Did you know that Peter Kropotkin, the 19th-century Russian anarchist best known for the idea of Mutual Aid, often pointed to Britain’s Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) as anarchy in action, proof of what free people can build together? The service was built by volunteers, not the state or big business, and it worked really well. Kropotkin believed this kind of grassroots effort proved you didn’t need a rigid hierarchies or a central office to get things done.
He saw the RNLI as the kind of socialism he wanted, voluntary organisation, free from excessive bureaucracy and top-heavy management, capable of carrying out important, complex and difficult work. He used it to show that over centralisation isn’t the only way to organise society. Everyday people are often so much better at organising themselves than officials or bosses.
Since 2021, the RNLI has come under fire from the far right for rescuing migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats. HM Coastguard called the lifeboats, just as they do for any emergency. Nigel Farage sneered they were a “taxi service” for human traffickers.
The public reacted strongly. Donations jumped by 3,000%, and visits to the volunteer page rose 270% after it was revealed that volunteers had been verbally abused. In 2024, the RNLI launched 114 times to small boats, just over 1% of national call-outs, saving 58 lives, including children.
The RNLI is not ideological, not obsessed with slogans or grand theories, it simply does what is right. Volunteers organise themselves to save lives at sea, without orders from above, without coercion or bureaucracy, guided only by a sense of duty and common decency. It is practical, moral, and local. The community takes care of its own, and people show what can be done when they act together. In this sense, the RNLI embodies the kind of socialism that grows out of daily life.
Its flag is one I can proudly stand with, it signals collective action, solidarity, and care for human life, unlike the Union Jack, which has always symbolised empire, hierarchy, nationalist myth and oppressive power.
Adam Johanes
