Sunday 15 December 2019

The Labour defeat: A Black analysis.

As a black activist of some 40 years standing I've witnessed a fair few elections, but none I think as momentous as the one we've just held. The result was simply astonishing and the scale of defeat suffered by the Labour Party is unprecedented in modern times.

And as we seek to analyse the why's and wherefores's of what went wrong, key questions emerge from a black perspective: why in this election, did the white working class leave Labour in their droves, and yet the Black working class, facing the same austerity, plus vicious racism, not only stayed loyal to Labour, but turned out in even greater numbers in this election?

Some in Labour are suggesting that the party lost touch and failed to reflect its Northern working class base. I wouldn't disagree with that analysis, being a Mancunian myself,

However, I start from a radically different place and then come to entirely different conclusion from those who offer this centre right analysis.

In the confusion, shock and anger that has now besieged Labour Party members, there are bitter recriminations and open hostilities, between those that believe the great leader was horribly betrayed by Labour centrists, mounting coup, after failed coup against Jeremy Corbyn, instead of  being focused on fighting the Tories, and those who say he was never up to the job in any event.

Whatever your own view, we all know it's a political truism that divided parties usually don't win elections.

Declaring my own interest here, let me say I am a long term supporter of JC having worked with him man and boy over 40 years.  Having said that, and having worked on securing two election victories with Ken Livingstone from 2000 - 2008 whilst I supported Jeremy ambitions, I think he surrounded himself with a team that was woefully indulgent, and lacking in any kind of real election experience or any on the ground campaigning creativity. He was, in my view, also bereft of any in depth community mobilising capability outside his traditional base.

That said, Labour got somethings right and to their credit, over the last three or more years recruited hundreds of thousands of new members, many of them young people.

Though Jon Lansman's Momentum tried to offer a new dispensation. it soon betrayed its potential by becoming a curious sort of hybrid, a social movement coupled with old style Stalinist control freaky exemplified by the Unions total domination. Momentum was the Labour aristocracy, arrogant and effusive with their white privilege. National Black organisations were dismissed and ignored whilst Momentum tried to create a new cadre of complaint black left leadership. Its focus on racism was largely cosmetic and infective.

Such arrogance and inexperience could be seen reflected in the parties election manifesto, all JC really needed was a small number of big signature policies and a smaller number of innovative ideas. Instead the electorate was offered a cornucopia of manifesto promises. It was to all to much. In private sector parlance, the market hadn't been warmed up sufficiently for such bold announcements and the old adage of if it looks too good to be true, it probably is, kicked in.

Then there are those who allege that the party's failure to arrive at clear line on Brexit added to the character and 'political history' of Jeremy Corbyn, presented 'unsurmountable obstacles' to securing an election victory. Let me be clear here also, I'm a left wing socialist who believes we should have remained and substantively reformed the European Union.

I believe Brexit to be a project of the extreme right wing, who are using Brexit as cover, a stealth move to deliver their long cherished, economic wet dream of a free trade, deregulated, low wage economy that eviscerate's workers rights.

Notwithstanding that, I also believe that Corbyn's position on the issue was inexplicable to the ordinary voter. My own 84 year old mother, a life long Labour supporter and a huge fan of left political mavericks, could not understand Labours nuanced position on Brexit,

Jeremy should have known you cant play footsie with racism, there is no accommodation to be had, it is all consuming, and when the left seeks to pivot towards working class racism, it always looses, always. 

We've seen this time and time again over the last 60 years. Labour desperately trying to justify the racist sentiment of its core base, on a range of issues such as citizenship,  immigration, criminal justice and policing. Let's recall, that it was Labour, who over the post war period, when in power, who  introduced more immigration legislation than all the other other parties combined.

This election Labour tried to be determinedly anti racist and at the same time, respect Labour Brexit supporters.

Whatever the details of the many perspectives now on offer,  now the Tories have a massive majority Brexit supporters say the referendum  decision was arrived at democratically and should now be implemented.

I'm not impressed with Brexit's democratic credentials, first the referendum vote was won on a wafer thin majority, and second, history is replete with idiotic and catastrophic decisions that have been democratically endorsed; transatlantic slavery; genocidal colonialism; Hitler and the Third Reich; Jim Crow legislation; South African Apartheid, the Iraq War and of course the French Revolutionaries refusal to recognise the Haitian Revolution of former Enslaved Africans.

In white societies not all democracy is benign, take UK voters relentless support for draconian immigration policies, delivered by Labour under Wilson, Callaghan, Blair and Brown, whose zeal was then reflected by the Camerons Tories who offered even more 'tougher' immigration legalisation, that ended up creating a racist hostile environment, that forcibly and illegally deported Black British citizens and saw people die as result of their illegal denial of citizenship and denial of access to income, housing and the NHS.

The Tories simply took Labour's polices and political rhetoric and presented real racism back to the country.

From a Black perspective, you can see my point. Historically, whenever Labour concedes to racism, its black people who ultimately pay the heaviest price.

There are those who legitimately point to Jeremy's failure to tackle the anti semitism problem head on from the outset. There is some truth in that charge.

The lessons I learned as a key member of Ken Livingstone's administrations during my time at London's City Hall were critical. In regards to racism you have to get ahead of the curve and assemble the big tent coalitions, before the inevitable crisis, manufactured or otherwise, hits your desk. Once that happens, it's usually too late to credibly respond to any such charge, any response is undermined by the fact that you have zero relations or track record with any particular community.

Similar accusations of anti semitism made against Livingstone had less traction precisely because of the work done to assemble the necessary coalitions and establish good relations prior to any crisis.

That said, I'm sure of Crobyn's anti racist credentials as an individual, however I think Labour as an organisation, like the majority of white institutions, when confronted with accusations of racism,  experience a form of brain freeze that often tend to leave them resembling frightened deer, trembling  trapped in the lights of a fast oncoming truck.

His inner circle and trusted advisers were culturally predisposed to disbelieve these complaints and failed to act decisively as a result. Had they deepened their friendly relations with Jewish communities prior to these accusations gathering real momentum, they could have relied upon broader support and good advice to guide them through this issue.

Instead they looked wooden, reactive, classically defensive and therefore fell back on bureaucratic procedural responses that gave the public impression of seeking to stall or bury the issue.

It was clumsy and ham fisted.

Let me be clear though, there are some elements on the left that are indeed anti semetic, that much I've seen and heard myself. They are a vitriolic fringe minority in my experience, but when it comes to racism size means nothing. I also believe that the centre right sought to opportunistically inflate this issue for their own nefarious purposes. People who have been largely silent on institutional racism and islamophobia suddenly sprang into life presenting as "life long committed anti racists" Utter bullshit.

Labour, like every other major British institution is an institutionally racist organisation. That title must be embraced if the issue of racism is to be effectively dealt with. There were too many in the senior ranks of the party who sought to deny that fact.

For Black people this is resonant with our lived experience of white privilege.

More broadly on this topic and specifically in relation to black representation in the party, we've seen a huge decline in the number of elected local African and Caribbean councillors, inparticular black men over the last 20 years.

For example there are only 62 Black male Councillors in the whole of London representing 3.4% of the total and when Black women are added, we still only make up around 9% of the total.

While Jeremy talked passionately of equality and democracy for all, the Party had other ideas.

As part of his focus on internal constitutional reform, the Labour BAME network grouping for example saw its power reduced after Unite and other unions conspired to deny them greater autonomy and independence they argued for.

As result, and unbelievably, BAME Labour saw their constitutional remit, and level of democratic control, actually reduced after his democracy review, not enhanced, despite all the promises.

In looking at Labour's election campaign as a whole neither the strategy nor the manifesto were correctly calibrated.

Take the manifesto for example, this was packed to the gills with big spending policies, such was the scale of the offer that people began to doubt its credibility and despite the publication of the Grey Book costing public expenditure and tax funding sources the manifest though hugely popular in parts was overcooked.  In politics as in life, sometimes less is more.

Finally and providing to be the most insidious, powerful, dominating, and overarching context, there was the issue of Brexit itself an issue that has fundamentally re-aligned the landscape of British politics from the "hard left to the extreme right." No other issue has so divided the nation.

Politics is a contact sport and the nice guys don't always win. Livingstone's secret was creativity, flair, team discipline and policy rigour, most of all the later.

In relation to Jeremy Corbyn he was predictably publicly traduced by the majority of the billionaire owned British media for over a year, prior to the election and some would say throughout his entire political career.

His personal poll ratings plummeted and yet there appeared no counter strategy to offset or at least minimise this. Public rallies and twitter feeds were simply not enough. Its not as though the high command didn't have the information. They did, and for some inexplicable reason they chose to ignore it.

I and others continually warned him that after his success in 2017, they would not underestimate him again. It was as clear as day, that they would double down on Corbyn. And yet no counter strategy was put in place. Momentum tried and failed to counter this attack. His front bencher Diane Abbott was mercilessly attacked, relying on readily accepted racist tropes, she and Corbyn, like Ken and I in 2008 faced an unprecedented campaign of public smears. lies and falsehoods.

Whilst Jeremy and Diane faced much worse,  (and credit to their reliance under fire, trust me I know the personal toll this takes) the press and social media campaign was disgustingly racist for sure,  but it was also so entirely predictable.

I was not alone in warning Jeremy, Diane and the Party. I still bear the scars of Johnsons relentless racism election campaign to oust Ken Livingstone, where we were the victims of the very same 'dog whistle' tactics perfected by Aussie Camapign guru, Lynton Crosby, whose tactics including smears, innuendo's, racism and bare faced lies. His tactics were singularly focused and brutal. Here's what former Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis wrote in the New Statesman recently,

'If you ask the commentariat for an explanation of this paradox, you will get an earful of chatter about Corbyn’s Marxism, alleged anti-Europeanism and lack of character. However, the truth is simpler and uglier than any of this. From day one, after he won Labour’s leadership in 2015, the game was afoot. Soon after Corbyn became leader, I warned that a huge campaign of character assassination was inevitable. It was not difficult to see it coming.''

Now Labour's centre right Labour political commentators, MP's and right wing media pundits are seeking to blame Corbyn and Corbynism alone, whilst the Labour left are blaming Brexit,

Personally I think the later must be true. There can be no doubt that Brexit has transformed the tribal alliances of post war British party politics. However if you can see a punch coming your duty is to avoid it. Labour bears some responsibilty for that.

There was no real recognition that Brexit had the wholly negative and yet transformative effect of uniting the right and rehabilitating racism, bigotry and xenophobia back into the heart of 'patriotic' British politics. While Labour struggled, we as black people noted that the real message of Brexit is, 

"We know what we voted for and we prefer to be poorer than be more diverse"

The real reality is the country choose racism over economic good sense, and that was and remains the Labour dilemma wrapped up in a nutshell

The bigger picture here, for students of global politics, is one of gradual economic decline of European nations including Britain, combined with a disastrously low European birth rate.

Contrast this with the economic growth and populations explosion of China, India and Africa. It's as though the European and American white elites, having seen the writing on the wall, are seeking once last throw off the dice to screw every last penny from their stagnant economies by doubling down on the poor.

They know, that the only immediate way to reflate their flagging economies fast is with a good old fashioned war. So they're warming up the populace with bombastic nationalism and talk of the glorious return of the days of Empire. Brexit in this purely political context can be seen to be what it is, having fed the nation a continuous diet of lies and propaganda for decades, promoting British and English exceptionalism and refusing to acknowledge the crimes of Britains colonial past, Brexit can be seen as a form of colonial karma.

The British empire, like all empires either had to adapt to its new post colonial realties or suffer the inevitable consequences. As Dr Martin Luther King Jnr said,

"The arch of the moral universe may be long, but it bends towards justice." 

Brexit has polluted public discourse and the response of large swathes of the British public remind me of the chant of South London Millwall Football Club back in the mid 70's onwards. Their fans were some of the most violent and racist fans in Britain at the time. Though repeated attempts were made to suggest that the London white working class were being demonised, much like the Brexit denials of racism today, such claims were always overwhelmed by the ever preset reality of working class racism and xenophobia.

And so powerful was Millwalls reputation that it remains intact despite the best efforts of the club.

They're proud acknowledgement of their toxic reputation was epitomised in the now infamous chant, 

"No one likes us and we don't care." 

Today, that sentiment appears to be the national, cultural default setting, a glorious return to the days of 17th century, when Britain was known as the most Perfidious Albion. This Millwall sentiment is now the proud clarion call of most Brexiteers and though Brexit supporters resolutely claim they are not all racist, all racist are Brexiteers.

Their furious denials of racism are critically undermined by the huge numbers of out and proud obvious racist in their midsts, who they appear more than happy to defend and tolerate.

We see no consequent, anti racist Brexit movement, condemning the vilest among their ranks No public statements rejecting their support, no condemnation of their fellow comrades in arms. In fact we see claims of racism dismissed as utter rubbish, with some even claiming that racism is an invention of the left and British whites are the real victims of racism. Indeed their cheer leader in chief Boris Johnson's is Britains most ardent defender and advocator the extreme right.

Since the EU referendum racist attacks and hate crimes have exploded massively across England in particular and the popular refrain of the 60, 70 and 80's,

"Go back to where you come from."

This nasty slur, aimed at anyone who is assumed not to be British, has made a dramatic return following this election. Today social media is awash with tales of  neighbours telling their Black, Asian European neighbours, that now Boris is in power, its time to pack their bags and fuck off.  The ensuing wildly irresponsible nature of the political and media debate on Brexit saw the brutal murder of Labour MP Joe Cox. 

Thomas Mair an extreme right wing, white supremacist slaughtered the Batley and Spent MP Joe Cox in  June2016 in broad daylight. In the subsequent years we have seen fascist organisations, whites males members, being convicted of preparing or intending to commit acts of racial terrorism.

The culminative effect of Labour, who since 2005 saw an increasing number of Labour Council seats in the North fall to the Tories, should've provided an early warning system, that Labour voters in the North were revolting. The collapse of Labours Red Wall was therefore to be expected, given the extent to which constituencies, such as my home town of Oldham, and towns like Hartlepool and  Batley had all been progressively abandoned, sinking into the quagmires of long term unemployment. drug and alcohol addictions, ill health, depression and violence, all symptoms of poverty and long term deprivation.

They suffered deindustrialisation and globalisation and in the context where the global rate of wealth inequalities rose dramatically, as ably demonstrated by the French economist Thomas Pikkety, whose work charts the amassing of wealth in the post war period, and demonstrates that the gap between the worlds super rich and the poorest has grown substantively over that time. He also points to the consequences of such inequality, rises in racism, xenophobia and fascism.

These former mining and cotton towns were crushed by 1980's Thatcherism and later pounded by Tory austerity. These communities, tired of broken promises and witnessing their own relentless demise decided to inflict a punishment beating on the establishment. That anger could've been directed at Bankers, but was instead skilfully redirected towards Muslims, and then Europe Union and then wider still to Eastern Europeans all of whom joined black peoples as demonised communities.

These largely white working class communities began to turn first to the British National Party, then the EDL, then onto UKIP and finally to Farage.

Labour, the trade unions and the left anti racist movements, had no real response to the growth of working class racism, other than pithy slogans, white left 'conferences" and barley attended protests.

Brexit has turned out to be a perfect exercise in divide and rule using the oldest political trick in the Western democracy playbook, the scapegoating of 'unpopular minorities.'

Slugish unresponsive Labour Councils saw increasing numbers of people not voting and becoming increasingly alienated from local democracy. The last 40 years or so has seen UK voter turnout decline another indication that should have altered Labours high command. They just didn't care and determined instead, to simply continue to take these constituencies for granted.

Concerns about poverty, unemployment, poor housing, worse schools and high crime rates, were all   decades long frustrations, that were all eventually poured into the Brexit cup.

Here is the rub. British Black communities have long suffered the same economic disadvantages faced by these towns, and they didn't desert Labour, on the contrary they supported the party in even greater numbers.

My own view is the the centre right detested this radical working class history.

British white working class communities, in these now former Labour towns, simply became ignorant of there own fabulous history, that gave birth to the Labour Party, Anti Slavery movement and inspired the Suffragettes, and in doing so have left themselves vulnerable to becoming seduced, infected with ideas of narrow nationalism, given false hope by the idea that Britain can be great again.

Real political education was abandoned by Labour and the Trade Unions in favour of focus groups. Who remembers Socialist Sunday schools today?

Fed by a constant and relentless wall of media racism for the last 70 years, communities in the North have become infected with racism, bigotry and prejudices, largely thanks to our disgusting right wing media, and opportunist politicians, whose propaganda campaigns designed to split the working class and maintain the status qou has been total and overwhelming.

However rather than simply bemoan the fact, the Labour movement offered no education on the matter.

It is of course, the hegemonic domination of Britains powerful elite that has brought about this dreadful election result. The post war commitment of the British elite class to ruthlessly maintaining their wealth has never wavered for one second.

Black communities however have been both let down, and disappointed but remain clear sighted on who are the the real culprits responsible for our continued oppression and exclusion. Remembering our history we are less susceptible to the elite's relentless propoganda.

The task now at hand is truly momentous. In the context of Britain leaving the EU we must now circle the wagons, pause and reflect on how and why we got here.

Workers rights and anti discrimination laws enshrined in the EU human rights framework are in danger of being washed away. History teaches us that when the British economy suffer's recession, racism is always amplified. We recall the rise in racist murders Britain witnessed in the mini recession of the early 1990's that saw the murder of many, including Stephen Lawrence.

The coming Brexit recession will make that era seem like a walk in the park. And we know, as black people, that when the white working class wake up to the fact they've been brutally betrayed, it's not the Tories that will get the blame, it will be whatever convenient scapegoating minority fits the bill at the time.

Such is the scale of the crisis facing us, that it requires us to consolidate our collective forces, faith groups, community organisations, charities, campaigning groups, black trade unionists, student and our pensioners in an consolidated effort to reaffirm our political alliances with the aim of creating a bulwark against the racism that is inevitably headed our way.

That requires bold, ethical leadership and courage, for our duty now is to build legacy of a solid black movement that can better protect the next generation from the predations of British racism, injustice and inequality.

I believe it is now time for a National Civil Rights Convention aimed at bringing together our disparate and fragmented communities together, to build a unified  movement with Labour activists and the wider black community, as we begin to prepare our communities to face these unprecedented challenges.

The issues of global rising inequality, climate change and environmental racism, poverty and injustice loom large. We must not ignore the warning signs. The challenges for the next generations are immense. Our job is to ensure we put aside our ego's, stop the cut throat competition among black organisations, abandoned petty differences and build a movement.

Such a 21st century conception has to focus not just domestically, but internationally in recognition that our condition here in the UK can be mitigated by ensuring we provide global opportunities for our young people, to access improved trading links with the global African diaspora, demand environmental protections. quality education and enhanced human and civil rights.

In addition we will need a new, domestic black youth led, anti racist movement that demands that the Labour educates working class communities out of their wholly misplaced beliefs on issues on issues of inequality, racism and and the value of diversity.

The idea that Labour has to move to the right in order to reconnect to these voters is simply a misunderstanding of how we got here.

There is no rush too find a new leader, the next election is not until 2025. What's needed now is not a reactionary snap back to the centrist right positions of yesteryear, conceding to racist sentiment,  but a deep analysis of what went wrong and what now needs to change.

Lee Jasper









Wednesday 11 December 2019

Ryan Parkinson was unfairly sacked by BMW for a second time. We are trying to raise £1000 so that he and his family can have some sort of Xmas. Solidarity. You can donate here.


Monday 9 December 2019

Ryan Parkinson unfairly sacked by BMW wins his job back. You won't believe what happened next.

Young Black family man, Ryan Parkinson, was unfairly sacked by BMW. He proved he was a victim of racism, and BMW were forced to take him back. 
You won’t believe what happened next. #RacismAtWork Latest episode #LeeJasperDriveTime : Read how BMW's racism destroyed this hard working brothers career #RyanParkinson  #SocialistSunday
Please share, subscribe and like. The struggle is real.


Wednesday 4 December 2019

Tory policy changes to bail sees serious violence offenders free to roam our streets.


I accuse Boris Johnson’s Government of the most cynical and heinous betrayal of the people, letting serious criminals roam our streets with impunity. You may be one of the many people who perennially ask why is violence is rising in our communities? One of the reasons is that Tory’s policy of failing to place serious sex and violent offender suspects on restrictive bail conditions. 
BBC Newsnight investigation has uncovered that thousands of serious criminal offenders were simply left unsupervised after being accused of the most appalling and serious violent and sexual offences. 
This is horrendous and means that since 2017, at least 93,000 people who should have been either denied bail or been given bail with strict restrictions, were left to kill, maim and rape. 
How many lives could’ve been saved, how many traumas, tears, surgical operations, stress and death have we seen as a result of this catastrophic failure of this lying bastard of a Government? 
How many sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, friends, wives, husbands, lovers and neighbours did we lose? 
How many people today suffered the trauma of serious sexual or violent assaults were victimised as a direct result of this policy? 
This alone, when one thinks of the staggering consequences, should lose the #Tories the election. 
A bloody miasma trail of serious trauma, grief and lifetime of pain’ loss and disability leads straight to the door of No 10 Downing Street. 
The Rt. Hon. Priti Patel should resign with immediate effect. I’m hoping Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum will drive this home. 
The Tories flooded our streets with unsupervised serious criminals for at least the last two years, if not more, given the similar a day utterly disastrous consequences of the probation service privatisation. 
I believe this has been going on for much longer than two years. I have long suspected the privatisation of Probation Services has also had the same effect, dangerous criminals left to roam the streets. 
Is it any wonder our communities feel like the Wild West at times? 93,000 at the last count? 
Imagine, the poorest communities were abandoned to suspected serious sex and violent offenders, as a result of a policy whose primary effect was to unleash hell onto our streets. 
Badman left to roam and marauding our communities at will. Is it any wonder why so few people have any confidence in policing and criminal justice when dangerous criminals reported to the police are simply released back into our communities? 
This policy equates to politically motivated, state-sanctioned, corporate manslaughter, a deliberate policy that saw rape, violence and murder rise in our communities. 
This policy was a violent criminals charter. 

It had the material effect of flooding our streets with dangerous people who should have been denied bail or were either severely restricting their movements or heavily supervised. 

Sunday 24 November 2019

The Watermelon Files. Boris Johnson's record on racism.

Introduction: 
This “pickaninny" ain’t smiling.

Throughout the last few years, and indeed, during this general election, we’ve all heard 
Prime Minister Boris Johnson regularly accused of prompting hostile, racist and religious sentiments, animus, hatred and division. 

This is usually evidenced by references to various offensive comments, and you can take your pick; there are many to choose from. 

I don’t have the time to cover all of Boris’s rap sheet on racism, misogyny, homophobia, and disablism. His is a cornucopia, a literal potpourri of prejudices and peccadilloes, that would require many volumes of reporting, equal in size to Homer’s Iliad or Tolstoy’s War and Peace, so I make no apologies for my tight focus on Black, African and Caribbean people.

While Boris reveals gleefully causing offence to women, gay, disabled people and Muslim communities, all in equal measure, these issues have at least been thoroughly ventilated and condemned elsewhere.

In reality, criticisms of his profound anti-black racism are usually reduced to name-calling, whilst the structural and institutional racism increased massively under his watch as London Mayor barely gets a mention. 


So, I have chosen to focus on the racial inequality faced by London’s African and Caribbean communities, the least resourced and most politically marginalised community, certainly in the capital, if not the entire country.

I believe that much of Boris’s classical racism is camouflaged by his undoubted charm and witty repartee. This kind of racism becomes so much more insidious and damaging as a result. 


Don’t let that plastic, million-dollar smile confuse you. Be under no illusion; Boris is a brutal, right-wing, classical racist.

Suave, funny and mild entertaining, Johnson is the ultimate politician. A man who could sell you an all-inclusive trip to the very gates of hell itself and make you enjoy every step of the journey. 


He is the ultimate smiling assassin, the most courteous and charming racist you’ll ever meet. 

I’ve seen him around Black people, and the way he and his sycophantic Tory black fan club move always reminds me the old school racism, where Massa is benign, and the slaves are always happy, Watch this racist 1960’s advert, the man from Delmonte and in many ways Boris is that man.

When it comes to demonstrating Boris’s racism, it’s absolutely critical for anti-racists and progressives to include the totality of his horrendous track record, which saw everyday racism in the capital, massively amplified and societal and structural racial inequality increased. 


Let’s not reduce the seriousness, breadth and depth of this man’s racism to name-calling and race-baiting. These are serious issues but, from a black perspective, represent the least of his offences.

Boris’s record on race whilst Mayor of London. 

OK, let’s get into it...in 2002, Boris, writing in the Telegraph and referring to a trip by the then PM Tony Blair to Africa, wrote;

What a relief it must be for Blair to get out of England. It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies,” he wrote, referring to African people as having “watermelon smiles.

That same year, Boris as editor of the right-wing rag, the Spectator, penned an article titled: 


“Africa is a mess, but we can’t blame colonialism”. Boris states that Africa is a “blot” and wrote that the entire continent and its peoples would be much better off if the dark continent was re-colonised all over again.

The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge anymore…the best fate for Africa would be if the old colonial powers, or their citizens, scrambled once again in her direction; on the understanding that this time they will not be asked to feel guilty.”


Now in full flow and enjoying the ensuing controversy at the time, Boris described Papua New Guineans as prone to “cannibalism” and “chief-killing” in his column in a Telegraph article published in 2006.

In 2008, Boris, again as Spectator editor, personally signed off a toxic article, a literal ode to white supremacist thinking, by publishing pseudo-scientific garbage. 


This reprehensible article rehashed that old but nevertheless perennial racist trope that seeks to ‘prove’ black people have lower IQs,

Orientals…have larger brains and higher IQ scores”, adding that “Blacks are at the other pole.”

The wretched article reaffirms the age-old, racist trope that intelligence is racially defined and that black people are genetically as thick as planks.

The PM, whilst serving as the former Foreign Secretary under PM Theresa May, was reported to the Equalities Commission last year after comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to “pillar boxes and bank robbers.” 


Boris wrote 

It is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes,” adding that any female student who appeared at school or in a lecture “looking like a bank robber” should be asked to remove it.

Again, whilst editor of the Spectator, one of Boris’s fanboy journalists at the time, and remarkably now the current Tory election candidate for South Cambridgeshire, Anthony Brown, wrote;

“It is not through letting in terrorists that the government’s policy of mass migration – especially from the third world – will claim the most lives. It is through letting in too many germs,” talking about the spread of HIV, he added, 

“...curbing the influx of HIV immigrants” would be a better public health approach to tackling HIV than telling people to wear condoms.

Brown is a former lobbyist for the British Bankers’ Association and a journalist for the Times and Observer. He became Johnson’s Head of Policy at City Hall and became a top aide to Boris as PM. Today he is the Tory candidate for South Cambridgeshire and enjoys the PM’s full and unqualified support.  


Boris’s support for this candidate speaks volumes. He only cares about winning and will make a deal with Balzezebub himself if he thinks, for one moment, it would help him win.

Whilst I agree with the justified criticism of Johnson regarding name-calling, these are, after all, almost without exception, wholly offensive and gratuitous insults designed to fan the flames of widespread racism, religious bigotry and petty English xenophobia. But, however repugnant they are, they don’t tell the whole story of Johnson’s time as London Mayor, and neither do they reveal the depth of his barely concealed arrogance, contempt and hostility toward black people, Muslims and other groups, however sweetly delivered.

Sighting racist or religious name-calling is necessary, but not a sufficient, response to Johnson’s racism.

The current political and media focus on these comments, as opposed to the genuine structural and institutional racism inflicted on black and Muslim communities that can be identified through the most preliminary and basic research, leaves serious activists in the black community perplexed. 


The obsessive focus on these issues is symbolic of nature and the preferred white priorities of our liberal media and anti-racist movements in the UK. 

I’ve been disappointed with the left and the Labour movement’s almost exclusive focus on these comments, mainly when much more damaging evidence is available. 


This is lazy anti-racism born of a liberal white perspective. 

This focus reflects the misinformed, sometimes confused and oft times liberal political analysis about the nature of British racism. 


Such an emphasis has a tendency to obscure the real and substantive nature of the Black experience of racism in the UK, preferring to focus on crude racism, whilst ignoring the very much potent and damaging structural racism, a perspective at its very core that is essentially counterproductive, reactionary and regressive.

So, rather than looking at Johnson’s catastrophic policy record as London Mayor, we are offered these racial and religious epithets as evidence of his prejudice rather than the substantive, contextual structural racism and routine discrimination reflected in his policy and spending priorities.


We must and can do better.

2008.

As Mayor Johnson declared his commitment to using his influence with the city of London to secure sponsorship of boxing gyms and youth academies across the capital. That did not happen; the City did not respond to the Mayor’s invitation. At the publication of his youth strategy n November 2008,  which sought to tackle youth violence, he stated;

Tackling serious youth crime and the tragic murders of young people has been my most immediate priority since becoming Mayor.”

He added, “My action plan will provide the London-wide leadership and coordination that has been absent in tackling youth crime.”


Bizarrely all of the projects that were subsequently funded were located in that well-known ‘gang hotspot’ of Shoreditch. 

And, as the accounts for the Mayor’s Fund (2009 -2016) show, over 80% of the budget in its first year of operation was spent on management consultants and administration. 

And nothing much changed in subsequent years.

This much-vaunted flagship charity simply disappeared from public view. Boris couldn’t deliver on his promises to Londoners and failed to convince the City and rich chums to invest in his scheme. In the end, the Fund was shut down, having failed to deliver on any of his gold-leafed promises to London,


As always with Boris, in the beginning, the initial policy vision was delivered with passion, vim and vigour. But, first, he outlined his commitment to getting his wealthy chums in the city to contribute millions to his Mayoral Fund

The fund stated that it:
Tell us what to do, Massa? 

…aims to improve the life chances and aspirations of disadvantaged children, young people and their families in London.”

The fund was an unmitigated disaster, much like his Garden Bridge or his unwavering support for the disgraced Kids Company, which collapsed after receiving £47m in funding over 7 years



Can you see any national British Black organisation receiving that kind of funding? 

Of course not; we are simply deemed too idiotic, incompetent or untrustworthy to be in receipt of such large amounts of cash.

The establishment approach to working in Black communities is, at its core, an all too real reflection of the profoundly patronising and condescending colonial missionary approach of old. 


This results in a strong funding preference towards middle-class white, mainly Christian charitable organisations sent to help us solve our problems. It assumes that black people are both incapable and pathological. 


For example, name me one African and Caribbean organisation/charity in London or anywhere in the UK that has received anywhere close to the same level of funding as Kids Company, Barnado’s or  Red Thread charities, all of whom have been commissioned to save our incompetent black souls?

Too many, like the youth charity Red Thread, for example, don’t have a single black person on their Board of Trustees and have no genuine relationships with London’s black organisations or communities. The perfect qualifications for working in our communities. 


After all, anyone can work in our communities, and the current climate sees black communities marginalised to being the beneficiaries of white charities; with a little tokenistic black cladding, a smattering of junior black staff is frankly more than enough to qualify you for a million-pound grant, to save us poor blackies.

Jan 2011

As Mayor of London, Boris refused to either formally acknowledge or attend the 30th anniversary of the 1981 tragedy of the New Cross fire, the largest racist mass murder in British history, despite being invited to do so and causing grievous offence to many communities. Once again, displaying a casual disregard for the huge community trauma and loss felt by British Black communities due to this horrendous racist massacre.

In 2011, Boris was repeatedly warned after the death in police custody of international reggae artist Smiley Culture. But, unfortunately, he chose to ignore the reality of deteriorating relations between black communities and the Met Police. Six months later, this would erupt onto our streets, with devastating consequences for the entire country.

Let that sink in and resonate. August 2011 was not inevitable; quite the reverse. 
In fact, 2011 was entirely avoidable. 

In a city where almost half the population is BAME, any politician who tries to run the City like racism doesn’t exist will force us all to pay a heavy price


Black communities, already under enormous pressure due to austerity, were not going to simply allow a return to the days of the SUS law. 


The lesson here is that ignoring racism in London doesn’t come cheap.

June 2011

Remember Boris’s 1000 black men for 1000 black boys mentoring programme?

This was a Mayoral contract put out by City Hall. A winning Black-led bid to deliver this project was agreed as being the best bid after being assessed by the independent Greater London Authority procurement process.  


Despite winning this important contract, the Black bid was eventually rejected in favour of two white organisations, one of which, the London Action Trust (LAT) Boris Johnson, was, at the time, the patron of being awarded this contract. 

This conflict of interest was simply ignored by the GLA. Instead, it was a GLA officer who blew the whistle... 

Once Boris was fully aware that an independent black bid was successful, he ensured his office, and senior staff intervened directly in the GLA commissioning process.  


They rejected the GLA officer’s recommendation to award the black group the mentoring contract. 

Boris’s cronies then even refused, upon officer recommendation, to look at the second-ranked black bid, preferring the third and fourth-ranked white contract contenders. 

They then brought them together to form an ad-hoc consortium, awarded the contract.

The Mayor’s office explained their interference as a result of further ‘due diligence’ issues as regards the black group bidders, even though one of them was financially backed by a multi-million-pound charity.

As it turns out, this proved to be deeply ironic, as one of the winning contractors, LAT, was on the verge of bankruptcy. LAT literally collapsed into insolvency just after being awarded the contract by Boris. So then despite all the grandiose promises made by Boris, the whole programme was quietly run down amid London’s heightening concerns about knife crime.

Deaths In Police Custody...


Deaths in Police Custody Over 30 years. 
The incidence of suspicious deaths of Black men in Met police custody; the preposterous inquest verdict into the shooting of Mark Duggan, the green lighting of increased racial profiling and stop and search rates; the fact the Met reported more violent arrests of black people than any other ethnic group in London; all these issues arose as a direct consequence of an increase in institutional racism in policing facilitated by Boris. 

Boris personally proposed and sanctioned this dismantling of race equality policies and procedures and personally signed off on introducing the thoroughly discredited law of Joint Enterprise during his time in office.

Under his Mayorality, the experience of Met Black police officers suffering disproportionate disciplinary actions and being denied promotions saw a vast and unprecedented increase in the number of officers leaving the Met. 


Public complaints about the racism of police officers trebled between the Johnson Mayoral years, 2008 and 2012

Put simply, Tory’s ideological hatred of anti-racism, the resulting arrogance and complacency of managing multicultural London, and swinging austerity all combined to amplify racism and eradicated almost all the gains made as a result of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry.

The tragic and costly results meant that the invaluable lessons learned from the Lawrence inquiry were aggressively dismantled or simply left to wither on the policy vine by Johnson, 


Critically important policies, blood-soaked and born of bitter experience for London, were now being denigrated and described as “political correctness gone mad”. 

These basic and fundamental mistakes by Boris would cost the country dear.

As a result, black Londoners’ trust and confidence have haemorrhaged in the Met Police, and we saw an exodus of black senior officers leave the Met, a loss from which London has never really recovered. 


Under Boris Black’s promotion in the Met was reversed. 



The current figures  above
show fewer black officers today than a decade ago,



The Met had more black senior officers in 2005 than 2016, at the end of Boris’s reign as Mayor.

The stop and search figures remain disproportionate up until today.  





It’s the simple, unvarnished truth that Boris’s ramping up of stop and search. The abandonment of the Lawrence Inquiry recommendations gave the green light to the aggressive return of institutional police racism and, at minimum, contributed and, in my view, caused the 2011 riots that saw the tragic loss of life and cost the country millions. 

Black concerns about the overall effectiveness of police stop and search have always been high, and we have always been very clear about 
the extent to which the Mets indiscriminate 
use of power alienates entire communities. 

And things haven’t improved much since then. 

However, the massive upsurge in the use of stop and search has other unseen and profound consequences. Levels of black community trust and confidence in the Met, already precipitously low, descended into the gutter under Boris. 

And things are getting worse... 

It was as if the Mayor had poured kerosene on an already burning fire.

This alienation is profound, and here’s why; the rate at which the number of black people arrested in stop and search encounters and who were subsequently found not to have done anything wrong – in police parlance requiring “no further action”, literally exploded. 


The numbers were and remain staggering and undermine police claims about the intelligence-led use of the power, leading to improved arrest rates. 


Far from it, arrest rates are falling as stop and search increases. The use of this power is very much governed by the law of ever-diminishing returns.

The data shows that in 2014-15, a total of 82,183 citizens in London were arrested and then released without charge. 


Of that number, 12,564 were Asian, and 22,275 were black. 





Add in the “mixed” category of 4,925 and the other non-white ethnic groups, such as the Chinese, and you get a BAME total of 43,022. 

White Londoner’s numbers were 37,047, or 45% of the total. 

Under Boris, we witnessed the return to the pre-Macpherson levels of mass criminalisation of black communities by a predominantly white male police force. 

The result was that we saw the aggressive and oppressive culture of institutional racism return with a vengeance.

Here’s what Boris said about the use of the term institutional racism in 2010: 

Now, however, as a consequence of rhetorical inflation, the term is used too glibly as a blanket indictment and, as such, has become a barrier to reform. 

Paradoxically, institutional racism has become a millstone around the neck of the MPS, obscuring our understanding of the nature of any continuing endemic racism in that or any other large organisation.”

Complaints of police racism increased massively under Boris - though fewer police officers were found guilty. 

In 2013 the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s investigation into eight Met officers caught sending each other profoundly offensive and racist texts uncovered the fact that the Met, under Boris Johnson’s leadership, had failed to properly investigate public complaints of police officer racism. 


It found that 511 racism complaints were made against officers from April 2011 to May 2012. The IPCC found that Met’s race ‘investigations’ comprised simply asking the officers to respond by email, accepting their routine denial,  and finding against the complainant. 

They also found the Met issued a “standard, generic apology” regardless of what the investigation found of “very little value”.

The IPCC concluded;

“Too often, complaints are dismissed without proper investigation or resolution, complainants are not properly engaged with, and lessons are not learned.”

This report was just the latest dent in Boris’s claims to have strained every sinew to eradicate and clean up police racism. His actions shattered an already fragile level of black community confidence in policing.  


A Com res poll published in 2013 and reported by the BBC found that 38% of Black Londoners believed the Met was still institutionally racist, some 14 years after the Lawrence report and one year into Boris’s second term as Mayor of London.

July 2011

Mayor ensures a £1.3m contract is awarded to a charity (London Action Trust) he was Patron of and failed to declare his interest. In addition, Boris unfairly discriminated against a consortium of black businesses that legitimately won a GLA contract tender to tackle youth violence but were subsequently and unfairly ruled out due to direct Mayoral interference in the supposedly independent GLA procurement and contracting process.

On July 20th 2011, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson launched The Mayor’s Mentoring Scheme. Speaking outside the Epicentre in Leyton, the Mayor told Londoners:

Through no fault of their own, there are some young boys in our city in desperate need of a strong, male role model. I want my scheme to reach out to those who may fall prey to the lure of gangs and violence and place them with positive, hard-working males who can help guide them,”

Adding;

“... the influence of a positive role model can be immeasurable, and I’d like to thank all the outstanding volunteers who have come forward and encouraged even more people to get on board.”

The London Black Boys Mentoring Scheme bid was the winning bid, agreed and supported by GLA Officers. The programme was intended to meet the needs of London’s black communities and, more specifically, young black men at risk of criminality or violence. 


In the end, Boris’ preferred and personally selected contractor, LAT, collapsed and London’s black communities were left once again brutally betrayed by this egregious and garrulous Mayor. 

August 2011

Boris refuses to recognise or acknowledge the United Nations, International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade celebrated on August 23rd.

Boris slashed London’s Black History Month budget of £136,000 to £ 10,000, and eventually, he transferred the remaining funding to London’s American Independence Day celebrations.  


No surprise there, at a Young People’s Question Time held on September 17th 2009, Munira Mirza, then Mayoral Advisor on Arts and Culture said: 

Sometimes, it can get a bit boring, doing slavery every year”.

Boris was also responsible for withdrawing funding for a wide range of important black economic initiatives and noteworthy cultural events that acknowledged and promised multiculturalism and the positive contributions of black communities to the life of the capital. Almost all were scrapped, 


This included the prestigious and well-supported London’s Black History Season, Africa Day, Transatlantic Slavery Memorial Day, and the immensely popular anti-racist Rise Music festivals. 

Criminal actions, when one considers the subsequent and ongoing rise in racist and religious attacks that we see in London.

This resulted in the marginalisation of London’s black communities from the city’s cultural life centre. The incredibly well-attended and important London Schools and the Black Child Conference focused on tackling racism in education and have been organised annually by Diane Abbott MP since 2002. was scrapped in 2011 under Boris.

2012

Under Boris, London’s Black youth unemployment was at the highest level in a generation, and adult rates rose fast due to austerity and public sector redundancies. 


We also saw massive black voluntary sector project closures due to City Hall and local authority cuts, with consequent increases in rates of child poverty, deprivation and crime in the capital. 

Under Boris Johnson, Black youth had the highest unemployment rate of any ethnic group in Europe. 

In 2012 black youth unemployment at 55% rose higher than Palestinian youth unemployment in the West Bank Gaza, which stood at 46% in 2012


The effect on our communities was and can be seen to be devasting, as rates of ill health, disease, mental instability and poverty have risen to catastrophic levels. London’s Black school exclusions rose massively between 2008 and 2016 and still today, drive, just as it did back then, the school-to-prison pipeline.

Next, and after the utter folly of the corruption of Operation Trident and the illegal use of Joint Enterprise, came Boris’s and the Metropolitan Police’s next big idea, the Matrix predictive policing model, that listed actual and suspected gang members. 

This database was found to have seriously breached data protection laws, which caused significant “damage and distress” to black communities.  The next slice of institutional racism established under Boris was the predictive policing model,

 The Matrix,  as exposed by Stafford Scott in January 2019, is a terrifying tool of police oppression and a pure form of institutional racism that aggressively targets innocent black people for special police and local authority attention. 

Black youth who have committed no crimes are being sanctioned, curfewed, kicked out of their parental homes, having had their parent’s tenancy threatened, and lost their jobs due to being placed on the Matrix.

Once again, Boris’s racist policies inflicted real pain on London’s black communities. This was the formal conclusion of an investigation by the UK’s data protection watchdog. 

Boris had turned what was, at that time, the Mets flagship community-led/police campaign to reduce gun violence and armed criminality from working with communities to a proactive unit that actively targeted and racially harassed black youth. 

As one of Operation Trident’s Independent Advisory Group and its founding chair, I can tell you that back then, Operation Trident was seen as the community partnership jewel in the Mets community policing crown. IAG 

Trident had the highest public confidence rating among London’s black communities of any Met police unit, ever, period. 

The difference is that Trident was a community-led controlled campaign with a £350.000 annual event and promotion budget. Community control ensured policing was proportional, professional and trusted and therefore enjoyed community consent.

Boris and the then Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe, morphed Trident, a flagship community-led initiative, into an aggressive anti-black gang unit that went on to racially profile and target black communities and ultimately went on to shoot Mark Duggan in 2011.

Mayor Boris and his then Policing and Crime Commissioner, Mr Stephen Greenhalgh, not only turned a blind eye to racial profiling within the Met but positively demanded more. 


The next big Mayoral idea was the doomed Operation Shield. This extraordinary high-profile community engagement strategy died a death from the get-go. From Brixton to Tottenham, wherever Boris took the public consultation, he was challenged and condemned for his lack of delivery, open racism, and failure to hold the Met to a proper account. 

Ramping up Police use of stop and search.


From the year the Mayor got elected in 2008 to 2011. he increased stop and search by a massive additional 200,000 stops per year. 


He personally ordered, facilitated the abolishment of local police accountability groups in London, established by the late Lord Scarman after the 1981 uprisings, and provided a vital role in facilitating policing by consent at a local level.

In addition, Boris’s abolition of the Metropolitan Police Authority led to the complete dismantling of meaningful and effective local police accountability in London. 


Lord Scarman identified the “information vacuum” between police and communities as being critical to events in Brixton and 1981. He responded by establishing local police accountability groups to ensure police accountability and providing a space where community concerns could be heard. But, unfortunately, Boris simply abolished them all.

From 2008 - 2012, the first term Boris’s first term in office, how many Black. Asian Chinese and Mixed and people of colour have been stopped and searched by British Police?  


The answer is below... and it is staggering...


  • Black  813, 941
  • Asian  459, 019
  • Mixed 160, 819
  • Chinese 72, 949
In 2008-2012, 1,505.779 million BAME stops and searches took place when you included the mixed black category. 

This is a national figure, but the Met contributed 90% of the increase each year. That’s a staggering increase and provides a clear explanation of rising police-community tensions that ultimately led to the inevitable explosions in 2011.  This is one of the main reasons the capital community-police tensions rose so high. 

Just a reminder of the scale of that increase. A the time of the publication of the Stephen Lawrence report in 1999, the full stop and search rate for London was 100,000 people per year.

The clear signal sent to the Met by Boris from the get-go was that institutional racism was off the agenda, and as a result, the issue of race equality at the Met was placed firmly on the policy back burner.,


In the most diverse city in the world, that was a catastrophic political error that led to the riots of August 2011 and has led to the current deep well of deep anger and frustration between the Met and London’s black communities.

Boris never believed in the concept of institutionalised racism. 


As Mayor, neither he nor the  Commissioner at the time, Hogan-Howe, believed that the Metropolitan Police Service was an institutionally racist organisation.  

The Mayor declared the same in the Metropolitan Police Authority Race and Faith Report published in 2010.  This was a severe political error of monumental proportions.

Black History Month

As early as 2010, Boris slashed London’s BHM budget by 92% reducing the funding from a respectable £132,000 to a paltry £10,000. 

The Guardian reported:

“Figures seen by the Guardian show that the London mayor cut funding for Black History Month, a series of events staged in October to celebrate black culture in the capital, from £132,000 to £10,000, though city hall insists the previous figure was £76,000. In addition, Africa Day’s £100,000 grant from the London Development Agency was axed completely.

Funding for Jewish events was halved to £50,000, while a decision to cut funding for the St Patrick’s Day celebration was criticised last year.

And finally, and in more recent times, and demonstrating a consistent pattern of activity, in 2017, Boris met with US white supremacist millionaire demagogue Steve Bannon, founder of Breitbart News, a global platform for the lunatic racist right.

Conclusion


I could have included the ethnic cleansing of the senior black GLA staff under Boris during his time in office or, indeed, his failure to have any credible black full-time advisers other than his part-time association with his longtime friend and adviser Ray Lewis. 

I could have cited the disastrous Prevent programme and anti-terrorist policing strategies that have alienated many in London’s Muslim communities by AC Mark Rowley. 

These issues are covered well elsewhere. So please do share and make sure that before the Tories come knocking on your door, promising an all-inclusive vision of one-nation Toryism and regaling you with the empty rhetoric of Boris Johnson, please have them read this. 

No sane black or Muslim person, and there are millions of us, should be voting for Boris Johnson.