BLM UK gains legal status and renames as Black Liberation Movement UK

Activists from the Black Lives Matter UK campaign group have placed their organisation on an official footing, marking it with a change of name.

The group, which received £1.2m in donations following widespread protests in June, has registered as a community benefit society under the name Black Liberation Movement UK.

The registration of the group, hitherto a loose collection of activists, was required before it could receive the donations, which had been collected via a GoFundMe appeal.

The society was registered on 14 September by Adam Elliott Cooper, an academic, Alexandra Wanjiku Kelbert, a PhD student, and Lisa Robinson, a director of a Nottingham-based social enterprise. All have been involved with the UK group since it was established in 2016.

Elliott Cooper confirmed to the Guardian that Black Liberation Movement UK was the group’s new official name, but said it would continue to organise under the name Black Lives Matter and in collaboration with the wider BLM movement.

“We remain committed and our politics hasn’t changed, and we remain in constant conversation [with] and committed to the network of Black Lives Matter groups across the world,” he said, adding that the choice had to an extent been forced on them because different permutations of the Black Lives Matter name had already been registered.

According to a registration document filed with the Financial Conduct Authority, the purpose of the BLM UK community benefit society is to be a “national campaigning organisation which supports black African and black Caribbean communities in the UK”.

“The society aims to alleviate racial injustice and discrimination specifically amongst the black African and black Caribbean communities,” the document says. “Black African and Caribbean communities have historically suffered social, economic and environmental injustice because of their race, and the society aims to challenge and remove the injustices faced by these communities.”

In a hint at what it intends to do with the money raised, the document says BLM UK will “provide funding in the form of grants to community groups and campaign organisations” and “organise events and … deliver educational resources and learning on the issues of racism and discrimination that affect black African and Caribbean communities”.

The organisation had to be registered as a legal entity as a condition of receiving the money from GoFundMe. Elliott Cooper said the community benefit society structure was chosen for two reasons: “The first is that it’s a legal structure which allows us to take political positions on political issues, which is of course important, and we would be constrained by a different kind of legal structure such as that of a charity.

“But it also means that we are compelled to have a democratic structure as well, which I think is important for questions of accountability and good governance.”

The registration followed months of wrangling about the future of the group, with some activists leaving and people criticising the decision of BLM UK activists to remain out of the limelight, even as donations continued to build.

With the new legal status, the group is preparing to open up. “Once we have all the legal structures in place, which we’re just getting to that point now, we’re excited about holding public events in the future and, of course, inviting people to join,” Elliott Cooper said.