An Economy of Starlings by Lotte L.S.

AN ECONOMY OF STARLINGS
—Notes from a Reform-voting town—

"Great Yarmouth’s tenuous geographical position has made it easy to ignore. The town’s annexed-like isolation, pressed to the easterly edges of England and literally on the way to nowhere, differentiates it from many other similarly “forgotten” and overlooked places in the UK, closer to or sandwiched between larger destinations. But among Yarmouth’s boarded-up businesses, rubbish bins spilling over at the sidewalk, and its ever-hustling seagulls, there lingers a geography that as communists and anarchists can tell us much about where and how power, capital, and possibilities for political struggle congeal and clot at the forgotten fringes of England. While the town and its residents are excluded from the possibilities of accumulating or consuming the fruits of capital, its place in the global economy rests upon its position as a thoroughfare—a transit corridor where goods are transported via its port from sea onto land, or manufactured and then transported from—rather than a place wherein capital can yield a return. As a result, it plays a role in shaping—and so too necessarily contains the possibility of disrupting—the flow of capital, both a cog and a glitch in its motor. Neither totally rural nor fully urban, the town loiters in a third space. It serves the administrative centres of the global economy via its teetering industry, logistics and manufacturing—in contradiction with its official narrative as 'deindustrialised'.

Walk along the seafront and it might seem like something from a Fawlty Towers episode—glittering amusement arcades racking up extortionate electricity bills, posters for racist comedians on tour, B&B facades advertising colour TV and “continental breakfast,” strip clubs with names like Fallen Angels, mingling smells of fish and chips and candyfloss—but edge a few roads back and suddenly the apparition disintegrates. In the streets that lurk behind the faded sheen of England’s dreaming, you can’t fail to find the racially and linguistically hyper-diverse population that is the real representation of Yarmouth’s working class core. It’s this centre that now constitutes a “no-go zone” for exurb residents, many of whom grew up on these exact streets before state-led suburbanisation got underway. Like Britannia Pier—its wooden structure stretching out across the sand, yet failing to ever reach the hissing sea—emerging antagonisms along lines of class, nationality and race are neither invisible nor submerged, but hover just above the water’s murky surface."

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A 30,000 word three-part essay by Lotte L.S. on the contradictory dynamics of capitalism and their social, economic and political effects on the town of Great Yarmouth in East Anglia, particularly in light of the election of the then-Reform MP Rupert Lowe in the 2024 General Election.

With original photos, archival materials, and cartographic drawings mapping the region's low-waged work, military and electoral territories.

Limited print run, pre-orders ship by the end of February 2026.

£5 incl shipping to UK | £10 incl shipping to EU | £12 incl shipping to rest of world.

As always, free to red herring press members. For more info, see: https://www.redherringpress.org/membership

*Photo by Jean Hogg.