Sign in

Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸

@nickthoburn.bsky.social
308 followers 133 following 50 posts

Professor of Sociology at University of Manchester, author of Anti-Book, Brutalism as Found, and Deleuze, Marx and Politics. www.brutalismasfound.co.uk / manifold.umn.edu/projects/anti-book

PostsRepliesMedia
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Systematic torture and rape of Palestinian captives - such a routine of the Israeli death cult that even the Guardian reports it www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...
theguardian.com
‘I could not stay silent’: Palestinian prisoner tells of sexual abuse in Israeli jail
Sami al-Saei has defied social stigma to speak out about what a report calls a ‘grave pattern’ of sexual violence
011
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
Absolutely horrific details about an ICE shooting in Minneapolis. A witness says a woman was trying to drive away from an ICE operation and the ICE agent "reached across the hood of the car and shot her in the face like three, four times." Bovino was there. www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...
Emily Heller lives near 33rd and Portland and said she woke up to a commotion outside her home. She said she saw a car blocking traffic on Portland Avenue that appeared to be part of a protest against federal law enforcement operations.

Heller said she heard ICE agents telling the driver, a woman, to “get out of here.”

“She was trying to turn around, and the ICE agent was in front of her car, and he pulled out a gun and put it right in — like, his midriff was on her bumper — and he reached across the hood of the car and shot her in the face like three, four times,” Heller said.

Heller said it appeared the woman then accelerated and traveled about 100 feet before striking a utility pole and some other vehicles. She could be seen slumped over inside her car.
32979034096
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Huge props to the students at University of Manchester voting to demand UoM cut ties with Tel Aviv University, with an amazing 94% majority - and winning ‘cops out’ motion too 🔥✊🏼 manchesterstudentsunion.com/news/article...
manchesterstudentsunion.com
University of Manchester Students' Union
Discover your student community at the University of Manchester Students' Union. Access support, join societies, get involved in campaigns, and make your voice heard.
010
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Netpol @netpol.org · 14/10/2025
Some British government ministers don't want anyone to talk about genocide in Gaza or Britain's complicity in it www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...
Telegraph headline: Shabana Mahmood: Some pro-Palestinian protesters don’t want peace in Middle East. Subheading: Home Secretary questions motives of some activists over marches held after Gaza peace deal struck
23516
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Netpol @netpol.org · 09/10/2025
For the benefit of the cops and the Telegraph, "Intifada 87" is clearly a reference to the First Intifada, where Palestinian mass protests, civil disobedience and strikes were brutally crushed by Israel. Read a book, FFS...
0144
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Netpol @netpol.org · 09/10/2025
On Tuesday we warned that the Home Secretary could "ban more groups as rebranded versions of Palestine Action. Legislation already makes this possible". Now it's happening
Telegraph headline: "Police to assess if pro-Palestinian group Intifada 87 broke terror laws". Subheading: "Counter-terrorism officers investigate whether name illegally supports Hamas, which was founded in 1987"
33115
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Netpol @netpol.org · 08/10/2025
Yesterday's narrative of 7 October as ‘another 9/11’ – "yet another day torn free from any history or context" with only two sides – seeks to demonise all Palestine solidarity as "pro-terrorist." It is critical to understanding Britain's current crackdown on protest rights netpol.org/2025/10/06/a...
Protesters against the banning of Palestine Action in Trafalgar Square, London, 4 October 2025.
13520
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
Desperate to do anything and everything to keep the apartheid colony’s genocide on the road, the Labour government now appeal the granted right to an appeal. Keep digging you absurd ghouls
020
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Cominsitu @cominsitu.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
Another uprising! This time in Philippines, with parallels to Nepal (corruption, nepotism, youth) but also a new component: rage at climate (mal)adaptation. time.com/7319164/phil...
time.com
Why Floods Are Bringing Filipino Protesters to the Streets
Corruption in flood-control projects has enraged many Filipinos, who protested in the capital and in other regions on Sunday.
24717
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Sociologists in Solidarity with Palestinians @socispal.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
We’re a collective of sociologists in Britain calling on sociologists and sociological professional bodies to use their platforms to stand with Palestinians. We run events, calls to action and share teaching resources, see our website socispal.wordpress.com/teaching-res... and follow us for more
socispal.wordpress.com
Teaching Resources
Sociologists in Solidarity with Palestinians – Syllabus Version 2, October 2024 The Sociologists in Solidarity with Palestinians (SISP) collective has curated a wide-ranging Palestine reading…
062
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
041
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Rob Knox @pashukanist.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
Today is the offical @versobooks.bsky.social release date of Resisting Erasure: Capital, Imperialism and Race in Palestine, by Adam Hanieh, myself and @rafeefz.bsky.social. www.versobooks.com/en-gb/produc...
versobooks.com
Resisting Erasure
Why has Palestine become a defining fault line of contemporary politics?Challenging mainstream narratives that reduce Palestine to ancient hatreds, humanitarian tragedy, or legal abstractions, Resisti...
23620
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Cominsitu @cominsitu.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
Coming soon in paperback! The Poetry of Class: Romantic Anti-Capitalism and the Invention of the Proletariat by Patrick Eiden-Offe www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2803-t...
27717
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Zarah Sultana MP @zarahsultana.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
Starmer’s Labour government says there’s no money to scrap the two-child benefit cap and lift 500,000 children out of poverty — but there is £2,000,000,000 for Elbit, Israel’s partner in genocide. This obscene deal must be stopped. They have Palestinian blood on their hands.
ALL SYSTEMS GO
ELBIT Systems, which as Israel's largest arms firm is a key cog in the Israeli war machine, is close to winning a £2bn contract that would make it a "strategic partner" of the Ministry of Defence, working on the training of 60,000 British soldiers every year.
Elbit Systems UK, its British arm, is bidding for the Army Collective Training Service contract. The chosen bidder will work with the MoD to transform military training "through digitalisation, simulation, a different relationship with industry, and by changing how and where the military trains"
Many defence giants put in bids, but in February the MoD reduced the bidders to two:
Elbit and Raytheon. The MoD paid the companies €2m each to develop their bids. The development period was supposed to run until mid-August, meaning the final decision is imminent.
Elbit has certainly done its best to get the inside track with the ministry, appointing two top former MoD figures to its UK board of directors:
Sir Simon Bollom (who made the move in June
- see Eye 1651) and Sir Mark Poffley.
The firm already has similar contracts with the MoD. Since 2023 it has run Project Vulcan, a €57m, ten-year contract of simulation-based training for tank crews. But the new deal would be a significant step up, both in value and in its relationship with the MoD. The Eye asked the MoD if it would be appropriate to give a company so involved in the Gaza war such a major contract, but it did not respond.
• Meanwhile, the anger across Europe over Israel's attacks on Gaza didn't prevent Serbia from agreeing a $1.64bn deal, announced last week, for Elbit to supply "a range of defence solutions" including artillery-rocket systems and attack drones.
18390193
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
The obscenity that is UK imperialism and its Labour Party - close to giving a £2bn contract to Elbit, Israel’s main weapons supplier for the Gaza genocide (while proscribing those who seek to shut it down). You couldn’t make this shit up. www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-clos...
middleeasteye.net
UK close to giving Israel's Elbit £2bn contract to train British soldiers
Elbit, which was the primary target of Palestine Action's activism, is close to winning a contract that would allow it to train 60,000 troops per year, according to Private Eye
010
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
Another scumbag Labour council high on its anti-Palestinian racism
020
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
Happy to have a chapter in this wonderful collection of essays “Struggles in the Concrete: Architecture and the Marxist Tradition”, thanks to Luisa Lorenza Corna and Mark Crinson
010
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
Yvette Cooper’s determination to protect the Israeli killing machine is something to behold. Resigning is too good for her - may she never have a day’s peace for the rest of her life.
000
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Fellow academics, sign this: protestisnotterrorism.wordpress.com/scholarslett...
protestisnotterrorism.wordpress.com
Scholars’ letter: We support Palestine Action in their campaign against proscription’
6 August 2025 As scholars dedicated to questions of justice and ethics we believe that Yvette Cooper’s recent proscription of Palestine Action represents an attack both on the entire pro-Palestine …
001
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
Loads of wonderful writing in the new Variant magazine. Happy to have contributed a piece with Anthony Iles on experimental forms in communist publishing - ‘Form & Against’ variant.org.uk
variant.org.uk
variant
Variant is a magazine with the independence to be critical that addresses cultural issues in a social and political context.
0145
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
The Guardian’s shameless attempt to rehabilitate Lammy would be laughable if it wasn’t so disgusting. The man is a war criminal drenched in Palestinian blood. It won’t wash off. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Shared prayers and tears: how Lammy wooed JD Vance and the White House
Analysts say foreign secretary’s empathy and pragmatism make relationship-forming easy despite political divides
021
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Made my day 😁
030
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Fellow academics, sign this: protestisnotterrorism.wordpress.com/scholarslett...
protestisnotterrorism.wordpress.com
Scholars’ letter: We support Palestine Action in their campaign against proscription’
6 August 2025 As scholars dedicated to questions of justice and ethics we believe that Yvette Cooper’s recent proscription of Palestine Action represents an attack both on the entire pro-Palestine …
001
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Tokyo Sexwhale @tokyosexwhale.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
Just sayin’
305179172769
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Netpol @netpol.org · 05/08/2025
This is 100% world-class bullshit
43712
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Global Sociologists for Palestine (GS4P) @gs4p.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
We are GS4P, Join us! www.gs4p.org
031
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Global Sociologists for Palestine (GS4P) @gs4p.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
[1/5] Please take a look at our most recent statement on the successful BDS mobilization at the 5th International Sociological Association (ISA) Forum of Sociology in Rabat earlier this month: drive.proton.me/urls/AEVX3HF...
drive.proton.me
Proton Drive
Securely store, share, and access your important files and photos. Anytime, anywhere.
134
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Global Sociologists for Palestine (GS4P) @gs4p.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
[5/5] Against their mischaracterizations, which only serve for the continuation of the genocide and settler colonialism, please support our petition (above) and other efforts such as this one: cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/for...
cryptpad.fr
Encrypted Form
CryptPad: end-to-end encrypted collaboration suite
021
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Global Sociologists for Palestine (GS4P) @gs4p.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
[2/5] Also, if you have not already, please add your name to our petition in support of ISA's suspension of the Israeli Sociological Society. Your support is crucial to pressure National Sociological Associations in ISA for the continuation of the suspension. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
Statement from Sociologists in Support of the ISA's Suspension of the Israeli Sociological Society
Statement from Sociologists in Support of the ISA's Suspension of the Israeli Sociological Society As sociologists deeply committed to the principles of justice, anti-colonialism, and the defense of l...
111
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Netpol @netpol.org · 31/07/2025
Among the peers who signed the letter are Lord Pannick, a patron of the genocide deniers UK Lawyers for Israel; Baron Mendelsohn, a former chair of Labour Friends of Israel; and Lord Walney, a prominent lobbyist for Israel. There's a pattern emerging... www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
theguardian.com
Minister dismisses peers’ claims that UK recognition of Palestine may break international law
Gareth Thomas says move is ‘political judgment’ after challenge from 40 members of House of Lords
1127
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Do mass murderers always look so satisfied with themselves?
000
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
A portrait for Nandy and Hotovely to cherish, united in the cause of genocide and distraction
021
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
Absurd and grotesque, the Labour Party or Genocide www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Ban on Palestine Action to take effect after legal challenge fails
Being a member of, or showing support for, the direct action protest group will be a criminal offence after judge’s decision
020
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Netpol @netpol.org · 02/07/2025
The government says the direct action protest at RAF Brize Norton was the trigger for banning Palestine Action, but months earlier, in March 2025, they were the only non-overseas example on Counter-Terrorism Policing's "Left Wing, Anarchist, Single Issue Groups and Symbols" intelligence presentation
The screenshop of a slide from a March 2025 Counter Terrorism Policing Powerpoint presentation,, entitled "Left Wing, Anarchist, Single Issue Groups and Symbols", which includes 33 symbols, mainly for armed groups from outside of Britain.
54634
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Netpol @netpol.org · 02/07/2025
The ban on Palestine Action: how every MP voted leftfootforward.org/2025/07/pale...
leftfootforward.org
Palestine Action: How every MP voted on proscribing them as a terrorist group
Find out who voted which way
32524
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Resist 🕎🍉 @antizionistjew.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
🚨 EMERGENCY DEMO: Defend The Right To Protest, Don't Ban Palestine Action Join us outside Downing Street tonight to protest the government's attacks on the right to protest and to demand that MPs vote against the plans to proscribe Palestine Action. ⏰ 6PM 📍 Downing St
11710
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
“The government can try and silence Palestine Action, but the direct action bell cannot be un-rung. Nobody is going back to ineffective tactics during a time of genocide. We are going to continue to see people take whatever means available to them to stop this genocide.”
120
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Tara Lai Quinlan @quinlantl.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
UK Home Office staff concerned about ‘absurd’ Palestine Action ban, says senior civil servant. Anonymous source describes ‘tense atmosphere’ after Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced plans to proscribe #protest group | #law www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Home Office staff concerned about ‘absurd’ Palestine Action ban, says senior civil servant
Anonymous source describes ‘tense atmosphere’ after Yvette Cooper announced plans to proscribe protest group
032
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Double Down News @doubledown.news · 24/06/2025
Why UK REALLY Banned Palestine Action
doubledown.news
Why UK REALLY Banned Palestine Action
The Shocking SECRET Behind Palestine Action Crackdown
57455
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
*Urgent action for academics and trade unionists - sign this letter opposing the ban on Palestine Action* Direct action is not terrorism; the terrorists are those committing and supporting genocide docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
Defend the right to protest: no ban on Palestine Action - open letter
FAO: The Secretary of State for the Home Department, The Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP Re: Planned UK Government proscription of Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000 We the undersigned, including e...
041
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Happy Hour at Hippel's @sanktmaxtci.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
Palantir, headed in the UK by the grandson of the head of the British Union of Fascists, are building a police database to surveil people based on these factors. What more is there to say at this point. Source libertyinvestigates.org.uk/articles/uk-...
36237
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Resist @resist.wiki · 13/06/2025
This is some of the aftermath of Israel's unprovoked attacks on the #Iran capital of #Tehran. Men women and children have been executed. The norm for #USA backed #Israel.
1211761
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Glenkerry Co-operative @glenkerrycoop.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Too much to precis here, but great blog by @nickthoburn.bsky.social on how Robin Hood Gardens was demolished, then exhibited, showing how gentrification and "social cleansing" works Esp. sanitisation of brutalist blocks, with who they were built for swept away brutalismasfound.co.uk/demolition-a...
brutalismasfound.co.uk
Demolition and Afterlife - Brutalism As Found
A photography exhibition on the demolition and afterlife of Robin Hood Gardens, Alison and Peter Smithson's Brutalist housing estate in London
031
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
"an honourable course" to resign... Such bullshit from the deeply dishonourable Foreign Office. The honourable course is to stop participating in Israeli apartheid and the genocidal slaughter of men, women, and children.
041
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Now that the V&A's fragment of the Robin Hood Gardens estate has taken its final form at the new V&A Storehouse, I've added to my account of this artefact of working-class dispossession - the last two posts here: brutalismasfound.co.uk/demolition-a...
041
Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸 @nickthoburn.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Or put otherwise, “When will senior leadership of the University of Manchester take responsibility for and end its complicity in Israeli apartheid and genocide, through its partnership with Tel Aviv University and investments and military research with BAE Systems?”
021
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
“Tasted a little tear gas— tasted like fascism”
6865390915548
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Chad Loder @chadloder.dev · 08/06/2025
Los Angeles protest tomorrow (Sunday): ICE out of Boyle Heights
ICE OUT OF
BOYLE HEIGHTS NOW!
PROTEST
CENTRO
•
DATE: SUNDAY, JUNE 8TH 11:00 A.M.
LOCATION: MARIACHI PLAZA
WE DEMAND:
• LEGALIZATION FOR ALL
• I.C.E. OUT OF OUR BARRIOS
• END METRO COLLABORATION
WITH ICE.
• I.C.E OUT OF IMMIGRATION
COURT
8594213
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Cominsitu @cominsitu.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
god bless LA
05412
Reposted by Nick Thoburn 🇵🇸
Glenkerry Co-operative @glenkerrycoop.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
This is a great look at housing issues through the example of Robin Hood Gardens The erasure of class in modern architecture, and how it replaces rather than works with the existing communities and built environment
132