Notting Hill- Workers Must Defend Black Community

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Photo: Sue Boato Who can protect workers on the streets of Notting Hill? The police or black workers themselves?

This is the most important question being asked by workers in the aftermath of the Notting Hill Carnival, and this was the very question raised by London police commissioner Sir Robert Mark when he raised the issue of *no-go areas" in London.

After. the Notting Hill Carnival had been entirely free of trouble for two days, Mark says he found it necessary to draft almost 1600 policemen into the area on the final day.

What possible justification was there for having police gathering threateningly on every street corner in groups of five or six, like an occupying army?

CYNICAL

The reasons given by Mark for this move are a cynical fraud. Does he really expect anyone to believe that it was to 'catch pick-pockets'?

His refusal to shift from this line reflects the golden rule of all police chiefs when dealing with the public: choose a story, and then stick to it, regardless of how far from the truth it may be.

To find the real reason behind Mark's strategy one has to ask the same questions in comparable situations.

Why do large numbers of policecars patrol working class housing estates in British cities? Why are there vast numbers of police in black townships in South Africa?

Why are the Catholic council estates in Londonderry and Belfast thronged with British soldiers and Why are there massed police at picket lines, big political meetings and demonstrations?

The answer is the same in each case; the police are the private army of the forces of capital, used to control and intimidate the working class in every aspect of their lives.

When Notting Hill's Tory 'Residents Associations' and business men objected to the carnival taking place on 'their streets', and when their mouthpiece on the Tory-controlled Kensington and Chelsea council, Alderman Peter Methuen, tailed to get the Carnival stopped, then it was the police who obligingly swamped the streets of Notting Hill to teach the black man his place; to prevent thousands of people from enjoying themselves on a traditional occasion.

Most of the time, working people put up with the constant, nagging presence of the police in their midst, but occasionally, after blatant bouts of intimidation, a working class community loses its patience.

Immediately they see the true repressive role of the police and at the same time begin to see what is necessary to protect themselves from this repression; their own combined strength.

This is what happened at the Notting Hill Carnival, and this is why Mark was forced into posing the question 'who rules the streets?' The same question was posed in Southall after the racist murders and violence against Asian youth in June and it is constantly being posed in Soweto, Capetown and Londonderry.

The policeman is the enemy of the black worker above all - this was underlined by the recent national campaign to recruit coloured people into the police force, which ended in almost total failure. But even more important, he is the class enemy of the are firmly based in the labour and trade union movement.

This is crucial at the present time, when the trouble at Notting Hill is being used by fascists to whip up racial hatred, and rightwing MPs such as Michael Brotherton, are baying for increased police powel, more repressive anti-working class legislation, and stricter immigration controls.

COWERING

In the Portobello Road on Monday night, immediately after the fighting, bands of police were cowering in shop doorways, still clinging to their improvised shields Conference therefore: patient insurance plans;

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