UK Labor denounces ‘bold criminality’ of Leeds riots

VaselineJuly 21, 2024

0 6 minutes read

UK Labor denounces ‘bold criminality’ of Leeds riots

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper ordered a police crackdown on law and order in West Yorkshire against a riot in Leeds, England, sparked by the violent seizure of four Romanian children from their family last Thursday night.

Police forced the children, aged between seven and 14, out of their sister’s home in Harehills on conservation land, handcuffing one of the children and dragging them off the property in a marked police van.

A video of the incident shared on TikTok reveals the police’s Gestapo tactics against minors. Distressed relatives, friends and neighbors can be seen protesting police brutality.

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Riots ensued, with youths attacking police vehicles and setting trash cans, wooden pallets and a bus on fire. The situation was inflamed by the arrival of police in riot gear, who later withdrew as local elders appealed for calm.

The incident exposed the brutal state of class relations in Britain, with a newly elected Labor government responding to acute social problems produced by decades of austerity with policing and criminalization of the poor.

Instead of expressing sympathy for the family, Labor politicians immediately used the event to promote their agenda of order. Cooper tweeted at 10.41pm: “Appalled by the shocking scenes and attacks on police vehicles and public transport in Leeds. Disorder of this nature does not occur in our society.”

Those responsible for the night’s “daring criminality” should feel “the full force of the law”, she later declared.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper visits Leeds Police Station to meet officers from West Yorkshire Police following the riots in Harehills, Leeds (Photo by Andy Taylor/Home Office. / CC BY 2.0)

Starmer’s spokesman called on West Yorkshire Police to take the “strongest possible action” against the perpetrators, adding that “disruption of this nature has no place in our society”.

Starmer also echoed calls from West Yorkshire Police to stop “speculating about the cause of the disturbance”. But he refused to publicly name those responsible for spreading far-right disinformation and fake news aimed at inciting racial hatred.

UK reformist leader Nigel Farage, who attended the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin, tried to drum up anti-Muslim sentiment, posting on X: “The politics of the subcontinent are currently playing out on the streets of Leeds. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Farage’s intervention, like that of Tommy Robinson and other fascist thugs, was supported by the law and order labor response.

The family challenges the media’s lies

On Saturday, the reporters from World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) spoke with family members.

Florin, the uncle of the children seized by the police, spoke on behalf of Maricel, the children’s father. Florin disputed the many lies spread by the police and the national media.

Florin and other relatives insisted that social workers were not present at any time last Thursday to take the children into care and that only the police removed the children.

Florin

He said: “How the children were removed was very bad. Handcuffing a 14 year old. Using physical force on young children to take them while shouting “no, I want to stay with my family”.

“I have no words to describe these very bad things. The parents are very upset. Father finished. He cries all the time.”

The incident that triggered the removal of the children happened in April. Maricel’s eight-year-old daughter was playing with her two-year-old grandson when he dropped him off. The baby didn’t cry and the family didn’t realize it until the next day when they saw a bump on the toddler’s head. They took him straight to the hospital.

Florin described media stories about the children being “home alone” as a “big lie”. The children’s aunt, who is in her thirties, was at home with them. The children are never left alone, Florin insisted, despite the fact that both parents work different shifts at a local factory.

Florin says that many in the Romanian community are now scared to take their children to the hospital in case the same thing happens to them.

On Saturday, the children’s aunt was arrested, Florin adding: “No one knows why. I asked the police. They said they weren’t allowed to give an explanation for why it was taken.” She was released on Sunday.

The family’s visit to hospital in April led to a referral from social services, and social workers soon visited the family, placing the couple’s children in the care of their older sister. Florin said the family was given “no reason” for taking the children away from their sister.

Locals say there is a long history of Romanians and Roma being openly discriminated against by the police and local authorities. Florin explained: “What happened here was the same as in 2010 aggressive police.

“When the police see someone from another country, they stop them for no reason. They stopped me twice. I asked if I did something wrong, but they said it was just a check. But I have a driver’s license, I pay the road tax. I work, I pay taxes here, why do they want to check me? Why don’t we enjoy the same rights here as everyone else?

“We are called gypsies because our skin is a little dark, but we are not gypsies, we do not speak the gypsy language, we only speak Romanian.”

Maricel and his family came to the UK four years ago. He and his wife work in the meat industry and work up to 12 hours a day for minimum wage.

Leeds: a microcosm of social polarisation

Starmer and Cooper’s intervention on Harehills reflects extreme nervousness that the same social tensions that produced Thursday’s riots exist in Britain’s towns and cities.

Efforts in the 1990s to transform Leeds into a financial center of the north contributed to the city’s social polarization. Conservative and Labor governments have implemented wave after wave of austerity.

Beyond the affluent city center are the suburbs described by demographers as a “doughnut of deprivation.” More than one in five Leeds residents live in poverty (176,376 people), while 31.3% of the city’s children and young people (55,780 young people) live in poverty (above the national average of 29%).

Harehills is a poor and diverse working class neighborhood less than two miles from the city centre. 38% of residents in Harehills and neighboring Gipton described themselves in the most recent census as being from an Asian background, 36% white and 17% black. There is a more recent population of Roma in the area, who are officially classified as Eastern European.

A street in Harehills, Leeds

A combination of deteriorating social conditions and heavy-handed and discriminatory policing has made Harehills and surrounding areas a scene of riots and social unrest (often linked to national riots) over the past half century. This includes the Chapeltown riots of 1975, 1981 and 1987; the Hyde Park Leeds riot of 1995; the 2001 Harehills riot; Riot at the 2002 Leeds Festival; and riots in England in 2011.

More than a decade after the 2011 London riots and almost 25 years after the 2001 Harehills riots, social conditions facing broad masses of workers and young people of all nationalities have worsened, as a direct result of policies aimed at enriching the financial and corporate oligarchy.

The social worker speaks

On social media, social workers were among the many voices condemning Thursday’s violent attack on the children. A Yorkshire social worker told the WSWS: “A colleague and I watched a video of two police officers dragging two children out of their home as if they were a threat to them. I felt physically sick and any decent thinking social worker would. I have attended many situations where, unfortunately, for immediate protection, a child or children must go to a place of safety, either temporarily or permanently.

“Social workers are trained to de-escalate those very tense situations and take the child safely and respectfully. I have never seen this before and strongly condemn it. Police officers should be charged with assault on minors. The children and any child who witnessed this will be traumatized for life.

“I understand why the community was horrified and it showed in their protests. Several colleagues said if the police would have done this to a rich family, they would have asked if it was because they were a poor immigrant family.

“I would call on all social workers to condemn the actions of the police and resist any attempts by the Labor government to submerge our profession with the police under the banner of Child Protection. Social Work’s values of combating social injustice and anti-oppressive practice do not align in any way with the fascistic bullying and assault on children, clearly the value base of the police.”

VaselineJuly 21, 2024

0 6 minutes read

The family challenges the media’s lies

Vaseline

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