police, riots and povety and anger, A working class fightback is needed

Last night saw some of the worse violence seen in Tottenham since the 1981 Broadwater Farm riots in the 80's. Much has change in the north london area but the same depreivation and low income and gang culture still e xists.

iot in Tottenham
More than 40 people have been arrested after rioting saw police attacked, buildings looted and vehicles set alight in Tottenham, north London.

Twenty-six officers and three others were hurt in the violence which erupted after a protest over the fatal shooting by police of Mark Duggan on Thursday.

Residents surveyed the damage after homes were looted and shops burnt down.

Tottenham MP David Lammy said: "A community that was already hurting has had its heart ripped out."

The Metropolitan Police said two officers were still in hospital.

The people arrested remain in custody for offences including violent disorder, burglary and theft.

Shops and homes were raided and cash machines ripped out in Tottenham. There were also thefts from shops in nearby Wood Green.

Police had earlier said there were still "pockets of criminality" in the area on Sunday morning.

London Fire Brigade received 264 emergency calls late on Saturday and in the early hours of Sunday and attended 49 fires in the Tottenham area.

The BBC's Andy Moore reports from behind police lines after a BBC satellite truck came under attack from youths throwing missiles
Some smoking buildings were still being dampened on Sunday, while police enforced a cordon around the scene of the violence as residents surveyed the damage to their community.


During the riot, which erupted about 20:20 BST, people threw petrol bombs, reducing many buildings and vehicles to charred wrecks.

Among the damage was a double-decker bus, two police cars, and a large building housing a carpet shop.

Crowds of looters smashed shop windows in a retail park near Tottenham Hale tube station.

The front window of Currys electrical store was smashed, and the door of Argos was also shattered, with broken glass covering the floor inside and out after




All this was clearly triggered by a spark caused by a man being shot by police earlier this week. The local community demand answers as to why this happened and the reasons behind this. The fact the local community have not been given any answers the anger has been boiling. But we also cant get away from teh fact that cuts from this tory government are hurting a area like Tottenham and others and this style of riot which became a regular occurance in teh 80's has the potential to spread if cuts are not stopped and a working class fightback is not mounted.

an excellent article from the socialist this year revisiting the Brixton riots of the 80's draws many comparisons to todays events and how a lack of a political voice and a opputunity for young angry people can lead to boiling over of anger into violence.

April 2011 marked the 30th anniversary of the riots in Brixton, south London, against police racism, unemployment and poverty. Today the conditions for new 'Brixtons' are being prepared. The Con-Dem government, like that of Thatcher, has adopted a programme of vicious cuts in jobs and services. Last year saw the first actual fall in living standards in Britain since the recession of three decades ago. Unemployment is rising. There are almost one million young people without jobs in Britain.
Contrary to what some said on the BBC's anniversary programme, conditions in Brixton are not vastly better than 30 years ago. There are similar numbers on the dole - 11,464 registered last year. 50% of unemployed youth in Lambeth are black. Although, following the anti-racist movements of the intervening period, we now see less open racism among the police, it has by no means disappeared.
And the £79 million of cuts, being implemented by a Labour council, in the borough will contribute to widespread misery and possible new eruptions of anger. A week ago, the Guardian referred to Lambeth as the most dangerous borough in Britain. CLARE DOYLE, dubbed 'Red Clare' in the right-wing press at the time for her participation and socialist politics (and red hair!), recounts the events.
On Friday 10 April 1981 a heavy-handed police incident in Railton Road, Brixton, sparked an explosion of pent-up anger that engulfed the area for days. Psyched-up police in full riot gear, many of them openly racist, went into battle with local residents, mostly black. Pelted with bricks, stones and petrol bombs, the police were forced to retreat, some with their riot shields on fire. An angry crowd surged through the central shopping area. Two pubs were burned out, other buildings wrecked, shops had their windows smashed in and their contents were strewn across the pavements.

300 police were injured as well as hundreds of their opponents, many of them too scared to seek medical help in the hospitals. Hundreds were being arrested and summarily charged with 'rioting' and 'looting'. The most intimidating noise and sight was that of the 'Nightsun' helicopter with its searchlight and infra-red camera peering into housing estates and side streets, on the hunt for new victims to put in the police cells.

By the Sunday afternoon, however, an eerie calm had descended on the centre of Brixton. The police had set up blockades around the area with the help of massive reinforcements bussed in from outside - a total of 7,445 policemen had been mobilised for the operation. But a traffic-free and police-free zone now existed, stretching from the west of the Town Hall down to the notorious Brixton police station (whose windows had also been smashed in!).

There was an almost festive atmosphere as the people of Brixton - white as well as black - wandered around to see the damage and discuss the significance of the events. They were joined by a growing number of sightseers and well-wishers.

Tories and police

Not so well-received were the Tory Home Secretary, Willie Whitelaw, and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, David McNee, as they attempted a walk-about to assess the situation. Their talk of "outsiders" fomenting the violence did not wash.

Michael Heseltine, then Tory defence secretary, also visited Brixton (and later Toxteth in Liverpool where riots also took place) with a mandate to find solutions.

But he told reporters that not one extra pound of public spending would be provided by Thatcher's government. In contrast in 1984, mass action by workers in Liverpool forced the same Tory government to concede millions of pounds to the defiant Labour council, led by the Militant Tendency, the fore-runner of the Socialist Party.

The anger that had exploded in Brixton had deep roots. It was born of years of police harassment and outright brutality on top of decades of neglect and deprivation in terms of jobs, housing and social facilities. The previous April, there had been 'riots' or mass disturbances in the St Paul's area of Bristol, another run-down and predominantly black community blighted by unemployment and poverty.

The hated 'Sus' laws, which gave police powers to stop and search merely on 'suspicion', were being used against black youth far more than white. Raids on factories and homes with the aim of deporting immigrant workers were a daily occurrence.

Resentment smouldered in the black communities of south London over a number of recent racist incidents. 13 young black party-goers were killed in a fire in Deptford on the night of 18 January 1981. The police had done little or nothing to find anyone responsible for what was obviously a racially motivated attack.

Unemployment amongst black youth had reached over 50% nationally; it was rising four times faster than amongst white youth. There were 27 school-leavers for every job vacancy in Lambeth. 12,000 people were registered as unemployed at the Brixton dole office in April 1981.

A generation of black youth saw themselves already thrown on the scrap heap. Thatcher's policies were obviously going to do nothing to improve their lot; in fact, they were guaranteed to make things worse.

In Liverpool, where the Toxteth 'riots' took place, the Liberals, under David Alton, had built not one house, whereas when Labour, under the leadership of Militant, came into power, 5,000 homes were built!

Thatcher
In Brixton, the Railton Road area had been due for redevelopment since 1928 and with Thatcher's housing policy, there would now be no prospect of new homes replacing the slums. She was the real criminal, not those she blamed for inflaming the situation in the inner-city areas.

On the very Saturday of the escalation of clashes with the police in Brixton (April 11), the LPYS and Militant had organised a mock trial of Thatcher in nearby Stockwell Hall. The charges against the prime minister were: "Obtaining votes under false pretences; bribery and corruption; fraud; GBH (grievous bodily harm); murder"!

As the police were battening down the hatches in the area, two socialists who had been putting up posters had been arrested and then the organisers of the court-room farce were ordered to bring it to an end! Tension in the area was mounting by the minute.

It was no surprise when Brixton went up in flames that weekend. But as one local man commented, the only surprise was that it had not happened earlier!

On a BBC 4 discussion 'commemorating' 30 years since the Brixton events, police spoke openly about the racism that was rampant in the force. One of them recounted how, during the various police operations in the area, police officers, himself included, would attack Rastafarians with dreadlocks and literally pull their hair out from the roots. Back in the police station they would pin up the 'dreads' as trophies.

Once the April flare-up began, the LPYS and Militant supporters moved into action. They did not consider burning and looting as the way to combat the policies of Thatcher, but they understood what was behind the rage that was unleashed.

They talked to people involved in the battles, to people in local community organisations and in the Labour Party about what could be done, firstly to combat the police rampage and stop the mass arrests, and, secondly to channel this anger into a political fight against the class politics of Thatcher and her government.

They worked rapidly to organise a mass meeting at the Town Hall for the earliest possible date. They got out a leaflet giving their explanation of what had happened and why, and also formulating a programme of demands to express the needs of the hour.

Young socialists
Teams of young (and not so young) socialists went onto the streets. They distributed 30,000 of the rapidly printed leaflets in a meticulously organised door-to-door operation, covering every household in the immediate area.

They went to bus garages, fire stations, hospitals, post office and council depots, factories, local government offices, a milk yard and rail depots to explain the case and seek support. Within two days they had 1,000 signatures on a petition. They put up posters and chalked on the pavements to advertise the public meeting.

By the evening of Wednesday 15 April, 600 agitated, angry and excited people were piling into the Town Hall meeting room to hear and be heard. A resolution to send to Thatcher and her government had been drawn up. It declared that: "the responsibility for the riots in Brixton rests with the police... Also responsible are the Tories and the class they represent, whose system - being run purely for the rich - has pushed unemployment up to three million and bred poverty and slum housing".

It included demands for the immediate withdrawal of the massive police presence from the area, release of all those arrested and dropping of all charges, democratic street committees to defend the areas, an end to stop and search, the disbandment of the hated Special Patrol Group (constantly operating mass swoops in the area), an urgent labour movement inquiry and the "release of funds from central government to be put back into the community".

As the meeting began, someone stood up to insist on an amendment to the very first phrase of the resolution. Instead of "This meeting declares", it should read, "We the people of Brixton, declare..."! That was agreed with a roar of approval. The confidence and enthusiasm of the meeting was palpable.

Many young people signed up to come to an LPYS meeting. Within the next two days 100 were visited and phoned. 45 came to the meeting that weekend.

Benefit gig
Little more than a month later, there were 700 youth packed into a benefit gig, also at the Town Hall, with a bar and a popular band called Aswad playing. The group UB40, along with MPs and many local organisations, including the trades council made contributions towards a fund for assisting the hundreds of arrested people being dragged through the courts.

The Labour Committee for the Defence of Brixton (LCDB) was rapidly set up, involving local black residents' representatives, shop stewards, councillors, lawyers and Labour Party members.

Among them were Bob Lee, secretary of the PNP black socialist youth organisation, Tony Saunois, then on Labour's National Executive Committee from the LPYS, Anne Beales, chair of the London region of the LPYS, local solicitor, Mike Fisher, and two members of Militant's editorial board who lived in the area - Lynn Walsh and myself.

The LCDB came out immediately against the government's proposal for a police inquiry into the Brixton events to be led by Lord Scarman. Why? Firstly, it was precisely that - a police inquiry! Secondly, it was set up by the Tories who were the ones to blame for all the problems that caused the 'riots'. Thirdly, no one giving evidence to the inquiry would be sure not to find themselves incriminated and under arrest!

Lord Scarman had the dubious record of heading a 1969 'Tribunal of Inquiry' into the 'disturbances' in Northern Ireland without putting forward any solution.

The LCDB called for a totally independent labour movement inquiry as a launch pad for a socialist campaign to solve the major social problems behind the outbreaks of violence.

Although the 1974-79 Labour governments had moved decisively from reform to counter-reform, with attempts at restraining wages and attacking the hard-won gains of the working class, now that the Tories were in power, the Labour Party was under pressure to shift to the left.

On its NEC, the LPYS representative pushed for a national demonstration against Tory policies and rising unemployment. Instead, they organised demonstrations around the country, which turned out to be massive.

Lambeth
In Lambeth, as well as many other working class strongholds, unlike today, the local Labour Parties were still relatively combative and socialist, at least in name. Labour councillors and MPs responded favourably to the efforts of the Lambeth LPYS and sent money and support to the LCDB. The London Labour Party Executive circulated the LCDB material, as did the district offices of the NUPE, TGWU and AUEW trade unions.

The most important task of socialists at that time was to expose the real causes of the uprising in Brixton. They demanded radical changes in policing practice as well as an end to the Thatcher government. They also campaigned for a Labour government on a socialist programme to take its place - something unthinkable today!

Socialists warned that, unless the cuts and attacks on public spending were reversed and the harassment of black and Asian communities by the police was stopped, there would be more flare-ups - in Brixton and in other inner-city deprived areas.

In early July, while tens of thousands of activists were marching in Cardiff on one of the Labour Party protests against unemployment, the Liverpool area of Toxteth exploded, then Salford, then Bristol again and Birmingham and 20 or so other towns and cities across Britain.

Militant
Militant received a sudden flurry of publicity in the press and on TV when 'Red Clare' appeared in Toxteth at the time of the violent clashes there. We used this opportunity to explain who the real culprits were - Thatcher and the Tories. We did not condone, but understood the actions of the harassed and desperate youth of these deprived areas of Britain.

Towards the end of July, Brixton kicked off again. Police decided to raid eleven households in the Railton Road area on the pretext that they were where Molotov cocktails had been manufactured and stored.

They wrecked people's homes and terrified whole families. A new uprising was in the making.

The Labour Committee for the Defence of Brixton was still busy with the work of taking evidence from victims of the April conflagration and monitoring the level of police activity in the area. It moved into action immediately - condemning the action of the police thugs and demanding compensation for all those affected by the raids.

The events of 1981 - the levels of police violence and racism that were revealed and the 'findings' of the Scarman Inquiry - led to the stepping up of attempts to introduce 'community policing'.

Militant and the LPYS took the idea further, calling for democratic control over the police and policing and the right of the police to organise in unions and to strike.

In the year before the Brixton explosion, a mood was developing for the TUC trade union leadership to call a general strike against the Tories and their austerity programme. This was eventually watered down into a 'day of action'.

Similar demands are developing today and a similar reluctance to take action is displayed on the part of the TUC leaders. If they do not move into action, the scenes of despair and explosions of anger like those of 1981 will be back on our streets. Deprived areas of major cities - if not the central areas, then the 'banlieus' or outskirts as in France - will be the scene of new conflagrations.

Looking at the dramatic events of 30 years ago is a timely reminder of just how vital it is to forge a united workers' struggle to end unemployment and poverty. Trade union action and the building of a mass party of workers with a socialist programme, including mass job creation, are now the only way ahead for avoiding riots and mindless destruction.

Socialism is less heard of today than in 1981 but the struggle for nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy and democratic planning to solve the major problems in society is more urgent than ever.

Government Con-demned at the ballot box

The general election of May 2010 seems a lifetime ago. For the thousand richest people in Britain, whose wealth has increased by 18%, the year that followed has been a resounding success.

The number of billionaires increased from 53 to 73. For the rest us the year has brought pain, with the biggest fall in family income since 1977 and cuts and privatisation of public services on an unprecedented scale.

The misery inflicted by the Coalition has not been taken lying down. We have seen the biggest student movement in twenty five years, and the biggest trade union demonstration in Britain's history.

At the end of June co-ordinated strike action against the cuts will begin.

Last Thursday however, was the first opportunity for voters to pass judgement on the Coalition at the ballot box. As was widely predicted beforehand, the Liberal Democrats bore the brunt of the population's anger, losing 700 councillors in England and 12 members of the Scottish Parliament.

Slapped, punched and kicked...
As Jonathon Freedland put in the Guardian: "The party was not just given a bloody nose by the electorate: it was slapped, punched, kicked and finally knifed before being left for dead."

The overwhelming defeat of the AV referendum was also a reflection of the population's fury with its main advocates, the Liberal Democrats. Some media commentators have attacked the electorate for voting in the referendum on 'trivial' grounds.

But given a rotten choice between two bad systems, why not vote in order to punish the Liberal Democrats? As even Nick Clegg admitted before the election, AV was a 'dirty little compromise' which would have been no fairer or more proportional than the existing system.

The Tories, by contrast, are breathing a sigh of relief that they have, for now, escaped the electoral consequences of their brutal policies. There are several reasons for this.

In the working class cities of the North the Tories are still hated for the crimes of Thatcher. As a result they had no councillors to lose.

The same is true in parts of London, where there were no elections this year.

Tories
In most of England, however, Tory councils still dominate, despite some gains for Labour including in Gravesham and Ipswich. The Tories were even able to marginally increase their numbers of councillors, largely by making gains from the Liberal Democrats.

This is no surprise - after all why vote for the monkey if you can have the organ grinder?

However, it would be a major error to assume the Tories will escape in future elections. A year into the Coalition government, there is still a section of society who believe the Tory propaganda that it was New Labour's policies in government that were responsible for the misery that is now being inflicted.

However, the Tories have only escaped punishment because the cuts, brutal as they are, are only just beginning to bite at local level. As local services close around voters' ears, anger at the government will increase, including in the seemingly safe Tory shires.

The Tories are aware of the electoral dangers they face, as was demonstrated by their hasty retreat from Suffolk County Council's plans to become an 'Easy' council and privatise virtually all of its services.

Nationally Labour gained over 800 seats despite, not because of, its policies. Millions voted Labour to punish the government, and in the hope that Labour councils would cut less brutally than those led by the Tories or Liberal Democrats. However, they did so without real enthusiasm.

Scotland
In Scotland, the SNP beat Labour decisively. A major factor in this was Liberal Democrat voters switching to the SNP.

However, the SNP also won in some working class inner city seats which were traditional Labour strongholds. This reflected a feeling that the SNP would be far more likely than Labour to fight in the interest of the working class in Scotland.

In reality, the SNP will attack, not defend, workers' living standards. However, the rejection of Labour for a seemingly more combative alternative is an illustration of workers' distrust of Labour, not just in Scotland but across Britain.

Even in Wales, where Labour made gains, it was left one seat short of a majority. Fundamentally, Labour's woeful failure to provide a combative and coherent opposition to the government flows from its support for the essence of the government's policies.

When in power Labour acted in the interests of big business, and in particular of finance capital. More privatisation of public services took place when New Labour was in office than under any previous government.

The deregulation of the City which began under the last Tory government continued apace under New Labour.

When the economic crisis began, New Labour bailed out the banks and demanded that working class people paid the price. Just like the Tories and Lib Dems, Labour support huge cuts in public services, just at a marginally slower rate.

New Labour said it would carry out cuts
In the last election New Labour said it would carry out cuts equal to 4/5ths of those being carried out by the current government. It is no surprise that, at local level, Labour councils are implementing government cuts without hesitation.

Such is the weakness of the Labour leadership they do not even seem to seriously aspire to a majority Labour government. On the contrary, Ed Miliband has again appealed to the hated Lib Dems, obviously trying to prepare the ground for a future Labour/Liberal coalition.

Labour was founded a century ago because the working class was no longer prepared to back the capitalist Liberal party. The development of Labour as - at base - a mass party of the working class, albeit with a capitalist leadership, marginalised the Liberals for an historical era.

It is ironic that today Labour is chasing after the Liberal Democrats just as the Liberal Democrats face electoral annihilation. It confirms again that Labour today is not a mass party of the working class but is one more capitalist party.

These elections demonstrate the worthlessness of the unspoken strategy of most national trade union leaders - to defeat the cuts by voting Labour. The election results will have bought home the need for coordinated strike action against the cuts to many trade unionists.

The weakness of the Coalition government has also been graphically highlighted by the election campaign. The cracks in the Coalition have become fissures.

This does not mean that it is about to collapse, although the pressure of different events - in particular of a mass movement of the working class - could break the government apart within a short period of time.

However, as the attempts since the election of Cameron and Clegg to declare peace show, neither party has any interest in breaking up the Coalition. For the cash-strapped and profoundly unpopular Liberal Democrats, triggering an early general election would be committing Hari Kari.

Coalition
Some on the right wing of the Tory party are bleating that Cameron should take advantage of the election results and break up the coalition in the vain hope that the collapse of the Liberal Democrats would deliver a Tory majority.

The leadership of the Tory party know better and, given their complete dominance of the Coalition, have no pressing reason to bring it to an end. However, as Philip Stevens commented in the Financial Times, "coalitions rot from the bottom up".

At the top, the Coalition parties are clinging to each other and to power. For the Lib Dem activists who are watching their party being destroyed, however, it is a different story.

Clegg
The ousted Lib Dem leader of Nottingham City Council has called for Clegg to resign immediately.

In response to the pressure of the party rank and file, Clegg has promised to be more "independent" of the Tories and for "a louder Lib Dem voice in government".

Objectively, the Lib Dem voice in government is now weaker than ever, but the pressure of Clegg and co. to stand up the Tories over the destruction of the NHS and the scale of the cuts is enormous.

To fail to do so will also be to commit Hari Kari, albeit more slowly.

Therefore the removal of Clegg, splits in the Lib Dems, and even their withdrawal from the government are all possibilities. The Lib Dems might then back an unstable Tory minority government from outside on a 'grace and favour' basis, or perhaps trigger a general election.

There are a number of fault lines for the government, including the difficulties that could be created at a later stage by a referendum in Scotland on independence.

Profound crisis of capitalism
But however it is manifested, the root of the government's weakness is the continuing profound crisis of capitalism in general and British capitalism in particular.

Far from being over, the economic crisis in Britain is ongoing. According to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research Britain output will not reach the levels of 2008 until 2013. And even this may be optimistic.

The latest figures show that manufacturing, previously the part of the economy that had stuttered into growth, now has the second lowest level of new orders since the recovery began in 2009.

The fall in orders is a reflection of very weak demand in Britain, rather than reflecting the weakness Britain's puny exports.

No wonder. On average, workers are taking home £1,088 less a year than two years ago.

Their real pay has fallen by 5% since the beginning of 2009, which was half way through the recession. As the Bank of England governor Mervyn King admitted, workers are already suffering the most sustained fall in wages since the 1920s.

Bad as they are, the government's cuts have only just begun to bite, and will dramatically further depress demand. It is a pipe dream to imagine that British capitalism will be able to compensate with increased exports against a background of a profound crisis of Europe and world capitalism.

No way out

Half-million strong TUC demo, central London, 26 March 2011, against the government's cuts, photo Senan (Click to enlarge)
British capitalism has no way out other than to attempt to offload the crisis on the working class.

However, they are already facing mass resistance to their attempts to do so. The working class flexed its muscles on 26 March - when over half a million people marched in opposition to the cuts.

At the end of June the PCS and NUT, perhaps along with others, will strike together against the cuts and in defence of public sector pensions. In the other public sector unions the call for co-ordinated strike action is growing.

A 24 hour public sector general strike is on the agenda for 2011. This would terrify the government.

The working class in Britain now needs its own political voice more urgently than ever. The Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts candidates in the local elections, who received 25,000 votes, were a step in that direction.

Over the next year the anti-cuts movement can draw the conclusion that it is necessary to stand far more widely to offer an electoral alternative to the axe men and women.

Most importantly, faced with the barbarity of twenty first century capitalism, a growing number of workers and young people are searching for socialist ideas.

Our most important task in the immediate period is to reach them with a clear socialist programme.