LONDON-During the month of July, Britain's major cities witnessed large scale rebellions against the Tory government of Margaret Thatcher.
The youth, in scenes reminiscent of those in Northern Ireland, have thrown stones and petrol bombs at the police; created temporary "no go" areas and built barricades; and helped themselves to a variety of consumer goods, mainly from the large chain stores. Aside from the General Strike in 1926, these rebellions represent the biggest elemental outburst since the time of the Chartist movement over 100 years ago.
The scale, persistence and generalized character of these rebellions has sent the Tory government into a spin. As the world's television screens have testified, these were not the work of a small group of "agitators," but mass rebellions.
The Tory response has been to contemptuously dismiss the call to reverse their socialexpenditure cuts and wildly deflationary economic policies. Instead, they have extended police repression.
In a July 14 statement to the House of Commons on the morrow of the first wave of rebellions, Thatcher snarled at the meek questioning by the Labour Party opposition: "This is no time for detailed analysis—we have a problem. We are not going to be able to deal in practice with the economic and social aspects of it until law is restored and seen to be restored."
Then, to the astonishment of even her own Cabinet colleagues, Thatcher went on television to deny that her policies, particularly the deliberate promotion of mass unemployment, had anything to do with the rebellion.
In line with this preposterous view, Tory ministers have located the essence of the matter in the lack of "parental discipline." In pursuit of reinforcing this discipline, they have sanctioned the use of water cannon, CS tear gas and plastic bullets not used previously outside British-occupied Northern Ireland.
Mass arrests
The police have taken the bit between their teeth. In the week prior to July 13, 2,554 young people were arrested. Each day brings a new crop of arrests either in the course of further outbreaks or as a result of police raids. Home Secretary William Whitelaw has turned over an army camp to house the large numbers which are being given prison sentences.
In a move which illustrates how the Irish war is being used against the working class in Britain, several senior British police officers have been rushed to Northern Ireland for onthe-spot briefings about the use of repressive street tactics. Meanwhile, in a number of cities, specially trained and equipped police squads have been let loose to terrorize the youth.
In the Toxteth area of Liverpool on July 27, a youth who the police claimed was throwing stones was deliberately knocked down by a police van and killed. In addition, police have used the pretext of what they call "looting" to stage intimidating raids.
On the evening of July 11, several hundred police officers staged a raid in the largely Black neighborhood of Brixton in south London, one of the centers of the rebellions. On the pretext of searching for "petrol bombs," the police virtually destroyed the eleven houses that they broke into. Needless to say no such bombs were found.
John Fraser, the local Labour member of Parliament, described what he saw in a speech to the House of Commons: "I went to five shops and three houses in the Railton Road in Brixton. I was aghast and stupefied by what I saw... When I looked inside the properties, the degree of damage was beyond comprehension ... as regards two houses, ! could come to no conclusion other than that a large number of policemen had deliberately set out to wreck the houses to make them uninhabitable by taking up floor boards, breaking water pipes, removing gas and electricity meters, hand rails and bannisters, and smashing almost every window."
Not surprisingly, the immediate cause of the rebellions in most places was the history of police repression and its recent intensification. Especially important in these rebellions is the developing unity between Black and white youth.
To be sure, one of the immediate causes of the rebellion in the west London area of Southall was the invasion of the community by several hundred white "skinheads"-supporters of fascist organizations-and the protection they received from the police. But the actual course of the youth rebellion has been to present a different road-one of Black and white unity. Indeed, in many areas, especially the Toxteth area of Liverpool, we have seen the first army of Black and white soldiers with Black generals.
Escalating youth unemployment
The main factor behind the rebellions is, of course, the rapidly escalating social and economic crisis now hitting British society—a crisis which the Tory government has done everything in its power to exacerbate.
The international capitalist recession has gone deeper in Britain than any other advanced capitalist country. [See "The Economic Disaster in Britain," Intercontinental Press, June 1, page 590.J There is as yet no sign that the bottom has been reached. Industrial production in June showed a further decline of 0.7%.
Unemployment in July was officially over 2.8 million-some 12% of the total workforce. In the ghettos, the figures are of course much higher. In Toxteth, according to the July 7 London Guardian, white unemployment is 43% and Black unemployment is 47%. More that 60% of Black youth there are estimated to be unemployed.
Similarly in the Brixton area of London, where three-quarters of the inhabitants are Black, unemployment has been estimated to be 19%; and over 50% among Black youth. This compares with the average for the whole London area of 7.5% (London Times May 14, 1981).
But a catastrophic situation faces all youth. In January of this year, one-third of all those unemployed were below the age of 25, that is, 931,000 jobless young people. The rate of increase has been accelerating. In 1980, youth unemployment increased by 70%, and has gotten worse in the first half of 1981.
Unemployment among those who just left school is reaching catastrophic proportions. Between May and June, the figures leapt from 100,000 to 214,000. Another 70,000 joined them in July. Moreover, this underestimates the situation as many young people have not yet registered for work because of the newly introduced Tory rules which deny school leavers any unemployment benefit till September.
This horrendous unemployment situation combines with the effect of massive spending cuts on housing, community services, and education. Unemployment and social security benefits have also been scaled down and made more difficult to obtain.
Added to this has been the growing intensity of police repression against youth and, in the case of Black people, the additional problem of fascist attacks.
Deepening polarization
Bad social and economic conditions do not always lead to rebellion. Lying behind the extent and scope of the reaction of the youth is their refusal to accept that this has to be their lot. They refuse to accept that the actions of this viciously right-wing government are legitimate.
In this respect the youth stand on the shoulders of their parents, who despite the ferocity of the assault by this Tory government, have not been defeated. The rebellions have therefore deepened the crisis of the Tory government. The much vaunted intransigence of the "Iron Lady" is being shown up as an inflexible course which threatens political suicide.
Thatcher's monetarismthat is, her policy of using mass unemployment to break the back of the organized workers movement—needed quick results. This was not achieved.
The recession in Britain has been deliberately deepened and prolonged to such an extent that the economic situation is threatening to get out of control and go into a tail spin. For several months, the bosses who share her overall strategy have nonetheless been arguing for Thatcher to modify her rigid monetarist stance —and indeed in several unpublicized ways, she has been trying to comply.
But any across-the-board turn made in a context where this would appear to be in response to the pressure of the working class would represent a defeat not only for Thatcher, but for the whole ruling class drive to shift the burden of the crisis onto the working class.
At the same time, to let things go on as they are means storing up much bigger political problems. The July 25 issue of the Economist summed up the matter fairly accurately: "July's unemployment figures failed to reach the 3 million carefully threatened by the unemployment department; but hot riots now matter more than cold statistics. The Chancellor must find some way of reviving the economy without obviously reflating.
The need for such conjuring is pressing. The new wages round is almost upon us, yet the last one has not been settled. Thatcher has shown that in open struggle she has not even been able to clearly defeat the white-collar civil servants. This is aside from her humiliating defeat by the miners in March, after which she so badly needed a victory to restore her battered image. [See "How miners beat back Tory offensive," IP, June 29, page 690.]
Yet, on the basis of a certain success in the private sector—where the sheer weight of unemployment has kept wage rises down below 10%—Thatcher has projected a maximum 5% figure for the next wages round. This in face of a rate of inflation which has no chance of going below the 11.3% chalked up in July.
What the youth rebellion has shown is that the mood in the working class is changing. One important sign of this is the throwing down of a gauntlet to Thatcher by the miners at their recent national conference. By an overwhelming majority, they demanded a wage increase which amounts to 25%.
This demand was seen as a direct challenge to Thatcher's economic policy.
So, to avoid appearing weak, Thatcher has refused all appeals to put money into the inner city areas. She has relied almost exclusively on repression.
A sign of the regime's intent on this front is the appointment of Environment Minister Michael "Tarzan" Heseltine to head up a government investigation team into the so-called riots. Heseltine has been instrumental in imposing cuts in local government finances and imposing vindictive financial punishment on councils which "overspend." His first insulting words on arriving in Liverpool to begin a twoweek investigative stay was that he had not come "with a crock of gold."
Electoral disaster for Tories
Such a course is political suicide. In a recent parliamentary by-election in Warrington, a town close to Liverpool, the Tory vote was cut from 29% to 7%. To be sure, the main beneficiary of this Tory loss of votes was the press-created Social Democratic Party (SDP), a right-wing split from the Labour Party.
At the same time, 12% of the Social Democratic votes came from Labour. This reflects the fact that a certain more backward layer of workers would prefer not to have to take sides in the developing polarization in British society. The SDP seems to present a moderate "middle way."
Moreover, the thoroughly timid way in which Labour responded to the rebellions didn't inspire much confidence. As a result some working people were frightened by the form which the rebellions took.
But the extent of the press attention to the SDP "miracle" should not be allowed to obscure the catastrophe that this election represents for the Tories.
Warrington was just one indication of the hesitancy with which British workers have approached the rebellions. There has been little immediate support from the mass of workers. This is little wonder given the stance of the official leadership of the labor movement.
To be sure, the Labour Party's parliamentary leadership opposed some of the most outrageous proposals of the Tories, such as the sanctioning of the use of water cannon, CS gas, and plastic bullets. But they have generally joined the Tory chorus against the "breakdown of law and order" and the need to restore it.
They have generally rejected, therefore, the call for the labor movement to investigate the role of the police, and the demand for the disbanding of the Special Patrol Groups.
Left-wing leaders of the Labour Party have, however, struck a different note. Tony Benn, in a message sent from his sick bed to a meeting of the left-wing Labour Coordinating Committee on July 18, noted that "rioting was not the road to social progress" but went on to warn of an increasingly authoritarian state whose mailed fist was manifest in a policy of "transforming the police into temporary armies of occupation in the areas where the trouble has occurred."
This general point was echoed by Arthur Scargill, president of the militant Yorkshire miners and favorite for the national union presidency in the upcoming elections. He warned that Britain was "on the verge of a totalitarian society" and explained that the root cause of the rebellions was "the rotten capitalist system" which has to be replaced.
More intransigently yet, Ken Livingstone, left-wing leader of the Greater London Council, fully supported the youth in both Brixton and Southall. He explained they were "fighting for their liberation."
Militants in the various defense committees which are now springing up, as well as in the unions and the Labour Party, have been translating this sentiment into demands for a complete amnesty for all those arrested and for the labor movement to initiate its own enquiry into the behavior of the police.
These demands are likely to get a more and more sympathetic ear inside the working class as the situation unfolds. Initially, opinion polls indicated that a large majority of British workers supported more police action. But as the police go on the rampage like in Brixton and in Toxteth, and as the facts of the extent of police actions during the rebellions comes out, this sentiment is rapidly changing. Now there is very strong support for the dismissal of the police chiefs not only in Liverpool, after the murder of one of the youth, but also of the chief police commissioner himself.
This changing attitude coincides with the generalized appreciation that the root cause of the problem is unemployment and that it is the Tory government that is responsible for that. The potential exists, therefore, for the upsurge of youth to spur the developing confrontation of the working class with the Tory government.
The Irish war comes home
The youth rebellion has also contributed to bringing another issue to the center of British politics. It is quite clear that the youth, without yet consciously identifying with the anti-imperialist struggle of the Irish people as such, have picked up and been inspired by the methods of struggle of Irish youth. This is the first step to actually solidarizing with the Irish struggle.
It is now clear that the determination and mass character of the mobilizations of the oppressed Catholic population in Northern Ireland in the face of Thatcher's murderous policies towards the hunger strikers, has struck a major body-blow against the traditional Tory/ Labour bipartisan policy towards Ireland.
Already Tony Benn has issued a call for the withdrawal of British troops from Ireland. Although Benn coupled this demand with the idea of replacing them with a United Nations force, his call nonetheless puts the responsibility for the problem of Ireland onto the British government.
More recently still, the Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) has adopted a policy which advances the long-term goal of British policy as that of Irish unification. This policy leaves even more to be desired than the position of Tony Benn and it is likely to be challenged strongly from the left at the upcoming Labour Party conference where it will be a central issue of debate. Even as it stands, however, such a call by the Labour Party undercuts the real policy of the ruling class towards Ireland. It will reinforce the sentiment of the 67% of the British people reportedly favoring British withdrawal.
These developments, together with the growing international isolation of Thatcher on her Irish policy, feeds into and exacerbates the general political crisis of the Tory government.
Bring down the Tories!
Socialists have a vital role to play in ensuring that the labor movement reaches out to the youth in revolt. This not only means defending the youth against Tory repression, but also organizing them and fighting for an alternative to what the Tories are proposing.
James Prior, the misnamed Tory Employment Secretary, has been presented by the press as having fought a major battle in the Cabinet to expand the Youth Opportunities Scheme (YOPS), a program for giving a few months work experience and training to young school leavers. His great victory will be worth the magnificent sum of £90 million this year!
This program is merely cosmetic. The Tory's real answer to the situation is to try to use the hiring of youth to drive down the level of wages and weaken the organization of the working class. This nasty scheme has been thought up by Thatcher's "free market" economic adviser Alan Walters. His proposal is to give a £15 subsidy to any employer that hires a young worker so long as it is below the established union rates and below a maximum of £40 per week-about ⅓ of the average wage.
The present alternative proposals of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to meet the crisis are woefully inadequate. They have fully endorsed the Youth Opportunities Scheme fraud. After the first rebellions, Len Murray, general secretary of the TUC, proposed an immediate cash injection of £500 million.
Of course any cash injection is to be welcomed. But when the "margin of error" built into the budget projections for government borrowing is £3 to f4 billion and when the government has slashed twice that amount off public spending since it came into office, such a proposal pales into insignificance. Only a massive program of useful public works would even be able to scratch the surface of unemployment.
But this can only be an emergency first step. The movement needs policies that can unite it nationally and to which the next Labour government must be committed to implementing. Such policies are not forthcoming from the offical leadership at the present time. On July 4, at the last major Labour Party demonstration, Labour leader Michael Foot advanced a threepoint program: to cut workers' taxes, massively increase public expenditure, and step up investment in the nationalized industries.
These measures would be greatly welcomed by working people. But before workers will be prepared to get on board the next Labour government train with any enthusiasm, they need to know where the Labour government is aiming to go. The working class had an experience with the last Labour government which workers plainly do not want to see repeated. So any proposals about what the next Labour government will implement have to be completely severed from talk about a "new social contract" (which is just another formula for austerity. Instead what we need are proposals for taking decisive measures to control the banks and the finance houses and taking over the commanding heights of the economy.
If workers and youth could see this as the goal of the next Labour government, if they were mobilized to get rid of the Tory government now, then the youth would become the shock troops against this rotten system.