Not Nazis, just angry: How 1981 Toxteth riots show underlying cause of disorder is deprivation

This is my latest column, published in the Scotsman on 5th August 2024.

As in Toxteth in 1981, the people rioting today are mostly angry young men from left-behind communities who feel they have no stake in society.

On hot summer nights when tensions ran high, we prayed for rain. Fortunately, working in Edinburgh, our pleas were often answered. Rain dampens the hottest of tempers.

I was thinking about these fractious nights of the 70s and 80s when watching TV coverage of the recent disturbances in Southport, Sunderland, and elsewhere. Once the match is lit, the wildfires of riot are as unpredictable as they are dangerous. Usually such disturbances last two to three days but it depends on how much fuel there is.

The flashpoint in Southport could hardly have been worse. A savage attack on a dancing class of young girls was the stuff of nightmares and the horror clearly knocked the community sideways. Although a youth was quickly arrested, the police could not get information out quickly enough to counter the almost instant ‘fake news’ about the culprit.

Within hours, it had become ‘fact‘ that the person responsible was a Muslim illegal immigrant. Not true, but by that time it didn’t matter for the murders were only the spark. The fuel was already there for the subsequent riots.

We know this because we’ve been here many times before, such as Toxteth in 81, in Brixton in 81 and 85, and London in 2011. They all have much in common.

Most were founded on miscommunication, and all were symptomatic of much deeper social issues of race and grievance. The patterns are strikingly similar.

Dire consequences

They usually take place in warm weather and they all bring mobs of usually young men onto the streets to indulge in an orgy of destruction, looting, and violence against symbols of authority. Alcohol is often involved. Vehicle burning and stone throwing are common. All are eventually subdued by robust policing and the cooling of tempers. Political leaders respond with outrage and threats of dire consequences for the miscreants.

Of all the post-riot inquiries, and there have been a few, the most insightful was Lord Scarman’s into the 1981 Toxteth riots. He identified heavy-handed policing as part of the problem – the spark – but found the underlying causes were “complex, social and economic factors which had created a disposition towards violent protest”.

In other words, he identified an underclass who felt powerless and disadvantaged. Rioting was an expression of their rage, a chance to take power and pick up some booty. Most felt they had no stake in society, nothing to lose.

Lazy labelling

In the case of Toxteth, the underlying issue was race, and so it was again in Southport, as well as the feeling that poor working-class communities have been left behind while their communities changes beyond recognition.

Riots are a howl of anguish and rage. It’s easy to dismiss rioters as “hard-right” or even Nazis, but this is lazy labelling and, for the most part, untrue.

The people on the streets are mostly angry young men who feel aggrieved and disadvantaged. Such folk are easy targets for malign actors, from home and abroad. To address the problem, we must first understand it. We cannot arrest our way to a solution.

Once tempers cool, Keir Starmer and his Home Secretary will surely reflect on wider issues. They could do worse than dust off the Scarman Report. It’s old, but not out-dated. In the meantime, pray for rain.