Lee Jasper Former Deputy Mayor of London writes…
As a community activist focused on discriminatory policing for 32 years and Policing Director for London for eight years, I was instrumental in delivering some of the highest rates of black community public confidence in Met policing ever recorded.
The way this was achieved was as a result of a clear focus on institutionalised racism within the Met. The then-Mayor Ken Livingstone ensured that I was given the power to hold the Met to account with the objective of driving down racism and increasing diversity. We managed to do both.
By accepting the force was institutionally racist and taking measures to tackle disproportionate impact, we saw radical innovation and improvement in black community and police relations.
For example, we provided financial support for legal actions for victims of police deaths in custody. Through Mayoral nominations, we created the most diverse Metropolitan Police Authority in British history. Through positive action, we improved black and ethnic minority recruitment of police officers by 100% in three years.
And in relation to the growing level of violence within Africa and Caribbean communities I helped lead and establish the Trident Independent Advisory Group, some two years prior to entering the Mayor's office, this produced the most successful police/community partnership in the Mets history. Trident was back then, a gold standard initiative, that was subsequently thoroughly corrupted by Boris Johnson after his election as London Mayor in 2008.
In short, I know how to improve relations between police and black communities, and it starts with tacit acceptance by those in power of the realities of institutionalised racism in policing. No sustainable progress can be made without this being accepted by the Commissioner and politicians as the fundamental starting point.
People like me, Stafford Scott and others have consistently warned the authorities of the dangers of unrestrained police racism. It is my belief that relations are so bad today that the prospect of civil disturbances has only been reduced as a consequence of the Covid 19 lockdown. And even then, the aggressive policing of block parties has seen relations deteriorate even further.
In the post-black lives matter environment public officials who do not accept the reality of institutionalised racism must surely be considered unfit for public office. Given the response of the private and public sector who are all engaged in re-examining their fundamental approach to diversity and antiracism, anyone who denies the existence of the reality of systemic racism, can and should expect to be vigorously challenged.
What is true of the private sector is doubly true in the policing and criminal justice sector aa the Lammy Report demonstrated. That's why it's so bizarre that Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has simply refused point-blank to re-examine their relationship with black communities in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd and the subsequent rise of the black lives matter movement.
In a response that could come straight from the President Trump playbook, the Commissioner has dialled up the disproportionate targeting of African and Caribbean Londoners and dialled down any idea that racial targeting of black people is in any way racist.
Harking back to the days of 1990s when Commissioner Sir Paul Condon launched his infamous Operation Eagle Eye who sought to justify this racially targeted policing initiative as a response to increased levels of street robbery, Commissioner Dick now seeks to justify the current culture of racial profiling as an appropriate policing response to rising levels of violence in our communities.
These weak justifications (stop and search has proven entirely ineffective in reducing violent crime) obscure the historical reality of the ever-growing disproportionate use of policing powers that have taken place with relentless consistency over the last decade. To be fair we did see a brief interregnum whilst Teresa May as Prime Minister but police racism has, like a resurgent virus, returned with a vengeance under Boris Johnson.
And make no mistake ‘aggressive policing, free from the shackles of political correctness’, is this Prime Minister's preferred policing style. Any analysis of his time as London Mayor will leave you in no doubt about his commitment to ramping up the discriminatory use of stop and search.
Between 2008 and 2012 Boris Johnson increased up and search in London by 300% with disastrous consequences for relations between Africa and Caribbean communities and the Metropolitan police. It was this type of policing that was primarily responsible for the national outbreak of civil disturbances in 2011 in the aftermath of the shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham North London. Young people speaking to the Guardian newspaper in the aftermath of these disturbances cited the “humiliation of stop and searches as a key factor in anger towards the police.”
Cressida Dick, when a senior commander in the Met, was also the chief architect, advocate and sponsor of the discredited and illegal use of Joint Enterprise and the Gang Matrix.
In addition, the disproportionate use of Section 60 powers, sanctioned by her, is increasingly seen within black communities as the reincarnation of the dreaded SUS law allowing for blatant policing prejudice to be justified and represents nothing less than a codification of racism into British law.
Our watershed moment on race and policing was, of course, the brutal and racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, and the subsequent failure of the Metropolitan police to investigate and bring the murderers to justice. Infected by the virus of institutionalised racism as defined by Lord MacPherson, the Metropolitan police could not see past their own prejudice.
London's black communities were dehumanised and subject to the most discriminatory, hostile and aggressive policing as a result.
21 years since the publication of the seminal MacPherson report there are those, like Commissioner Dick who believe Britain is "different country" and that the police have 'moved on" having transformed themselves. On Channel 4 News recently, she made it clear she doesn't believe the Met are an "institutionally racist organisation."
Clearly, the Commissioner has changed her view because in 2003 she stated the Met would always be an institutionally racist organisation as reported in the Guardian below.
She is, of course, wrong, and that is a serious, I would say, a catastrophic error of judgement.
A recent national poll for ITV conducted by YouGov published in August this year reported that 39%, a majority of Londoners believed the Met to be an institutionally racist organisation, with 34% disagreeing and 27% stating they did not know or were not sure.
As for Black, Asian and ethnic minority Londoners, (BAME) according to the London Mayor's office last year (2018/19) saw the largest reductions in the number of BAME people expressing confidence that their local police were "doing a good job”.
Black Londoners recorded a 7% drop compared to the same period in 2018, whilst mixed ethnicity recorded an 8% reduction. Only 51% of black Londoners thought their local Met police were doing “a good job” and only 50% of mixed ethnicity Londoners.
And this is a consistent and deeply worrying trend.
According to figures published by the Mayor’s Office of Policing and Crime (MOPAC) 2016/17, the Met saw a 10.9% confidence drop among Black Londoners in quarter 4 of that year. [1]
The Commissioner has presided over a force that has seen London's African and Caribbean descent communities suffer a precipitous decline in public confidence, as a result of increased perception of police, racism, violence and aggression.
And all as result of racial profiling through stop and search; the massive abuse of Section 60 stops, a power that is now regarded as the new SUS laws, (no reasonable suspicion needed); the imposition of that power on the entire Notting Hill Carnival area in 2019; the routine use of handcuffs and the disproportionate use of force, and deaths in police custody; the disproportionate charging of black people for crimes for which white people receive a caution; and the deeply controversial Met’s Gang Matrix [2] the disproportionate use of emergency Covid 19 powers targeting London’s black communities at a time when there were few if any people on the streets; and it’s becomes crystal clear that institutional racism in the Met, much like racism in wider society has returned with a vengeance.
The catastrophic confidence figures, combined with the compelling and indisputable evidence of disproportionality in operational policing, confirms the strongly held perception in Londons Black communities that the Met is a ‘hostile force’
This is in my view proves beyond reasonable doubt that the Mets relationship with Black Londoners, under the stewardship of both Commissioner Cressida Dick and London Mayor Sadiq Khan has declined to an unprecedented and new historic low.
What these figures tell us is that from 2016 to 2020 we have seen the largest year on year declines in Black communities’ public confidence in the Met ever witnesses since records began.
Add to this the experiences of Africa and Caribbean Officers who since 2016 are disproportionately leaving the force within two years of joining, who face disproportionate disciplinary investigations and suspensions and rarely get promoted and you can see how far diversity and race equality has regressed under this Commissioner.
Britain is heading for increasing racial hostility, violence and discord. History teaches us that when the economy declines, racism inevitably rises and we are about to experience the worst recession in living memory. Black unemployment in London is the highest its ever been and in this Covid 19 recession is likely to rise to even higher. That is a disastrous scenario for a community already mired in the grip of long term poverty and disadvantage.
If one adds to the mix the disgusting treatment of the Windrush generation and rising hate crime, racism in the workplace, the precariousness and anxiety black people now feel is tangible. Nobody feels safe.
We are witnessing the return of racism we thought long gone. Fundamental to our sense of citizenship, belonging and security is the extent to which we feel we are treated equally and accorded the same respect as all other citizens. That confidence is eroding every day.
There's a familiar tale of civil discord, distrust and strife between African and Caribbean descent communities and police services in the United Kingdom.
In order to avoid the inevitable civil uprising that will result in response to the present down pressure, it's important that Londoners actively challenge both the Mayor and his Commissioner in order to prevent major civil disorder which will cost the capital and the country millions, resulting in unnecessary injury and destruction. It can be avoided.
Those of us who warn of such calamity are routinely ignored but we are the canaries in the coal mine, we will have a sharp sense of our communities and are best placed to ring the alarm. Often politically marginalised, at great cost to the nation, we radically challenge racism and the fact is in a racist Britain, most people don't like to hear the truth. Sadly is we are often proven right by the passage of time. In January 2011 after the death in police custody of Smiley Culture, I warned the black community was 'at boiling point'. Nobody listened then and nobody is listening now.
That's why it's incredibly important for good people to support the planned demonstration calling for the removal of Commissioner Cressida Dick in an effort to begin rebuilding shattered relations and avert the forthcoming disaster we can all see looming on the horizon.
We can act now in order to save ourselves later on, and if this Commissioner cannot or will not rise to the challenge of policing a world city, with its complex diversity, then she is not fit for public office. In 2008 Boris Johnson sacked the then Commissioner Sir Ian Blair. Mayor Sadiq Khan must now sack Commissioner Cressida Dick and prioritise tackling institutionalised racism within the Met as his key the political priority.
We intend to make this an issue right up until the next Mayoral elections, a wise politician would act now to make sure that they're on the right side of history.
We need a Commissioner capable of taking this issue forward not one whose irrevocably stuck in the past.
Join us outside Scotland Yard on Saturday, 12 September from 1 PM as we seek to save our city and dial back the institutionalised racism of the Metropolitan police service that so blights the lives of so many in our city.
[1] A Better Police Service For London MOPAC London Surveys, Annual Results Q4 16-17
[2] Met takes 1000 names off gangs list after racism claims. Times Newspaper, April 2020
