Cops out of Brixton!

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Brixton continues "under an army of occupation". Steps are being taken "to set up the centration camps." same apparatus as in conThe dramatic words are not those of any "outside extremist" but of the leader of Lambeth council, Ted Knight.

lis angry speech wa nade at the first majo public meeting to be held in Brinst the pole April azallisi Lic pole on Hon 11 and 12.

The meeting was called by the Labour Party Young Socialists and was attended by 400 people, about equal numbers of black and white and drew together a very broad political and social cross section of the people of Brixton.

The large attendance at the meeting and its militant atmosphere expressed the near insurrectionary atmosphere which the police occupation Brixton has provoked.

Many experiences of this occupation were brought into the meeting by contributions from the floor (for which too little time was allowed): the Operation Swamp 81 in which the police had raided many Brixton homes in the two weeks before the uprising and questioned 1,000 people in a week; the possible link between the police and the fascists; the fact that of over 200 arrested the Defence Committee could still only account for the whereabouts of 80. - Despite these and other accounts of the repression of black people, there was in the meeting, as there had been in the rioting on the streets, a complete absence of racial hostility.

Provocative

The anger of both blacks and whites remained focussed on the vast and provocative police presence.

One of the most vocally supported demands of the meeting was for the complete withdrawal of the police from the area and the dropping of all the charges.

Ted Knight told of the arrogant reply of the chief of police to his own demand for the withdrawal of the police. The commander claimed that by his saturation policing he had "returned the arca to normal"

Ted Knight also reported on his unsuccessful request to Heseltine for government money to repair the damage.

Heseltine had said: "My cabinet colleagues don't like you or Lambeth and they wouldn't trust you with any money"; the cabinet "would have me certified if I gave you any money"

Knight put the blame for Lambeth's problems on the Tories. "They're responsible. The system's responsible." His answer was for a political fight to organise and mobilise the people of Lambeth and to link them with mobilised people elsewhere, especially in inner city areas.

The fight must also be organised in the Labour Party to get rid of people like Roy Hattersley who had supported the police presence. "People like that shouldn't be allowed to lead the labour movement .. We have to see that the Labour Party represents the working class.

Not answerable Returning to the question of the police, Knight said that "we want to break the Metropolitan Police because it is no longer answerable to anyone but itself.

"We don't want a little watch committee ... we want a police force answerable to the elected representatives of the labour movement."

And concluding, in answer to a question, Knight said «We won't vote out capitalists and exploiters. We can only throw them out physically. We are revolutionaries.

Workers' inquiry

Like virtually the whole meeting Knight expressed himself in favour of a labour movement inquiry into the Brixton events.

Only John Tilley, the Lambeth Central MP thought that, as well, there should be cooperation with the old, white, male judge Scarman "or it will be used against us". He got no support in the meeting for this position.

If the speeches made at this meeting were to be taken seriously by the large and expectant audience then they would have high expectations of the Lambeth It is crucially important that these expectations should be fulfilled and not betrayed.

It is unfortunate, therefore, that the meeting missed the opportunity to do three things which are essential if the Brixton uprising is to grow into a successful political movement against oppression rather than be dissipated into despair and disillusion.

The first thing is that concrete steps should be taken at once to organise a labour movement and black movement public inquiry.

The meeting approved a resolution to that effect and launched a petition in favour of it but failed to take further steps which are needed at once.

Second, the organisers of the meeting made no call for a demonstration or any further mass action against the police occupation of Brixton. They accepted the cancellation of the proposed Easter Sunday rally by Rudi Narayan and the other leaders of the Brixton Defence Committee under intimidatory threats from the police.

Divisions

And third, no concrete steps were launched to break down the black/white organisational division of Lambeth politics. Given the composition of the audience something could have been done towards this-urgent aim.

Also the meeting failed to allow enough time for floor discussion, especially of the next steps and some efforts to intervene on this were cut down with unnecessary bureaucracy from the platform.

But these errors and missed opportunities are not enough to dampen the Face to face with the law militant resistance the attendance.' It is now the urgent task of socialists in the Lambeth labour and black movements to see that that resistance is chanelled into a massive political fight against Thatcher and her police. By Sean Matgamna