London Calling

British riots: a crisis of ideology and political leadership
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
By Richard Seymour, London

You’ve probably heard it said a dozen times today: “It’s like 28 Days Later out there.”

Every thirty seconds, there’s a new riot zone.

I’ve rarely known the capital to be this wound up. It’s kicked off in East Ham, then Whitechapel, then Ealing Broadway (really?), then Waltham Forest… It’s kicked off in Croydon, then Birmingham, then (just a rumour so far) Bradford…

The banlieues (outer-suburbs) of Britain are erupting in mass civil unrest.

Until now, the claim has been that this is merely a criminal enterprise. At a stretch, it was orchestrated criminality, using Twitter and Blackberry messenger.

If you’re following what’s happening in Britain, that’s an impossible position to sustain. A few looters here and there might be evidence of little more than opportunism.

But clashes with police in several major cities, including the two largest cities, doesn’t look like mere entrepreneurialism to me.

And as it spreads to hitherto unexpected places, it certainly doesn’t look orchestrated.

Part of the reason for the spread is probably that the aura of invincibility on the part of British riot police has been seriously damaged by these riots.

Protesters in Britain are used to being contained and out-manouevered by police. That makes it seem as if the police are omnipotent.

This situation has underlined very clearly that law and order is generally maintained by consent, not coercion. The police are not all powerful, despite their technological and organisational advantages, which is why they rely on good “community relations”.

In those areas where there are long-standing grievances and sources of resentment, it seems, that consent has been withdrawn. As a result of the unpredictable way in which this unrest has unfolded, the police have ended up being out-played, and sometimes out-numbered.

Yet, as important, there is also an underlying crisis of ideology and political leadership for the police.

Amid the Hackgate scandal, which has shattered their credibility, and following the killing of a suspect under circumstances that were only ineffectually and temporarily concealed, they are (potentially) facing a complete collapse in relations with black British communities.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and the police leadership will be evacuating themselves over this prospect. The painstaking attempts to overcome the complete mutual hatred and distrust that characterised such relations in the 1980s made some headway.

Of course, police harrassment, brutality, killing in custody, and so on, did not come to an end. Institutional racism proved durable.

But there was definitely an amelioration between Broadwater Farm and the Lawrence Inquiry. And that is one advance which, I believe, they don’t want to put through the historical shredder.

So, despite politicians such as the Liberal Simon Hughes ranting and demanding that the police use the water cannon, and despite the ritual denunciations and tough talk about the law from (another Liberal) Lynne Featherstone, I suspect the police are quite unsure as to how they’re supposed to be handling this. …more