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Dead. Thank you. I need
Welcome to Sputnik, orbiting the world
with me, George Galloway, and me, Gayri.
As the economic and political crisis in
Western Europe continues to drag
millions into poverty and unemployment,
inelectably, racism is on the rise.
Sometimes stoked by parties of the far
right, sometimes by respectable
politicians. themselves in part
responsible for the economic crisis
producing the racism. Tony Blair's
right-hand man, David Blunkett, spoke
recently about a supposed influx of
people from Romania and Bulgaria in
terms which if he'd used about black
people or Jewish people would have had
him up on a charge. Romanians and
Bulgarians, according to Mr. Blancet,
are barely toilet trained and certainly
don't know the purpose of a dustpin. So,
we're asking this week, how racist is
Britain? And if you think Britain's
racist, have you ever lived in France or
the Netherlands? Gatry, where an annual
controversy has reached new levels. Tell
us about it. Well, this weekend the
Dutch are celebrating their tradition of
St. Nicholas who is a patron saint of
the children and has a crew of black
servants or helpers as they wish to call
it today. If you just look at these
pictures, they are the obvious portrayal
of racism. But the Dutch uphold this
tradition very highly. There's always
been protest about this racist element
of the tradition and this year it has
even reached the United Nations to which
the Dutch responded furiously. They sent
abuse and insult to Professor Shephard
who raised the matter to the Dutch
government and uh to which Dutch
government said this is our business
stay out of it. And the prime minister
even responded, "Well, Blackbeat is
black. There's not much you can do about
that." Except he's not black, of course,
because all over the Netherlands, people
are blacking up their faces to look like
black servants of Santa Claus. Who'd
have thought it in the Liberal
Netherlands. Shortly, I'll be talking to
Lee Jasper, London's most prominent
black activist and a senior official in
two London administrations under Mayor
Ken Livingston. He's produced a
devastating new report, police, courts,
and black communities, and we'll be
asking him about that. But first, Gatri,
you took the Sputnik cameras out in
North London asking the public about
racism. What was their verdict? Guilty
or not guilty,
depending on who you ask, I guess. Let's
take a look. No, Britain's not a racist
country. There are racist individuals,
but you can't generalize the whole
country as a whole. I lived in a area
called Kent for over 12 years. And when
I first got there, it was really racist.
Yeah, a lot of people were racist. But
as they got to as they got to know me
over the years, it just kind of
gradually changed. We saw racism, it's
still there um as a whole. It's just
more hidden now. So, it's not as blatant
in your face, but I but I do believe
it's obviously is still out there.
There's so many cultures in Britain that
they all clash and when they clash, it
causes racism. One of my cousins is like
is black and basically he he get
sometimes gets stopped for no reason.
And I think police have got police are
like they're racist sometimes because
they'll stop more black people than
white people. It's everywhere in the
world. So we all have to they have to
try every place to stop racism. Yeah.
It's all over the world. I think within
every country you have certain racist
people. But I don't think as a country
is racist because if you see a lot
around schools and colleges a lot of
black people and white people do mix.
I'm delighted to welcome Lee Jasper
aboard the Sputnik. Lee of course from
up here the color of people's skin is
quite invisible but from your
devastating new report down on the
street it looks very different. Tell us
about it. Well, what's happened is that
uh in the last uh month, we produced two
reports. Uh one by government which
analyzes the uh incidence of race and
racism within the criminal justice
system, another by a charity focusing on
drugs that looks at the stop and search
within the metropolitan in London area
and the extent to which black and white
people get differentially charged with
crimes uh even though they may be
firsttime offenders of both of them. And
the conclusions of these reports are
that in relation to the criminal justice
system, if you're black, you're 20% more
likely to be sent to jail for a like and
like offense with your with a white
offender. Uh and you are on average will
receive 24 months as opposed to the
white offender who will receive 15
months. And that's even in the backdrop
against uh uh white offenders having a
more extensive criminal record and black
people committing less crime, they are
still more likely to be sent to jail.
And then of course the uh report by the
release charity, the drugs charity,
found out that if you are a firsttime
offender, uh black and white, and we get
caught with cannabis, uh I will be 50%
more likely to be sent to court than you
will. And if we were to be caught with
cocaine, I am 70% more likely to be sent
to court than you will. And what we've
uh a startling figure is that the drag
net for sucking our people into the
criminal justice system is the power of
the police and stop and search. And they
have conducted over 1.5 million stop and
search on Africans, Caribbean, Asian,
people of mixed heritage, Asian and
white, black and white here in the
capital. An absolutely staggering
number. This is just in five years. 2008
2008 1.5 million people in Britain have
been stopped and searched by the police
in London only. It's a staggering
figure. It is. Now what of
those what percentage are from the black
and minority ethnic? 840 odd thousand
are black,
533,000 are Asian and the 133 odd
thousand are Asian and mixed are mixed
heritage uh in this multicultural
society. You see, even for me as a a
practitioner in the field, this the
statistics, the facts in your report
were actually stunning. And you had a
trip ditch which grabbed me. You said
that racism in the police and justice
system in Britain was resurgent
uh out of control and rampant. I mean,
these are strong uh terms. It is. And if
you look at the figures for stop and
search since 2008, increased by 7%. If
you look at the number of black young
people in young people uh in prison
establishments, that's increased since
2008 by 100%.
uh and uh so you get the sense of a
current coalition government having been
given a green light to the police to act
as discriminatory and the courts to act
as discriminatory and light and it's
tantamount to a virtual war of
oppression on black people. Well, this
war uh is another of the words in your
report that jumped out and hit me. I
mean, this is a war that is currently
under the surface. I I'm sure that the
great majority of British people have
absolutely no idea about these kind of
facts. But if they erupt, if this war
erupts in the kind of riots that we have
seen in Britain before, suddenly all the
cameras will be there. I think it's Dr.
Martin Luther King who said riots are
the voices of the unheard. Uh and uh I
think very much what you're looking at
is a ramping up of racism by this
coalition government that has unleashed
uh resurgent levels of institutionalized
racism in police and in criminal
justice. Uh and the media are studiously
ignoring the real story uh which is this
mass criminalization on a scale that
people uh will you know will not believe
in relation to both African, Caribbean
and Asian communities. Now the
institutionalization is the uh in a way
the most uh serious. Yeah. An individual
police officer can be a racist. An
individual jailer uh can be a racist.
But if the institutions are pervaded
with this poison, uh then we're really
in big trouble. And I was struck in your
report by the sentences being handed out
by judges. One expects even I expect
judges at least to have better judgment
than that. But your uh your your figures
seem to suggest that they willy-nilly
hand out condemn punishment to black
people uh and lenient punishment to
white people. You know, Britain is
supposed to be a country that is based
upon the principles of fairness,
equality, and justice. And you expect,
don't you, that a court would be a haven
for such principles where they would be
fairly uh applied and judici judicially
executed. And what we what the report
the government's own report so we're
relying on government figures here which
I think are an underestimate but the
government's own report demonstrates but
that in that in crown court and
magistrates court it's routinely the
case that black uh uh offenders are
given sentences uh way in excess of
those given for white offenders with
more complex criminal records more
extensive criminal activity who do not
end up in jail whereas the black
defenders do. And the drugs question
again in your I mean I hate drugs, don't
get me wrong, but the the the idea uh
that black people are the bigger drug
takers is slaughtered in your report.
Actually, white people take more drugs
than black people do, but black people
are more likely to be sent to court if
found with drugs and in court much more
likely to get a very harsh sentence. I
think these are the real critical
anomalies in in relation to where we
are. On the one hand, black people use
less drugs than the white communities
and yet the focus of policing operations
is around stopping black youth. Uh and
when they are stopped and charged, as we
rightly said, they are more likely to be
sent to court. More likely it's it's as
if you are you and I stole a loaf of
bread and that's the first crime we've
ever committed. You will get a caution.
I will get sent to court. That's the
simplest way of explaining it to the
majority of people. And you're
absolutely right. It's an outrageous
calamy that it's remaining not on the
news agenda, not on the political
agenda, and we're going to have to work
hard to push that up, including you,
George, in the House of Parliament who
are going to have to start to press the
Ministry of Justice on some well- aimed
questions that I'm happy to provide. The
Ministry of Justice being an Orwellian
Orwellian term. Just lastly, yeah, is it
the economy stupid as Clinton once said?
Is it because the economy is crashing?
Because there is uh uh real penury
amongst the mass of the people Yeah.
that there's a conscious or unconscious
effort to exploit racism as a response
to that crisis. Well, certainly this
coalition government is hellbent on
scapegoating communities, whether
they're Muslim communities, whether
they're black communities, and now we've
had the addition of Roma and Romanian
communities into that. I saw tales of uh
Rors being accused of stealing babies
and all sorts of other uh uh hysterical
outbursts. Uh the reason for that in my
view is that they're seeking to distract
the populace from the architects of the
real uh uh and those really guilty for
uh exploiting the British economy and
are the casino bankers and the top 1%.
But in relation to cuts, it's an
important question because cuts to
police officers numbers leads them to
face increased pressure from politicians
to meet crime targets. And when they get
into that situation, uh uh they have a
policing called noble cause corruption
where they think, well, you're not
guilty of this, but you look slightly
guilty anyway, so I'm going to send you
through the criminal justice system. And
that's what's happening routinely. And
as officer numbers are cut and the
pressure on politicians to meet crime
targets goes up, then so will
disproportionate, bad, unprofessional,
racist policing increase because the
police uh are well aware of the fact
that if I put a black boy in front of a
judge, he will convict him and send him
send him to jail. And therefore, they uh
meet their crime and arrest targets by a
process of fishing in a salmon pool that
is made up entirely of African,
Caribbean, and Asian people. and fill
privatized prisons for the profit of
those that run. Another story. Lee
Jasper, thanks for joining us on the
Sputnik. After the break, we'll be
talking to another big British political
figure with strong views on race and
policing, former Conservative Minister
and MP and vicechairman of the
Conservative Party, Steve Norris. We'll
be right
back. Welcome back to Sputnik. Now, race
is not the only question mark hanging
over the British police. A series of
scandals over decades have destroyed the
overwhelmingly benign reputation enjoyed
by the police when I was young, and
Dixon of Doc Green, a polite, aunkular
officer to whom you were encouraged to
turn if you ever had a problem or even
just needed to ask directions. Since the
1970s, these scandals have dogged the
constabularary. And whilst their
reputation isn't as low as politicians
and journalists yet, it's headed that
way. Guy asked some members of the
British public what they thought of the
police. What did they think? Well, I
guess that depends on who you are. Let's
take a look. What's going on in the
world today? I think they do a very good
job and they do what they can for us. I
do believe in that. Yeah, they was doing
a good job, but then what happened with
Mark Dugen and all of that, I thought
that was a bit racist how that all
happened. But apart from that, I think
they're doing their job. Most police
nowadays, not all police, I know that
some of them are pretty racist nowadays.
And that's why I I wouldn't really put
my trust into police.
Yeah, that's that's true. That's true.
If anything happens, we will rely on the
police. So, that's what I'm I'm
interested. They're good people. I think
they can make like obviously a bit more
effort and stuff. Uh I don't think
there's enough police at night and there
ought to be more at night than in like
the daytime. I do think police do a good
job. I do. Sometimes I do trust them.
Sometimes I do think maybe the races
they can be a bit unfair but at the end
of the day I do think they do a good
job. No, I don't trust them. As a young
person, I don't I think they
discriminate against young people. So
they're doing very very good job. If
there is any accident, they will come in
a minute. You know, fight 10 minutes,
they will come.
Steve Norris twice ran for London mayor
for the Conservative Party. If he'd won,
people would have been surprised at just
how challenging his policing policies
would have been and how much he hated
racism and still does. Steve Norris,
welcome to Sputnik. As you've seen,
we've been asking Londoners what they
think of uh policing as an institution.
And it very much depends who you are,
what age you are, and I'm sorry to say
what color you are, but you once said to
me when we were in parliament together,
uh that the police were the last great
unreformed British institution. You
still hold to that? I think I actually
said it was the last great reformed
mafia family. Great unreformed mafia
family. Uh but you know she did tried to
exculpate you. Yeah. A very decent of
you. But no, I'll tell you I'll tell you
exactly why. Because um the police have
been very very good at uh pushing away
governments, local governments and
central governments hiding behind this
issue of operational responsibility. You
know, you can dictate policy, but you
can't dictate my operational uh
priorities. Now, uh if it ever came to a
stage where a politician said arrest him
first before her, you know, that would
be quite wrong. something that you and I
would desperately dislike. No police
service should ever be run on those
lines. But what this is masking is quite
a different issue. You know, when for
example, just ordinary people talk about
saying, shouldn't we have more police on
the street? Wouldn't it be better if the
police actually engage more directly
with the community? Maybe they could
build some trust when the community
could see that they were the vast
majority of them perfectly decent people
where police themselves might get a
little bit closer to what the issues
were among, you know, ethnic minority
communities and so on and with young
people. Well, then they'll say, "Oh, no,
you can't tell us that because that's a
operational matter. We we like our
little cars, you know, buzzing down the
street da da and playing games." And
I've always thought those cups of tea
must be getting really chilled in the
station for half of those guys, you
know. Um, what you see so often is that
actually it's the policeman who's parked
on the double yellow lines with the
doors open getting a couple of
hamburgers. You know, it's the policeman
who treats you as if you're guilty
before you even opened your mouth. It's
the policeman who pushes you around by
the wave of the hand. I know they've got
to be assertive. I know that's part of
the job, but they take assertion to
levels which are really very unhealthy.
I think unless we start cracking that,
then the problems that you've been
talking about are going to get worse.
They really are. And we had police and
crime commissioners, you know, it's a
kind of it's a pretty feeble attempt to
solve the problem. Very, very feeble. We
still haven't The public voted with
their feet in droves, not voting. Yeah.
Well, yeah. As we saw from Guyatri's Vox
Pops, it kind of depends what age you
are and what color you are. But these
scandals that have accumulated since the
1970s, there was the minor strike, there
was the Hillsborough disaster, the
Steven Lawrence murder and how that was
mishandled. The Mark Dugen seems to
still be an issue even today. That one
is obviously the one that's most living
on the street. They That's the most
salient aspect of the police, the racist
element of the police. Not that that
triggered the London riots, of course,
two years ago. Absolutely. The slaying
of Mark Dugen in Tottenham began riots
throughout the length and breadth almost
of the of the country. These scandals as
they accumulate are chipping away very
substantially at the police's
credibility. Yeah, I think they are. And
and actually I don't think this is
confined to ethnic minorities now. I
think what's worse is that you know that
that you know ordinary white middle
class you know suburban citizens are
beginning to get the impression that you
can't trust the police to the same
degree. And that's terrifying. That
really is. and not least because you
know I I'm sure the vast majority of
them are just you trying to do a
difficult job. Nobody ever said being in
policing was going to be easy but there
is that sufficient element where we see
time and time again that we're being
presented with a story which is simply
not the truth. I mean a Hillsborough of
course you know we now know um the
falsification of thousands of statements
substantial falsification not of one
person's evidence but of hundreds and
hundreds of statements you know that uh
that's the kind of evidence that you
know even normal guardian reading um but
you're a Liverpool man of course you I
am indeed I am indeed it matters a lot
to us because we were treated the people
of the city and you know people who live
there were treated as if they were de
facto guilty because they came from
Liverpool it is probably their fault.
What emerged was that the police had
actually been fabricating statements,
interfering with statements to give an
impression which justified their own
actions. And you know, I think that's
that's the kind of issue we've got. Even
the chief whip in the conservative
government lost his job in very highly
contentious circumstances. We can't go
into them all because there are still
live proceedings in the courts. But uh
uh if if if the chief whip of the
government can claim that the police set
him up, yeah, whether he's right or
wrong about that, then what about a
young black boy in Brixton? What about
the culture that the police apparently
developed of just taking a bung every
time they rang a newspaper to tell them
about a little tidbit that actually
they'd uncovered, you know, in the
course of their duty, they were
committing a criminal offense, but it
was apparently absolutely widespread.
And you're seeing that in the dozens of
people who are now being pulled in. Some
of them journalists, some of them police
officers, some some have plead guilty.
So we can talk about their case. We had
journalists who were uh uh being paid by
uh or rather police officers and uh and
other security officials being paid
money by newspapers to give the
whereabouts of the queen. That's right.
And other members of the royal family in
exchange for money. It's intolerable.
And I think it just sort of it underlies
this issue that there's one law for you
and there's one law for me as a police
officer and that law is canteen culture.
Look after your mates. Do whatever you
have to do. Say whatever you have to
say. You know, and look, if you do have
to if you really are in the headlights,
if you're about to be convicted, don't
worry. We'll let you retire on full
pension and then say, "Well, we can't
prosecute you. You're no longer a police
officer." Like life on Mars. Absolutely.
Imagine the only thing I liked about
that was the car. It was a wonderful uh
and a good camel over coat. You and I
could have worn that. Absolutely. No,
the 1970s gets a bum wrap in in in my
opinion. But the unfortunately you're
not the mayor of London, though uh twice
you nearly did become so. Uh if you were
the mayor of London and thus in charge
of the Metropolitan Police, what would
you do about the Metropolitan Police? I
take a lot more active interest in what
uh the commissioner is actually doing
about you know this issue because it's
huge and it's it's in danger of becoming
endemic having maybe only started with a
few you know that idea that there only
has to be one bad apple in a barrel and
it spreads everywhere. Um you know what
Boris Johnson did almost by accident was
to change the commissioner. What he
actually showed, again I suspect almost
by accident, was that the mayor of
London does have a very substantial real
power in terms of the way the
Metropolitan Police manages itself. And
I would start with the Met. It's by far
the biggest forcedeed and it's where,
you know, we can stand more than half
the problem in the country is here.
Absolutely. I'm afraid that's true. And
therefore, I would literally take much
more practical interest in what are you
doing, Bernard Hogan? How to sort this
out? What sort of actions are you taking
to prevent officers being able to walk
away uh into retirement with a cozy
pension? What are you doing to set up
the kind of rules that means we can
crosscheck about statements that we know
when people are, you know, making
statements that they're doing so
authoritatively? What are you even doing
about technology? For God's sake, how
many times not still using notebooks and
pencils? There's a thing out there. It's
big now. It's called the internet and
apparently you can send quite reliable
messages on it. Can be duplicated
endlessly, you I mean there are some
really extraordinary things still
happening in the Metropolitan Police
which I really do think need to be
rooted out. Steve Norris, thanks for
joining us. Thanks very much indeed.
Pleasure.
Well, this is your part of the show
where you tell us what you think through
our social media portal
RT Sputnik Gatri. Is it fast and furious
still on the internet? It's completely
polarizing. When I ask them the question
about racism, whether Britain is racist,
one says yes, the one says no. It's very
extreme. Kelt Islam says that the UK is
better than most European countries. And
that's for sure. I coming from the
Netherlands definitely agree with that.
I agree with that also. I mean,
notwithstanding what we've heard on this
show, I I agree with that. Doesn't mean
it's good. It's very bad. It's just
worse elsewhere. As I as I always say,
if you think England's racist, you've
never lived in France. Imagine how how
worse it is in other countries. Yas
Khalit answers that Britain today is
less racist from the time my parents
arrived in Britain, but increasingly
Islamophobic thanks to the fear
perpetuated in the media. Good point.
Yeah, indeed. Emmy Wyatt says, "I think
Britain has become more racist in the
last 10 years and less tolerant, more
blatantly nasty." So, a complete
opposite. Yeah. Well, as the economy
dips further and further, racism
ineluctibly rises and politicians have
an interest in stoking it because
there's votes in it. As we build vilders
in the Netherlands or the front national
in France or right-wing politicians of
various parties here in Britain, they
know there's political money in racism.
On policing, Manoli Morati replies there
that there's definitely room for
improvement, but the UK police conduct
efficient work and have a tolerant
approach compared to other European
forces. To which Cherona then says, "In
my experience, no. Many people have lost
confidence and that they'll even bother
to turn up." So very very contrasting,
diverse, polarized. Again, of course,
it's on Twitter. I can't tell the age or
ethnicity of the all of the people uh
writing there, but uh it's been the
story of your uh research into this that
the younger you are and the blacker you
are and especially the more Islamic you
are, the more you've got a problem with
the British police. Yeah, I definitely
conclude that from my encounters on the
streets. Well, unfortunately, that's all
we've got time for today. But you know
how to reach us at
rt_sputnik. That's it from me, guyatri.
And from me, George Galloway, it's been
marvelous.
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