The UK Poll Tax Riots were a series of mass disturbances, or riots, in British towns and 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 31 March 1990, shortly before the tax was due to come into force in England and Wales. The poll tax was voted the most disruptive tax introduced to the United Kingdom and was also voted the least fair by 10,000 people in 2010.
The disorder in London arose from a demonstration which began at 11am. The violent confrontations between police and demonstrators ended up in rampaging and looting that ended at 3am the next morning. This unrest is sometimes called the Battle of Trafalgar, particularly by opponents of the poll tax, because much of the rioting took place in Trafalgar Square.
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In November 1989 the All Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation (The Fed) was set up largely by the leftist Militant tendency as a national body which included many Anti-Poll Tax Unions. The committee called a demonstration in London for 31 March 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 Metropolitan Police realised the march would be larger than the 60,000 capacity of Trafalgar Square. It asked permission from the Metropolitan Police Service and the Department of the Environment to divert the march to Hyde Park. The request was denied.[1]
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 March 31.
On 31 March 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. An abandoned rally by the Labour Party may also have contributed to the number of protesters.
The march began at Kennington Park at 1:30pm, moving faster than planned because some of the crowd had forced open the gates of the park, presumably in order to avoid being forced through smaller gates. This spilt the march over both sides of the road, and continued in much the same way for the rest 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 reportedly contained veteran anarchists and a group called Bikers Against The Poll Tax, all of whom became aggravated by several heavy-handed arrests, including one of a man in a wheelchair.[1]
Meanwhile, the tail-end had been diverted at the Parliament Square end of Whitehall, and the anarchists it had attracted were at the head of this diverted and unpoliced march which made its way to Richmond Terrace, bringing the diverted march into Whitehall, opposite Downing Street.
Mounted riot police were brought in, in an attempt to clear the protesters from 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, contradictory reports began to arise. According to some sources, mounted riot police (officially used in an attempt to clear Whitehall of protesters) charged out of a side street into the crowd in Trafalgar Square. Whether intentional or not, this was interpreted by the mob as a provocation, fuelling 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 Embassy, attempting to force through to the entrance to Whitehall where police were re-grouping. The crowd attacked the vans with wooden staves and scaffolding poles. Soon after, rioting began to escalate.
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 Embassy 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 to move people out of Trafalgar Square. A large section of the crowd was moved back down Northumberland Avenue and allowed over the River Thames in order to return to their organised transport. Two other sections were pushed north into the West End, which suffered reported theft and vandalism. Published accounts detail shop windows being broken, 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, released figures claimed 113 were injured, mostly members of the public but also police officers, and a further 339 had been arrested.[2] Scuffles between rioters and police continued until 3am. Rioters attacked numerous shops, most notably Stringfellow's nightclub, car showrooms, Covent Garden cafés and wine bars were set on fire, as well as motor vehicles.
The response of the London police, the government, the Labour Party and the labour movement and some of the Marxist and Trotskyist left, notably The Militant Tendency, was to condemn the riot as senseless and to blame anarchists. On ITV News at Ten that evening, Tommy Sheridan of The Fed/Militant Tendency condemned the protesters. The next day, Steve Nally, also a Militant member and Secretary of the All Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation said that they would "hold an enquiry and name names".[3] Some anarchists, especially the high-profile Class War organisation and those from the Anarchist 121 Bookshop in Brixton were happy to defend the actions of the crowd in response to the police, and were joined by other sections of the libertarian left in condoning the riot as legitimate self-defence against police attack. According to Danny Burns: "Often attack is the only effective form of defence and, as a movement, we should not be ashamed or defensive about these actions, we should be proud of those who did fight back."[4]
The Trotskyist Socialist Workers' Party (SWP), which was blamed for the violence by some in the media and by Labour MP George Galloway,[5] refused to condemn protesters, calling the events a "police riot". Pat Stack, then an SWP Central Committee member, told the Times "We did not go on the demonstration with any intention of fighting with the police, but we understand why people are angry and we will not condemn that anger."[6]
In contradiction to what was said at the time by the London police, the government, the Labour Party and the labour movement and most of the Marxist and Trotskyist left, 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.[2]
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.
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.
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.
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. The anti-poll tax movement believed it was partially responsible for the abolition of the poll tax.
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