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The Poll Tax Riots were a series of mass disturbances, or riots, in British cities during protests against the Community Charge (commonly known as the poll tax), introduced by the Conservative government led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. By far the largest occurred in central London on Saturday March 31, 1990, shortly before the poll tax was due to come into force in England and Wales. Many believe the riot - the largest in the city in the 20th century - caused Thatcher’s downfall eight months later.
The disorder in London arose from a demonstration which began at 11am. The rioting and looting ended at 3am the next morning. This riot is sometimes called the Battle of Trafalgar, particularly by opponents of poll tax, because much of the rioting took place in Trafalgar Square.
Contents
- 1 Trafalgar Square preparations
- 2 The day itself
- 3 Responses
- 4 Consequences
- 4.1 The fall of Prime Minister Thatcher
- 4.2 Changes in policing of demonstrations
- 4.3 Illegitimacy of the labour movement
- 4.4 Abandonment of the Poll Tax
- 5 References
- 6 Further reading
- 7 Films
- 8 External links
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Trafalgar Square preparations
In November 1989 the All Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation (The Fed) was set up by the Militant tendency as a national body which included many Anti-Poll Tax Unions. The committee called a demonstration in London for March 31, 1990, the Saturday before Community Charge implementation in England and Wales, its having been introduced in Scotland a year earlier.
Three days before the event the Fed realised the march would be larger than the 60,000 capacity of Trafalgar Square. It asked permission from the Metropolitan Police and the Department of the Environment to divert the march to Hyde Park. The request was denied.
In the days before the demonstration two “feeder” marches had followed the routes of the two mob armies of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. These arrived at Kennington Park in South London on 31 March.
The day itself
On March 31, 1990, people began gathering in Kennington Park from 12pm. Turnout was encouraged by fine weather, and between 180,000 and 250,000 arrived. The police report, a year after the riot, suggested close to 200,000. A contribution to the size may have been a decision by the Labour Party to abandon plans to stage their own rally the same day.
The march set off from Kennington Park at 1:30pm, moving faster than planned because some anarchists had forced open the gates of the park so people were not forced through smaller side-gates. This spilt the march over both sides of the road, and despite police and stewards, stayed that way for much of the route.
By 2:30pm, Trafalgar Square was nearing its capacity.
Unable to continue moving easily into Trafalgar Square, at about 3pm the march stopped in Whitehall. The police, worried about a surge towards the new security gates of Downing Street, blocked the top and bottom of Whitehall. The section of the march which stopped opposite Downing Street contained veteran anarchists and a group called Bikers Against The Poll Tax, all of whom became annoyed by several heavy-handed arrests, including one of a man in a wheelchair.
Meanwhile, the tail-end had been diverted at the Parliament Square end of Whitehall. A large Class War banner and the anarchists it had attracted were at the head of this diverted and unpoliced march. They led it up Embankment for a few hundred yards, then turned up Richmond Terrace, bringing the diverted march into Whitehall, opposite Downing Street.
Mounted riot police were brought up, and from about 3:30pm tried to clear people out of Whitehall, despite both retreat and advance being blocked by further lines of police. Fighting and scuffles broke out and the Whitehall section of the march fought its way into Trafalgar Square.
From 4pm, with the rally nearly officially over, reports become contradictory. It seems the mounted riot police (who had attempted to clear Whitehall) charged out of a side street into the crowd in Trafalgar Square. Whether intentional or not, this was interpreted as provocation, fueling anger in the Square. At 4:30pm, four shielded police riot vans drove into the crowd (a tactic in dealing with mass demonstrations at the time) outside the South African High Commission, attempting to force through to the entrance to Whitehall where police were re-grouping. The crowd attacked the vans with wooden staves, scaffolding poles. The rioting escalated.
By 4:30pm police had closed the main Underground stations in the area and southern exits of Trafalgar Square, making it difficult for people to disperse. Coaches had been parked south of the river, so many tried to move south. At this point, Militant Fed stewards were withdrawn on police orders. Sections of the crowd, apparently unemployed coal miners, climbed scaffolding and rained debris on the police below. Then, at 5pm builders’ cabins below the scaffolding caught fire, followed by a room in the South African High Commission on the other side of the Square. The smoke from the fires caused near darkness in the Square and there followed a 20-minute lull in rioting.
Between 6 and 7pm the police opened the southern exits of the Square and slowly managed people out of Trafalgar Square. A large section was moved back down Northumberland Avenue and allowed over the River Thames to find their way back to their coaches. Two other sections were pushed north into the West End, where looting and vandalism of shops and cars took place. Published accounts mention shop windows being broken, a goods looted, and cars being overturned in Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Street, Regent Street, Charing Cross Road, and Covent Garden. Police ordered pubs to close.
The demonstrators became mixed with the public. By midnight, nearly 5,000, mostly civilians but also police officers, were injured, and 339 had been arrested. Scuffles between rioters and police continued until 3am. Rioters attacked The Body Shop, McDonalds, Barclays Bank, Tie Rack, Armani, Ratners, National Westminster Bank, and Liberty. Stringfellow’s nightclub, car showrooms, Covent Garden cafés and wine bars were set on fire. Porsches and Jaguars were set on fire. Other potential targets were untouched: pubs, small shops, older cars and the offices of the Irish airline Aer Lingus.
UK Government documents released in 2006 under freedom of information legislation, reveal the police believed they had lost control and the degree to which they were prepared to act. Documented police radio communications and surveillance reports indicate that the police called for armed response teams, despite no reports of firearms among protesters.
Responses
The response of the London police, the government, the Labour Party and the labour movement and some sections of the far left, including Militant, was to condemn the riot as senseless and to blame anarchists. Some anarchists, especially the high-profile Class War organisation, were happy to take the credit, and were joined by other sections of the ultra-left in condoning the riot as legitimate self-defence against police attack. Despite this, the 1991 police report concluded there was “no evidence that the trouble was orchestrated by left-wing anarchist groups”.
Afterwards, the non-aligned Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign was set up, committed to unconditional support for the defendants, and to accountability to the defendants. The Campaign acquired more than 50 hours of police video and these were influential in acquitting many of the 491 defendants, suggesting the police had fabricated or inflated charges.
In March 1991, the police report suggested additional contributing internal police factors: squeezed overtime budgets which led to the initial deployment of only 2,000 men; a lack of riot shields (400 “short” riot shields were available); and erratic or poor-quality radio, with a lag of up to five minutes in the computerised switching of radio messages during the evening West End rioting.
Prime Minister Thatcher was at a conference of the Conservative Party Council in Cheltenham. The Community Charge was the focus of the conference; as coverage of the demonstrations unfolded, speculation developed for the first time about Thatcher’s position as leader.
Consequences
The fall of Prime Minister Thatcher
It is thought that the riot in central London, with the countrywide opposition to the Community Charge (especially vehement in the North of England and Scotland) contributed to the downfall of Margaret Thatcher, who resigned as Prime Minister in November the same year, defending the tax when opinion polls were showing 2% support for it. The next Prime Minister, John Major, announced it would be abolished.
Changes in policing of demonstrations
The trials of demonstrators confirmed doubts about policing styles which had been developed during the 1980s to deal with mass protests such the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the New Age Travellers, anti-Apartheid groups, and the Miners’ Strike. The trials highlighted the ease with which miscarriages of justice could take place, even after the compensation and acquittals arising from the Battle of the Beanfield, the New Age Travellers at Stonehenge, CND at Greenham Common, and the miners at the Battle of Orgreave.
Illegitimacy of the labour movement
The riot brought into focus the growth in Britain of an underclass, seen in collision with symbols of late-1980s wealth. These crystallised political disenchantment.
“Labour is no longer the party of the working class, nor even of the organised working class; not even Tony Benn can speak to the young working people who ran amok last Saturday”
—April 7, 1990, New Statesman
This created an image of the labour movement’s crisis of legitimacy, four months after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the near-global collapse of state socialism and its allies.
Abandonment of the Poll Tax
John Major announced in his first parliamentary speech as Prime Minister that the Community Charge was to be replaced by Council Tax, which, unlike Poll Tax, took account of ability to pay. While less harsh on lower-income earners than Poll Tax, the new tax took no account of the income earned by the taxpayer, but did take into account the value of the property on which the householder was taxed, being in effect the old rates system restored.
References
- ^ a b c Verkaik, Robert (21 January 2006). “Revealed: How police panic played into the hand of the poll tax rioters”. The Independent (UK newspaper). pp. 10.
Further reading
- The Destruction of Toytown UK. BM Blob; London, 1990.
- Burns, D. Poll Tax Rebellion. Attack International/AK Press; London, 1992.
- Like A Summer With A Thousand Julys. BM Blob; London, 1982.
- Poll Tax Riot - Ten hours that shook Trafalgar Square. Acab Press, London; June 1990. (12 first-hand accounts of the rioting)
- Tommy Sheridan - Time To Rage.
- Peter Taaffe - Rise of the Militant - Militant Publications.
Films
The Battle Of Trafalgar, (Despite TV). Broadcast on Channel 4, September 18, 1990.
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