The strapline on early issues denotes its focus at this point - 'Magazine for squatters, travellers and assorted itinerants' - all key targets of sections of the CJA. Meanwhile SQUALL also wrote about the trials and tribulations of rural communities around the country - some squatted, some on owned land.

Of course other networks intertwined with all of this, which were also significantly affected by new CJA laws, such as direct action protesters. These ranged from fox hunt saboteurs to ecological, anti-war and many other issues. SQUALL covered many of these, including chronicling the epic anti-road protests of the 90s (and after).

Towards the end of that decade, the international Anti/Alter-Globalisation movements began hitting the streets of cities hosting summits of the powerful, then after 9-11, huge anti-war mass protests emerged. During this time, SQUALL had activist/writers not content just doing A-to-B Stop-The-War marches, and were actually in war-torn Iraq filing exclusive eyewitness accounts, as well as in Palestine during the Second Intifada. (See in Frontline Communiques).

Alongside these was continued coverage – often hardly reported elsewhere – of several unique long-running stories SQUALL paid close attention to, from the incredible David-and-Goliath legal saga of the McLibel Trial to the groundbreaking DIY-culture-driven community projects of the Exodus Collective.

There were inevitable shifts of editorial emphasis over the years as SQUALL moved through different moments of history, but it always maintained the same high standard of writing and scrupulous editing. This makes SQUALL a valuable archive and trusted source for those researching this period of British history.

* For more context and background about SQUALL see here.