Bombings in London

You can't kill us all!

Jane Kelly and Susan Moore

The first two attacks were targeted at areas with large black communities: first Brixton in South London where about 40 per cent of the population is Afro-Caribbean, then Brick Lane in east London, home to the Bangladeshi community.

On Friday 30 April, the third bomb went off in a packed gay bar in Old Compton Street, in Soho, The bombing of a gay bar was not unexpected, indeed the police had been warning leaders of the lesbian and gay community to be on guard against possible further attacks.

The police were initially reluctant to accept that the Brixton bomb was racist in intention, but after claims by Combat 18, the White Wolves and later several other neo-Fascist groupings, that they were responsible and then the second bomb in Tower Hamlets, it became clear that these vicious acts were aimed at the traditional targets of the far right.

Prominent members of the black community had received a series of particularly threatening letters in the weeks leading up to the bombs telling them to get out of Britain before the millennium. The hand of the far right was apparent.

The day after the Soho bomb an arrest was made and the man is still being held. Police are claiming that explosive material was found in his house outside London. They say he has no connection with any far right organisation and was not responsible for any of the claims made. The brief police statement, seemed designed to suggest that this was an individual "crank" acting for "personal motives". Since the arrest there has been silence in the media.

Whether or not the individual(s) involved are members of any known far right group, there can be no doubt that the bigotry and hatred that led to these attacks is identical with that propagated by these groups.

There has also been an continued escalation of hate letters to lesbian and gay and black organisations since the arrest.

Why has this happened now, and what does it mean about the state of the far right political groupings in Britain?

One significant element was the publication of the Macpherson Inquiry Report into Stephen Lawrence’s murder, with its far-reaching criticisms of the police and the labelling of the Metropolitan Police force as ‘institutionally racist’, has given the black community greater confidence.

The founding meeting of a new National Civil Rights Movement in Britain, held in March this year and modelled on the American example, proved yet again how necessary it is for the black community, along with the Irish and those seeking political asylum in Britain, to organise together to fight racism. Numerous family campaigns, fighting for justice in cases of deaths in police custody and racist murders were represented at the meeting.

While the ‘New’ Labour government is following Tory policies with regard to economics and employment as well as continuing the programme of privatisation, on some social issues such as the gay age of consent (in the process of being equalised with the heterosexual age) they are more progressive.

Of course even on social issues their policies and actions are contradictory. While the Labour Party in opposition promised to set up the inquiry into the Lawrence affair, which they did when elected, at the same time they are putting in place legislation against asylum seekers which is even more draconian than that introduced by their Tory predecessors.

This is the context in which the far right finds itself extremely isolated and on the defensive. While they have been able to kill and maim with their lethal nail bombs, the response by the population of London has been to organise meetings and demonstrations and to argue that an attack on any one section of the community is an attack on us all. This latter has been the line adopted by government ministers too. This was the theme behind the demonstration held in London on May 1.

Traditionally a labour movement demonstration, it was transformed into an alliance of the working class and the oppressed, with a march from Brixton to the May Day demo in Trafalgar Square and then continuing on to Soho. Such a coalition has not been seen since the great Miners’ Strike of 1984-5, when solidarity with the miners included the labour movement, women’s groups, lesbian and gay organisations, black and Irish groups.

One debate which has resulted is the question of whether to ban the far right groups associated with these outrages. Ken Livingstone has called for the introduction of a Prevention of Terrorism Act against the right, and for far right groups to be banned. Home Secretary Jack Straw has said he is not persuaded that this would be of any help, since banning would simply drive them further underground.

Socialist Outlook is opposed to any introduction of further state measures, including the banning of political organisations, which would inevitably then be used against the left as well as the right.

Instead street demonstrations and self-defence must be the response. It seems that this is the response of those groups directly targeted and most of the rest of the population too. "YOU CAN’T KILL US ALL" said the posters put up around Soho after the bomb went off.