September 24, 2025 • 44 mins
Second of a double podcast episode about the successful mass direct action campaign against the UK poll tax in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In conversation with Dave Morris from the Tottenham Anti-Poll Tax campaign and Haringey Solidarity Group. This part covers repercussions from the poll tax riot, the non-payment campaign, legal defence, repression, how the struggle was won, and lessons for today
Our podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters. Our supporters fund our work, and in return get exclusive early access to podcast episodes without ads, bonus episodes, two exclusive podcast series – Fireside Chats and Radical Reads – as well as free and discounted merchandise and other content. Join us or find out more at patreon.com/workingclasshistory
Our podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters. Our supporters fund our work, and in return get exclusive early access to podcast episodes without ads, bonus episodes, two exclusive podcast series – Fireside Chats and Radical Reads – as well as free and discounted merchandise and other content. Join us or find out more at patreon.com/workingclasshistory
- Listen to an exclusive bonus episode by joining us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/e111-1-poll-tax-138554022
- Haringey Solidarity Group
- Danny Burns, Poll Tax Rebellion (AK Press, 1992).
- Sources, photos, more information and eventually a transcript on the webpage for this episode: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e110-111-poll-tax-revolt/
- Thanks to our Patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands, Fernando López Ojeda, Nick Williams and Old Norm.
- Episode graphic: Courtesy James Bourne/Wikimedia Commons CC by SA 4.0
- Our theme tune is Bella Ciao, thanks for permission to use it from Dischi del Sole. You can purchase it here or stream it here.
- Edited by Engin Hassan
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, and welcome back to part two of our double
episode about the fight against the polt Taks in the
UK in the late nineteen eighties and early nineties. If
you haven't listened to part one yet, I'd go back
and listen to that first.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Alamatina happenalta ah be la child, be la child, the
larchild chow chow Alamatina I'm penala.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Before we get started, we just wanted to remind you
that our podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters.
Our supporters found our work and in return get exclusive
early access to podcast episodes without ads, bonus episodes every month,
free and discounted merchandise and other content. So our supporters
can listen to an exclusive bonus episode about this topic
(00:59):
with more information. So if you can, please join us
and help us preserve and promote our history of collective struggle.
Learn more and sign up at patreon dot com slash
working Class History link in the show notes. We left
off last week on the thirty first of March nineteen
ninety after a police attack on tens of thousands of
(01:21):
anti poll tax demonstrators backfired, resulting in heavy rioting on
the eve of the introduction of attacks on the first
of April.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
So everybody, all the police, the media, the government all
laid into the demonstrators. They all immediately blamed the devonstrates
as the Labor Party. Everybody headed in for the devonstrades.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
As a reminder, this is Dave Morris of the Tottenham
Anti poll Tax group in London.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
They thought this was a very strong, well roots said,
determined movement that was determined to defy the law, so
that in their eyes, the establishment, you know, everyone was
a radical, but we're talking about millions of people. They
thought they could just attack, insult the intelligence of the
(02:18):
whole anti pol tax movement. And I remember speaking to
a journalist TV cameraman at Travalga Square during the whole battle,
and you wants to know what do you think about
what's happened, and I gave my opinion. I said, you know,
you're only put the opinions down that the media want
to put over. He said, yeah, that's true, because I
(02:39):
wasponed to seventeen people, you know, seventeen people on this issue,
and nobody is willing to condemn the demonstrators. Yeah, and
of course what will appear in the news that evening
ordinary member the public or demonstrators will say, oh, it's
all some troublemakers or something.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Indeed, in the wake of the riot, the British press
was incensed and called on members of the public to
turn on the writers. They worked with police to identify
suspects and appealed to readers to quote hunt the rioters
and quote shop them I eat informing them to the police.
The People newspaper, for example, displayed a mugshot of one
(03:19):
man it described as a quote swarthy Latin or Mediterranean
type with a high forehead end quote, who was wanted
for allegedly throwing a scaffold pole through the front window
of a police car like a spear. But the propaganda didn't.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Really work, and the reality was there was massive support
for people's right to defend themselves and against the police
and against the governments.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Because the tax was so hated. But also I think
people realized that this was a provocation. I think the
aim of the police and the government was to try
to split the movement into respectable and and you know,
they thought it would work. It worked in terms of
all the official establishment media and whatever slamming the demonstrators,
(04:10):
but also Militants or the All Britain Federation main organizers,
who of course wanted to stay in the Labor Party
because that was their long term strategy of trying to
take over the Labor Party. They said that they would
organize an investigation and name names of the people behind
(04:31):
the violence.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
As a reminder, Militant was the largest revolutionary left group
in the UK at the time. Under huge pressure from
the press, two Militant activists, Steve Nally and Tommy Sheridan,
who were both leading officials within the All Britain Anti
Pol Tax Federation known as the FED, appeared on news
programs to condemn the rioters. The general line adopted by
(04:54):
Militant at that time was that around two hundred and
fifty individuals quote intent on causing trial end quote, had
sabotaged the march. Sheridan said the FED quote condemned it
totally end quote, and Nally said that they would quote
conduct an internal inquiry to try to root out the troublemakers,
which will go public and if necessary name names.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
End quote.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
So the organizers of the demonstration were backed into a
corner where they were condemning the demonstrators for defending themselves
against police violence. This completely outraged everybody within the anti
Poul Sax movements, and the organizers of the demonstration had
no contingency plans, no legal defense contingency pairs if anyone
(05:44):
was arrested, no solicitors' numbers, no advice on what to
say if people were arrested. No, you know, there was
no pre thinking about what advice people might need. But
also there was clear going to be no follow up
because they were actually condemning people for defended themselves.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Now, in the end, this promised internal inquiry never happened,
and no officials in the FED did name any names.
But with the help of the media, the police started
identifying more suspects from the riot. In particular, they wanted
to catch three hundred people they claimed had been caught
on film committing serious crimes. Now, in reality, all they
(06:28):
needed to do was catch people who looked like those
three hundred people, and they used the riot as a
pretext to raid large numbers of homes, particularly of people
involved in local anti pol tax groups. Officers smashed down doors,
attacked activists, ripped flats and houses apart, and seized things
like address books, pamphlets, and leaflets. Dave and others in
(06:51):
the grassroots three D network felt they had to support
those arrested.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Some of us involved with the three D Network, who
of course were involved with the demonstration, we said we've
got to do something immediately because I think three hundred
and forty people got arrested at the demonstration, but one
hundred and fifty got arrested in the following weeks. There
was this hysteria in the media and police raids, particularly
(07:19):
around London, but all over the country. There was clearly
going to be a really quite serious crackdown against the
anti pol tax movement, and we had to defend everybody
that was arrested. So within forty eight hours or something,
we started having small meetings. You know, we didn't know
(07:40):
who had been arrested, where they were being kept, so
we had to start going to all the police stations
courtrooms to track people down, to give them information and
contact numbers of solicitors. It was a real uphill battle
which could have been much better prepared for before the event.
(08:01):
So we organized a defendants meeting pretty soon after the demonstration.
About sixty people who had been arrested came along and
we decided to set up the Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
This became really important.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
So the aim of the campaign support those arrested, get
them legal advice, raise money so that people could if
they were being held in jail or whatever without bail,
they could get visits. But maybe as importantly, to get
the whole anti pol tax movement to commit to supporting
(08:37):
the Trafalgar Square Defendants campaign. The All Britain Federation didn't
like kids, they didn't want an independent national body, and
I think they called their own meeting which only two
defendants turned up to, and basically they had to abandon
their kind of attempts to create something in petition with
(09:01):
the Travago Square Defendance campaign, and gradually over the following months,
every federation of anti poll tax groups signed up to
support the Travago Square Defendants campaign, which was really important.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Legal support for arrested participants is a vital but often
neglected part of any social movement which wants to be successful,
and the Trafalgar Square Defendants campaign set a great example
of how to organize it.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
It wasn't just moral support, it wasn't just money, it
wasn't just it also involved the whole movement in tracking
down people that had been defendants, witnesses to what had
happens and to keep the movement united was the most
important success of the Trafago Square defendants campaign. So the
(09:47):
attempt by the authorities to divide and rule by splitting
people into respectable and radical was countered effectively, so the
whole movement remained united. I was heavily involved in that
Travance Square Defendant's campaign for the following year. In fact,
actually we also as a campaign was supporting anybody that
(10:11):
was arrested on local protests, as well as Pavada Square
getting the whole movement to take a principal position that
they would support anyone arrested in their local areas or
even jailed, because some people were being jailed for non
payment eventually, and we thought it was very, very important
that the whole movement supported those who were, you know,
(10:33):
subject to police or bailiff's action for being part of
the movement.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
The Defendant's campaign put on dozens of benefit gigs to
raise money, and they put together a team of solicitors.
This lawyer's group helped do things like gather police video
evidence and pass it onto the campaign, which then went
through them, looking for relevant evidence for different defendants and
editing particular portions for use in different people's trials. The
(10:58):
campaign also on advice sessions about prison and held weekly meetings,
mailing them minutes out to all of the over two
hundred and fifty defendants they were supporting. The Trafalgar Squared
Defendants campaign liked the movement against the poll tax itself
was also infiltrated by undercover police. You can learn more
about that in the bonus episode with Dave, available for
(11:19):
our supporters on Patreon on the link in the show notes.
Some defendants did end up getting convicted or taking plea
deals where they pled guilty to lesser offenses than what
they were initially charged with in order to get lighter sentences,
but the campaign and their lawyers did help numerous defendants
get off At trial, multiple people ended up being found
(11:40):
not guilty or having their cases dismissed because they were
able to prove that the police blatantly lied and falsified evidence.
A mister Hanni was acquitted after police statements were proven
to have been falsified and also later edited to match
his description rather than the actual perpetrator of the offense.
Duras in the court room burst out laughing when they
(12:01):
saw the police notes, which originally described a man with
a shaved head. After Hanni was arrested who didn't have
a shaved head, the officer crossed that out and instead
wrote in close cropped hair. One defendant, a former miner
named Michael Conway, was charged with violent disorder. He did
admit throwing rocks at police, but he stated that he
(12:22):
did so in order to protect the crowd from violent
police attacks. He was acquitted by the jury. The day
after the riot, the poll tax officially came into force,
and so the most crucial phase of the campaign began
non payment. Actually following through with refusing to pay the
tax would be the most difficult and frightening part of
(12:42):
the campaign for participants, so we asked Dave how the
movement tried to repair people for taking this step.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
It was really important to get out mass information, encouragements, advice, support,
neighborhood by neighborhood across the whole country, so that people
felt part of something. It wasn't just something you read
about in the media or had a few celebrities or leaders.
It was something that had a mass, grassroots character. So
(13:13):
obviously we encourage people not to pay. People started, you know,
challenging the bills saying they'd not received them or or
they weren't the person that named on the bill. If
they didn't pay the bill, they got a summons to
attend court, which would result in a court ordering them
to pay.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
So there was a whole block for court's.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Kind of campaign, you know, because normally if people don't
pay their local council rates or tax, they wouldn't attend court.
They'd just wait until they got an order through the post.
So we were saying, well, let's go in en mass
to the courts. So hundreds were turning up. Because of
the scale of it. Local councils saying harringey, they might
(13:58):
try and deal with three thousand court cases in bulk
on a day, but if someone turns up then they
had to have a proper hearing with that person. Are
you that person? Do you owe this money? You know,
why haven't you paid its? So we were advised to
turn up. We were advising people how to challenge the
bills basically take as much time assumingly possible.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
And this was happening all over the country.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
This was causing problems with the courts because there had
never been the need to have so many court cases
around non payment before. As some examples, Bristol City Council
issued one hundred and twenty thousand summonses to people in Leeds,
it was one hundred and ten thousand people, with similar
numbers in other cities. Councils were regularly issuing summonses to
(14:43):
three thousand people or more on a single day, which
of course wouldn't be possible in a courtroom in the
alloted time. Demonstrations were held by local antipol tax groups
on court dates as well. In Warrington, for example, in
June nineteen ninety one thousand protesters took over with the court,
forcing all cases to be postponed. In Southwark. In London,
(15:04):
fifteen hundred protesters appeared at court, overwhelming the police. They
refused to budge until the court agreed to adjourn all
five thousand of its cases.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
So the entire court system was kind of clogged up
and really struggling, I mean seriously struggling. It's something like
fifty percent of the summons is you know, that were
challenged or that people turned up then they couldn't enforce them.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Local groups also worked with sympathetic lawyers to train their
members to support non payers in court, which they were
able to do in some cases. As Mackenzie friends a
role in which non lawyers can provide advice and assistance
to defendants. We discussed this role in more detail in
episodes eighty three to eighty four of our podcast about
the Angry Brigade and their trial. A poll Tax Legal
(15:52):
group was established and in total over one thousand people
in England and Wales were trained in poll Tak's law
by the movement. They also produced dozens of easy to
read leaflets and bulletins, as well as a book full
of tips on how to disrupt or delay court proceedings
from anything like asking for water, demanding to see ID
documents of everyone in the court, or even having people
(16:14):
set off fire alarms in the building. Defendants were also
helped by the incompetence of local councils who didn't have
previous experience dealing with this kind of situation. Medina Council
on the Isle of Wight, for example, sent out court
reminded notices using second class stamps. This meant that by
the time they arrived, defendants didn't get the advanced notice
(16:35):
period they were legally entitled to, so the court throughout
all nineteen hundred cases and the Council had to go
back to the drawing board at this point. It's worth
stressing that the movement against the poll tax was overwhelmingly
a working class movement.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
The majority of people who weren't paying were people who
couldn't pay, so the big slogan was can't pay, won't pay.
Really that was the core of the movement. It wasn't
necessarily the core of those who regularly attended the local groups.
(17:11):
I would say it was a predominantly working class movement,
and radical activists probably had an influence beyond their numbers,
but the power of the movement was a whole mosaic
of informal networks in pubs, in streets, in workplaces, which
(17:32):
should never be underestimated. It's not just the people who've
signed up to become a member of a campaign, but
if it's a genuinely mass campaign, it kind of reaches
very very widely through informal conversations and word of mouth.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
And so when we had five hundred street reps at.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
One point in Haringey, it's not necessarily that everybody in
that street was feeding back to that street rep. But
somehow they became a conduit for you know, people thought
they were expert just because oh, you're the street rep
for the campaign, so you must know everything about the polls.
You know, maybe they didn't know that much about it,
but they'd volunteered to at least give out leaflets or something,
(18:15):
so you know, and then people felt linked into that
kind of coordinated network. But the strength of it went
far beyond the formal organization. And I would say ninety
five percent of the non payers were people who just
couldn't have fall to pay. I mean, for working class
(18:36):
people not paying a bill, it's quite a big step
because you know there's going to be enforcement down the line. Yeah,
so you know, often you hear people calling there should
be rend strikes, and there should be this, and people
shouldn't pay their electric bills because they're too much. You know,
this is quite a challenge for people. I mean, obviously
a lot of people just can't pay anyway, but then
(18:57):
they get into debt and that leads a serious trouble.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
But this was for the first time, possibly.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
In history, you know, there was a collective non payments
widespreads so that people felt confident that they can take parts.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
In some areas, local newspapers published lists of the names
of non payers, trying to shame them into paying. This
strategy backfired spectacularly because organizers used them to contact nonpayers
to advise them of their rights, and some people who
hadn't been included on the lists wrote into papers to
complain that they were proud nonpayers, upset that their names
(19:35):
had been left out. In addition to the courts, local
councils used bailiffs to try to enforce payment of the
poll tax.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
The next stage is that people would be sent orders
that if they didn't pay within six weeks or something,
bailiffs would come. Bailiffs were like, you know, official thugs
that would come around if somebody has a debt and
basically say we're going to if you don't right now
on the doorstep. You know, we're going to come in
(20:03):
and take your goods, take your computer, take your whatever.
You know, it wasn't computers at that stage, but you know,
we will take them and then we will sell them.
The council will sell them to raise money to pay
your debts.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
The situation with bailiffs was worse in Scotland than elsewhere.
In England and Wales, councils can only send around the
bailiffs after courts have granted liability orders and then they
can only enter your home if you let them in
or if they find an open window or door. But
in Scotland, sheriff officers can be sent to seize property
without court hearings and they're allowed to break into your
(20:38):
house to seize your property and auction it off.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
So there was a whole period of advising people about
the powers that bailiffs have if you don't let them in,
if you don't open your door, and they can't get
in their power lists, so don't talk to them, don't collaborate.
There were sort of owned trees and mobilizations if bayliffs
(21:03):
were in an area, because they would try to do
you know, like fifty homes in one go in a
particular area. People would have whistles and try to mobilize
people because probably a majority didn't want to pay the
pull tax. Even if they felt they had to pay,
they were still against it, so people would mobilize and
(21:23):
if bailiffs were spotted an area, people would make loud
noises and gather at houses that were being targeted. This
is quite a systematic, extensive solidarity movement at the grassroots
in Scotland.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Because of the different legal situation where bailiffs could break
into your house, physical defense of homes was much more important.
The first attempt of sheriff to raid a property in
Glasgow was at the home of Jeanette McGinn. Over three
hundred people assembled outside her house and the sheriff never
even ended up trying to get inside. Local antipol tax
(21:58):
unions issued guidance advising people facing visits from sheriffs to
move their cars away from their homes and move possessions
to friends houses. Sometimes they would help them move the
goods as well. In Edinburgh, organizers set up a group
called Scumbusters with cars and CEBE radios to monitor bailiff's
movements and mobilized defense of homes. Activists in Scotland also
(22:21):
held multiple occupations of sheriff's offices. In one instance, protesters
demanded that sheriff's abandon an auction of goods seized from
a local woman One Missus pattern, and this was successful,
with sheriffs abandoning the case. Other groups around the UK
used tactics like telephone trees and spied on bailiff companies
(22:41):
to identify their car number plates, which would be circulated
in local areas. Some cars had their tires slashed, and
sometimes entire towns were blockaded. In the tiny village of
Bishop's Lydard, with a population of fewer than three thousand people,
one day, significant numbers of residents took the day off work,
organized themselves into small groups, and built barricades, setting up
(23:05):
checkpoints into the village to stop vehicles and ask them
about their business.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
You know, I'm not saying it happened in every case,
but it happened enough that the Pultex.
Speaker 5 (23:15):
Was becoming unenforceable.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
I when we're talking about millions were getting summons is
millions were getting bailiffs notes.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
Hundreds of thousands were getting visits from bailiffs.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Protesters were demonstrating outside the homes of owners of bailiff companies,
and many of the companies were getting into financial difficulty,
some of them going bankrupt. Bailiffs are only paid on
a commission basis, so they only get a cut of
depths they're able to recoup. So if they don't recoup
a debt, they don't get paid, and they were not
doing a great job of recovering debts. In Bristol, for example,
(23:52):
in a whole year, bailiffs had only managed to get
fifty four thousand pounds from over one hundred and twenty
thousand people who weren't paying. And in Scotland, a survey
by Labor Research showed that after forty thousand visits to
seize property from homes, sheriffs hadn't managed to sell the
property of a single person. In Scotland, the government resorted
(24:13):
to trying to deduct money directly from the bank accounts
of non payers. So organizers invised nonpayers to withdraw money
from the four major banks and instead used building societies
or smaller banks. Bank bosses complained to councils about this,
and so this option was never implemented in England or Wales.
Another option for councils trying to get their money was
(24:35):
wage arrestment, taking money directly from people's pay packets or
state benefits, but this wasn't very successful either, firstly because
councils had to get a legal judgment beforehand. Secondly, if
they managed to get that, there were limits on how
much could be deducted from someone's wages or benefits. So
even if deductions occurred, they still weren't enough to cover
(24:57):
the poll tax. And finally, many people refused to comply
with the process. In order to deduct wages, councils had
to find out who people's employers were, so they sent
people reforms demanding to know where they worked. Now, technically
it was a criminal offense not to fit in the form,
but the punishment was only one hundred pounds fine, which
of course was considerably lower than the poll tax. People
(25:19):
were already refusing to pay, so in Scotland, after a
couple of years of the tax, councils had only managed
to implement wage arrestments for fourteen thousand people and a
little under fifteen thousand seizures directly from people's bank accounts. Now,
this might seem like a lot until you realize that
over a million people in Scotland were refusing to pay.
(25:40):
So the only other stick authorities had to compel payment
was imprisonment.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
And then the next stage was if the bailiffs couldn't
enforce the debts and they were threatening people with jail,
you know, and there was ways of the heads out
of a court hearing disrupt those you know, you can
always pay at the last minute if of all else fails.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
So as the last resort. If people could afford the tax,
then they could always just decide to pay it. But
a good number of people refused to pay on principle
and were imprisoned, and of course those who just couldn't
afford to pay were jailed as well.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
I mean, some of the Trafalgar Square defendants had gone
to jail, but we were also helping them challenge the police,
you know, account of what had happened. And many people
who were arrested on anti poltex protests at Travalgar Square
or elsewhere were being found not guilty by juries. Juries
were generally sympathetic, but in local areas some people did.
Speaker 5 (26:41):
Go to jail for non payment.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
So it was a complex, constantly developing movements.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
The first person to rend with imprisonment was a seventy
four year old pensioner in Northampton called Cyril Mundin. He
was arrested by bailiffs in October nineteen ninety and threatened
with fourteen days in prison if he didn't pay his tax.
Local residents occupied the office of the City treasurer in protest,
holding him inside for over an hour. In the end,
(27:11):
a tabloid newspaper paid his tax and he wasn't jailed.
The first person actually jailed was a man called Brian
Wright in Grantham, who got a three week sentence. Hundreds
of people wrote him letters and cards of support, and
hundreds more demonstrated outside his prison. Council officers were flooded
with hate mail, and activists also visited politicians, including his
(27:32):
local Member of Parliament MP and the government minister. Following
the intervention of his local MP, Wright was allowed visitors
in prison every day and he got released after just
two weeks.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
You know many people did go to jail, Nott sure
how many? I heard one estimate of two thousand people.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
We'll be right back after these messages. If you want
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the time and money it takes to make this podcast.
(28:14):
You can learn more and join us at patreon dot
com slash Working Class History link. In the show notes,
chaos in the taxation system was mounting, and so grassroots
campaigners wanted to up the pressure.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
The unease began to grip the Conservative Party and there
were mutterings against Margaret Thatcher, I mean all around the world.
The Trafalgar Square battle had got massive publicity and that
undermined the kind of Thatcher, kind of iron lady kind
(28:51):
of propaganda about the ladies not for turning and all
that kind of stuff. So really the last gas, apart
from the local struggle and non cooperation campaign, was the
Trafalgar Square Defenders Campaign was calling for another national demonstration
because Conservative MPs were calling for demonstrations in central London
(29:15):
to be banned or at least the police have the
power to do so, which they've never had. So we
said it's really important to get back to a mass
protest in central.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Love The National Federation didn't want another mass protest. They
wanted a symbolic march of just seventy five people across
the country, consisting almost entirely of members and supporters of
militant but the Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign and numerous local
antipol tax groups and federations insisted that they wanted a
mass protest which would also rally support for those in
(29:48):
prison on the twentieth of October nineteen ninety and the
FED decided that it wouldn't oppose such a move. They've
talked in detail about the debates and preparations for this
protest and what happened afterwards in the bonus episode for
this one, available for Outpatriot supporters. The day before the protest,
supporters of the campaign protested in fifteen countries around the world,
(30:10):
including Norway, Australia, Switzerland, Austria and the US, and protesters
in France occupied the British consulate. On the day itself,
twenty five thousand people rallied against the poll tax, of
whom around three thy five hundred people marched off to
Brixton Prison, where many poll tax prisoners were being held.
They were met by three thousand police in riot gear
(30:33):
and they clearly wanted revenge for the march riot. They
piled in attacking the crowd.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
At a certain point the police just waded in with batons.
I got trunson on their heads. I had to go
to hospital and the whole demonstration was broken up.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
This was despite the fact that Dave was clearly marked
as a protest steward wearing a pink fluorescent hives vest.
Other demonstrators tried to defend themselves and by the end
of the day and unknown number were injured. One hundred
and thirty five were arrested and forty police were injured.
But this time, unlike in March, the police weren't able
to control the narrative of what happened, which was reported
(31:11):
in the media. Because of preparation undertaken by the organizers,
including putting together a video crew, which Dave discusses in
detail in our bonus episode for our Patreon supporters, campaigners
were able to show that the police were the aggressors
who launched a premeditated attack on a peaceful march.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
That was really the last attempt, I think by the
government and the police and the media to really.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
Undermine the movement.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
So it was announced that, you know, at one point
that winter, fourteen million people weren't paying out of you know,
something like fifty percent of the adults in the country
weren't paying. The Conservative Party began to implode on the
issue in early ninety ninety one, the Conservative Party lost
(32:03):
some super safe seats you know, with massive majorities, were
being overturned and they were losing to the Labor Party
and the Liberal Democrats.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
And the general.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Feeling was the poll tax, which had been portrayed as
the flagship policy of the Conservative government at the end
of the nineteen eighties, was actually becoming, you know, the
millstone around its neck, and there was talk of challenging
Margaret Thatcher to leadership battles inside the Tory Party. Some
(32:39):
people were saying it's all down to the poll tax.
We've got to get rid of the poll tax.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Opinion polls were showing Labor as being hugely ahead in
national polls fifty five percent compared with twenty eight percent
for the Tories, although this lead was hugely reduced if
people were asked if Michael hessel Teime were Tory leader.
Hessel Time was a government minister who'd consistently opposed the
poll tax. Eventually, with pressure mounting on Thatcher, the Deputy
(33:06):
Prime Minister Jeffrey Howe attacked her position on Europe and
on her autocratic style, Sensing blood in the water, Other
leading Tories joined in attacking her and the poll tax,
and so the party was forced to hold a leadership
election between Thatcher and hessel Tyne, with the poll tax
being the primary issue at play. Thatcher did come out
(33:28):
ahead of hessel Tyne in the first ballot, but she
didn't win an outright majority, which dealt a death blow
to her leadership. On the twentieth of November nineteen ninety
she was forced to resign. John Major was elected to
replace her, and he appointed Hesseltyne to be in charge
of the poll tax and to undertake a review of
the policy. But importantly, he was not authorized to abolish it,
(33:51):
so the campaign against it continued. In a desperate attempt
to save the tax, the Conservatives tried to lessen the
blow to taxpayers by offering rebates to half of all payers,
which was a move which was mocked by the newspaper
of Business to Financial Times, pointing out that even Major
admitted that quote there must be something wrong with a
(34:11):
tax which starts with the principle that everyone should pay
and ends with a system under which eighteen million out
of thirty six million people have to be offered rebates
end quote. Then they announced that they would reduce the
poll tax for everyone by one hundred and forty pounds
per person, with the difference to be covered by an
increase in sales tax vaight of two point five percentage points.
(34:35):
But this wasn't enough for opponents of the poll tax,
who continued to insist it be abolished completely. In early
March nineteen ninety one, the Tories suffered another devastating by
election loss, losing their fourth safest seat in the country
to the Liberal Democrats. With the poll tax clearly shown
as the overriding issue at stake, organizers planned another mass
(34:57):
protest to coincide with the anniversary the Trafalgar Square riot.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
So we planned an anniversary demonstration. The Trafergo Square Defendance
Campaign and the All Britain Anti pol TAC Federation.
Speaker 5 (35:13):
Planned an anniversary demonstration.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
It was March the twenty third, nineteen ninety one, because
don't forget, councilors were meeting to set the following year's
rate all over the country. You know, it was the
same thing again in the build up to the next
financial year. There were protests all locally, so we said,
(35:36):
of course there must be a national demonstration through central London,
not a rally as in October and this was extremely tense.
We bought Trafalgar Square the Travgo Square defendant's campaign, but
this time the police conceded that the march should go
to Hyde Park. I was involved with the meetings with
(35:59):
the various least senior police officers involved with the demonstration,
and it was extremely tense. Nobody wanted to be blamed
if the whole thing degenerated into a battle, and as
it got closer and closer to the dates, it became
a big political issue in the media and in Parliament.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
In the end, though the demonstration proved to be unnecessary.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Two days before the anniversary demonstration, John Major announced the
poll tax was going to be scrapped.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
He said, it's unenforceable. It's going to be scrapped.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Michael Heselteiin stated that the poll tax would be replaced
in nineteen ninety three by a council tax, a banded
tax based on property value, more similar to the old
rates system. But of course they did still intend to
keep the poll tax for a further two years.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Following that, you know, the poll tax administration kind of
carried on, but you know, the stuff it had been
knocked out of the whole administrative drive to enforce it.
Councils couldn't cope anyway. The registration kind of system was
in chaos, and eventually what was announced was that if
(37:17):
bills weren't well. It wasn't so much announced but we
announced it was that there's a statute of limitations. If
the bill is not collected within six years, it has
to be written off. So we were just calling everyone
to hold firm, don't pay, and millions and millions of
people never paid a penny.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
In loading in Scotland alone. In nineteen ninety four, while
the new council tax had mostly been paid, there were
still nearly one hundred and twenty four million pounds in
arrears from poll tax non payers, and the Finance Officer
for the Authority complaint of a hard core of people
who still weren't paying. By the time the six years
was up, councils in England and Wales had to write
(37:57):
off and estimated five billion pounds in unpaid bills from
four million people. In Scotland, the debt didn't expire in
six years, so the non payment campaign technically continued up
until twenty fifteen. Then the Scottish Parliament passed a law
writing off the last remaining debt from the tax of
around four hundred and twenty five million pounds, in a
(38:18):
move which was still condemned by the Conservatives.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
I think they eventually, you know, a couple of years
after that victory demonstration, they had to bring in a
little alternative tax called the council tax, which was based
on households and homes rather than individuals.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
So it was a big success.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
I'm not saying that the council tax wasn't oppressive, you know,
but it wasn't as bad as the poll tax.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Now this touches on something which unfortunately people comment regularly
on our social media posts about the fight against the
poll tax. A typical comment says something like, then the
poll tax was just replaced by the council tax, which
was exactly the same. But this is just completely wrong.
As we discussed earlier in Part one, the poll tax
was a charge on every individual in a household. So
(39:09):
a household of two parents and two children over eighteen
living in a small flat would pay four times as
much as a billionaire living in a mansion. So in Haringay,
for example, this hypothetical family would have to pay two
two hundred and eighty eight pounds a year, worth over
six thousand pounds in real terms today, compared with only
(39:30):
five hundred and seventy two pounds for the billionaire. The
previous system domestic rates was based on household paying a
single rate based on the rental value of their home,
so a billionaire in a mansion would pay much higher
rates than our example household of four. The current system
of council tax is more similar to the old system.
(39:50):
It's based on households paying a single rate, but this
time based on the sale value of their home. So again,
our billionaire would pay higher rates than our family of
four in Harngay. That was oney three hundred and sixty
three pounds a year when it was first introduced, with
a family in an average flat paying four hundred and
eighty four to six hundred and sixty five pounds. The
(40:12):
council tax is still a regressive tax because it's not
proportional to people's ability to pay. However, it is a
lot less bad than the poll tax, so claiming they're
the same is not only wrong, but it does a
real disservice to one of the most important working class
movements in British history and all of the millions of
people who participated with the poll tax defeated. Dave and
(40:33):
other grassroots activists tried to strategize about how they could
keep momentum going to take on other issues in their communities.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
So as the anti Poultex campaigning began to wane the
necessity for it, we and Haringey were saying, well, you know,
how can we build on this, How can we learn
from what we've achieved, And we encouraged anti poll tax
groups to transfer into general solidarity organizations, supporting a wide
(41:03):
range of campaigns, supporting industrial disputes, supporting you know, clayments
and struggles and whatever in local areas, because that's really
what's needed. It's ongoing solidarity and mutual aid and support
for protests before making society better. That's what we did
in Harringay. All the groups transformed into solidarity groups and
(41:26):
then eventually coalist into one Harringay Solidarity Group, which still
exists today. So we've carried on having monthly meetings since
nineteen ninety two and we've supported wide range of different movements,
not ess campaigns, but also initiatives independent cinema. We do
(41:47):
a newsletter which we distribute for free to the public,
and we've initiated various different housing action groups and so on.
So I don't know if the same thing happened inywhere
else in the UK, but certainly it's something essential that
every area needs, every area in the world needs that
(42:10):
people there's a network of support for challenging those in
power and supporting each other and trying to make society better.
So I think that's the lesson in real life that
we learned from that movement. But the lesson, I think
the wider lesson is that people power is unstoppable. If
(42:36):
it has enough kind of public involvement in public supports.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
They luck out.
Speaker 5 (42:42):
They luck out.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
That brings us to the end of this double episode,
but we've got a great bonus episode where Dave talks
more about some of the different left strategies within the campaign,
how protesters organized the October nineteen ninety demo to monitor
the police and push back against their lies, and about
the activities of the Haringey Solidarity Group. This is available
for our supporters on Patreon and make our work possible.
(43:14):
It does take a lot of time and money making
these podcasts and running the rest of the Working Class
History Project, researching stories and reaching an audience of between
fifteen and twenty five million a month. So if you
do appreciate our work, please do sign up to support
us and listen to that bonus content now. Just go
to patreon dot com slash working Class History link in
(43:36):
the show notes. If you don't have the money right now,
absolutely no problem, but please help us get the word
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and take a second to give us a five star
review on your favorite podcast app like Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
As always, we've got more information sources and eventually a
(43:56):
transcript on the web page for this episode link in
the show notes. One of the main sources we've used
for these episodes is the excellent book Poll Tax Rebellion
by Danny Burns. You can get hold of it on
the link in the show notes. Thanks to our patron
supporters for making this podcast possible special thanks to Jazz Hands,
Fernando Lopezo, Haeda, Nick Williams and Old Norman. Our theme
(44:19):
tune is Bella Choo. Thanks for permission to use it
from Disky Dead Soiler. You can buy it or stream
it on the links in the show notes. This episode
was edited by Ingin Haasan. Thanks for listening and catch
you next time.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Manto belli, mondo bellida
Hi, and welcome back to part two of our double
episode about the fight against the polt Taks in the
UK in the late nineteen eighties and early nineties. If
you haven't listened to part one yet, I'd go back
and listen to that first.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Alamatina happenalta ah be la child, be la child, the
larchild chow chow Alamatina I'm penala.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Before we get started, we just wanted to remind you
that our podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters.
Our supporters found our work and in return get exclusive
early access to podcast episodes without ads, bonus episodes every month,
free and discounted merchandise and other content. So our supporters
can listen to an exclusive bonus episode about this topic
(00:59):
with more information. So if you can, please join us
and help us preserve and promote our history of collective struggle.
Learn more and sign up at patreon dot com slash
working Class History link in the show notes. We left
off last week on the thirty first of March nineteen
ninety after a police attack on tens of thousands of
(01:21):
anti poll tax demonstrators backfired, resulting in heavy rioting on
the eve of the introduction of attacks on the first
of April.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
So everybody, all the police, the media, the government all
laid into the demonstrators. They all immediately blamed the devonstrates
as the Labor Party. Everybody headed in for the devonstrades.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
As a reminder, this is Dave Morris of the Tottenham
Anti poll Tax group in London.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
They thought this was a very strong, well roots said,
determined movement that was determined to defy the law, so
that in their eyes, the establishment, you know, everyone was
a radical, but we're talking about millions of people. They
thought they could just attack, insult the intelligence of the
(02:18):
whole anti pol tax movement. And I remember speaking to
a journalist TV cameraman at Travalga Square during the whole battle,
and you wants to know what do you think about
what's happened, and I gave my opinion. I said, you know,
you're only put the opinions down that the media want
to put over. He said, yeah, that's true, because I
(02:39):
wasponed to seventeen people, you know, seventeen people on this issue,
and nobody is willing to condemn the demonstrators. Yeah, and
of course what will appear in the news that evening
ordinary member the public or demonstrators will say, oh, it's
all some troublemakers or something.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Indeed, in the wake of the riot, the British press
was incensed and called on members of the public to
turn on the writers. They worked with police to identify
suspects and appealed to readers to quote hunt the rioters
and quote shop them I eat informing them to the police.
The People newspaper, for example, displayed a mugshot of one
(03:19):
man it described as a quote swarthy Latin or Mediterranean
type with a high forehead end quote, who was wanted
for allegedly throwing a scaffold pole through the front window
of a police car like a spear. But the propaganda didn't.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Really work, and the reality was there was massive support
for people's right to defend themselves and against the police
and against the governments.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Because the tax was so hated. But also I think
people realized that this was a provocation. I think the
aim of the police and the government was to try
to split the movement into respectable and and you know,
they thought it would work. It worked in terms of
all the official establishment media and whatever slamming the demonstrators,
(04:10):
but also Militants or the All Britain Federation main organizers,
who of course wanted to stay in the Labor Party
because that was their long term strategy of trying to
take over the Labor Party. They said that they would
organize an investigation and name names of the people behind
(04:31):
the violence.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
As a reminder, Militant was the largest revolutionary left group
in the UK at the time. Under huge pressure from
the press, two Militant activists, Steve Nally and Tommy Sheridan,
who were both leading officials within the All Britain Anti
Pol Tax Federation known as the FED, appeared on news
programs to condemn the rioters. The general line adopted by
(04:54):
Militant at that time was that around two hundred and
fifty individuals quote intent on causing trial end quote, had
sabotaged the march. Sheridan said the FED quote condemned it
totally end quote, and Nally said that they would quote
conduct an internal inquiry to try to root out the troublemakers,
which will go public and if necessary name names.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
End quote.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
So the organizers of the demonstration were backed into a
corner where they were condemning the demonstrators for defending themselves
against police violence. This completely outraged everybody within the anti
Poul Sax movements, and the organizers of the demonstration had
no contingency plans, no legal defense contingency pairs if anyone
(05:44):
was arrested, no solicitors' numbers, no advice on what to
say if people were arrested. No, you know, there was
no pre thinking about what advice people might need. But
also there was clear going to be no follow up
because they were actually condemning people for defended themselves.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Now, in the end, this promised internal inquiry never happened,
and no officials in the FED did name any names.
But with the help of the media, the police started
identifying more suspects from the riot. In particular, they wanted
to catch three hundred people they claimed had been caught
on film committing serious crimes. Now, in reality, all they
(06:28):
needed to do was catch people who looked like those
three hundred people, and they used the riot as a
pretext to raid large numbers of homes, particularly of people
involved in local anti pol tax groups. Officers smashed down doors,
attacked activists, ripped flats and houses apart, and seized things
like address books, pamphlets, and leaflets. Dave and others in
(06:51):
the grassroots three D network felt they had to support
those arrested.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Some of us involved with the three D Network, who
of course were involved with the demonstration, we said we've
got to do something immediately because I think three hundred
and forty people got arrested at the demonstration, but one
hundred and fifty got arrested in the following weeks. There
was this hysteria in the media and police raids, particularly
(07:19):
around London, but all over the country. There was clearly
going to be a really quite serious crackdown against the
anti pol tax movement, and we had to defend everybody
that was arrested. So within forty eight hours or something,
we started having small meetings. You know, we didn't know
(07:40):
who had been arrested, where they were being kept, so
we had to start going to all the police stations
courtrooms to track people down, to give them information and
contact numbers of solicitors. It was a real uphill battle
which could have been much better prepared for before the event.
(08:01):
So we organized a defendants meeting pretty soon after the demonstration.
About sixty people who had been arrested came along and
we decided to set up the Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
This became really important.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
So the aim of the campaign support those arrested, get
them legal advice, raise money so that people could if
they were being held in jail or whatever without bail,
they could get visits. But maybe as importantly, to get
the whole anti pol tax movement to commit to supporting
(08:37):
the Trafalgar Square Defendants campaign. The All Britain Federation didn't
like kids, they didn't want an independent national body, and
I think they called their own meeting which only two
defendants turned up to, and basically they had to abandon
their kind of attempts to create something in petition with
(09:01):
the Travago Square Defendance campaign, and gradually over the following months,
every federation of anti poll tax groups signed up to
support the Travago Square Defendants campaign, which was really important.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Legal support for arrested participants is a vital but often
neglected part of any social movement which wants to be successful,
and the Trafalgar Square Defendants campaign set a great example
of how to organize it.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
It wasn't just moral support, it wasn't just money, it
wasn't just it also involved the whole movement in tracking
down people that had been defendants, witnesses to what had
happens and to keep the movement united was the most
important success of the Trafago Square defendants campaign. So the
(09:47):
attempt by the authorities to divide and rule by splitting
people into respectable and radical was countered effectively, so the
whole movement remained united. I was heavily involved in that
Travance Square Defendant's campaign for the following year. In fact,
actually we also as a campaign was supporting anybody that
(10:11):
was arrested on local protests, as well as Pavada Square
getting the whole movement to take a principal position that
they would support anyone arrested in their local areas or
even jailed, because some people were being jailed for non
payment eventually, and we thought it was very, very important
that the whole movement supported those who were, you know,
(10:33):
subject to police or bailiff's action for being part of
the movement.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
The Defendant's campaign put on dozens of benefit gigs to
raise money, and they put together a team of solicitors.
This lawyer's group helped do things like gather police video
evidence and pass it onto the campaign, which then went
through them, looking for relevant evidence for different defendants and
editing particular portions for use in different people's trials. The
(10:58):
campaign also on advice sessions about prison and held weekly meetings,
mailing them minutes out to all of the over two
hundred and fifty defendants they were supporting. The Trafalgar Squared
Defendants campaign liked the movement against the poll tax itself
was also infiltrated by undercover police. You can learn more
about that in the bonus episode with Dave, available for
(11:19):
our supporters on Patreon on the link in the show notes.
Some defendants did end up getting convicted or taking plea
deals where they pled guilty to lesser offenses than what
they were initially charged with in order to get lighter sentences,
but the campaign and their lawyers did help numerous defendants
get off At trial, multiple people ended up being found
(11:40):
not guilty or having their cases dismissed because they were
able to prove that the police blatantly lied and falsified evidence.
A mister Hanni was acquitted after police statements were proven
to have been falsified and also later edited to match
his description rather than the actual perpetrator of the offense.
Duras in the court room burst out laughing when they
(12:01):
saw the police notes, which originally described a man with
a shaved head. After Hanni was arrested who didn't have
a shaved head, the officer crossed that out and instead
wrote in close cropped hair. One defendant, a former miner
named Michael Conway, was charged with violent disorder. He did
admit throwing rocks at police, but he stated that he
(12:22):
did so in order to protect the crowd from violent
police attacks. He was acquitted by the jury. The day
after the riot, the poll tax officially came into force,
and so the most crucial phase of the campaign began
non payment. Actually following through with refusing to pay the
tax would be the most difficult and frightening part of
(12:42):
the campaign for participants, so we asked Dave how the
movement tried to repair people for taking this step.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
It was really important to get out mass information, encouragements, advice, support,
neighborhood by neighborhood across the whole country, so that people
felt part of something. It wasn't just something you read
about in the media or had a few celebrities or leaders.
It was something that had a mass, grassroots character. So
(13:13):
obviously we encourage people not to pay. People started, you know,
challenging the bills saying they'd not received them or or
they weren't the person that named on the bill. If
they didn't pay the bill, they got a summons to
attend court, which would result in a court ordering them
to pay.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
So there was a whole block for court's.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Kind of campaign, you know, because normally if people don't
pay their local council rates or tax, they wouldn't attend court.
They'd just wait until they got an order through the post.
So we were saying, well, let's go in en mass
to the courts. So hundreds were turning up. Because of
the scale of it. Local councils saying harringey, they might
(13:58):
try and deal with three thousand court cases in bulk
on a day, but if someone turns up then they
had to have a proper hearing with that person. Are
you that person? Do you owe this money? You know,
why haven't you paid its? So we were advised to
turn up. We were advising people how to challenge the
bills basically take as much time assumingly possible.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
And this was happening all over the country.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
This was causing problems with the courts because there had
never been the need to have so many court cases
around non payment before. As some examples, Bristol City Council
issued one hundred and twenty thousand summonses to people in Leeds,
it was one hundred and ten thousand people, with similar
numbers in other cities. Councils were regularly issuing summonses to
(14:43):
three thousand people or more on a single day, which
of course wouldn't be possible in a courtroom in the
alloted time. Demonstrations were held by local antipol tax groups
on court dates as well. In Warrington, for example, in
June nineteen ninety one thousand protesters took over with the court,
forcing all cases to be postponed. In Southwark. In London,
(15:04):
fifteen hundred protesters appeared at court, overwhelming the police. They
refused to budge until the court agreed to adjourn all
five thousand of its cases.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
So the entire court system was kind of clogged up
and really struggling, I mean seriously struggling. It's something like
fifty percent of the summons is you know, that were
challenged or that people turned up then they couldn't enforce them.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Local groups also worked with sympathetic lawyers to train their
members to support non payers in court, which they were
able to do in some cases. As Mackenzie friends a
role in which non lawyers can provide advice and assistance
to defendants. We discussed this role in more detail in
episodes eighty three to eighty four of our podcast about
the Angry Brigade and their trial. A poll Tax Legal
(15:52):
group was established and in total over one thousand people
in England and Wales were trained in poll Tak's law
by the movement. They also produced dozens of easy to
read leaflets and bulletins, as well as a book full
of tips on how to disrupt or delay court proceedings
from anything like asking for water, demanding to see ID
documents of everyone in the court, or even having people
(16:14):
set off fire alarms in the building. Defendants were also
helped by the incompetence of local councils who didn't have
previous experience dealing with this kind of situation. Medina Council
on the Isle of Wight, for example, sent out court
reminded notices using second class stamps. This meant that by
the time they arrived, defendants didn't get the advanced notice
(16:35):
period they were legally entitled to, so the court throughout
all nineteen hundred cases and the Council had to go
back to the drawing board at this point. It's worth
stressing that the movement against the poll tax was overwhelmingly
a working class movement.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
The majority of people who weren't paying were people who
couldn't pay, so the big slogan was can't pay, won't pay.
Really that was the core of the movement. It wasn't
necessarily the core of those who regularly attended the local groups.
(17:11):
I would say it was a predominantly working class movement,
and radical activists probably had an influence beyond their numbers,
but the power of the movement was a whole mosaic
of informal networks in pubs, in streets, in workplaces, which
(17:32):
should never be underestimated. It's not just the people who've
signed up to become a member of a campaign, but
if it's a genuinely mass campaign, it kind of reaches
very very widely through informal conversations and word of mouth.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
And so when we had five hundred street reps at.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
One point in Haringey, it's not necessarily that everybody in
that street was feeding back to that street rep. But
somehow they became a conduit for you know, people thought
they were expert just because oh, you're the street rep
for the campaign, so you must know everything about the polls.
You know, maybe they didn't know that much about it,
but they'd volunteered to at least give out leaflets or something,
(18:15):
so you know, and then people felt linked into that
kind of coordinated network. But the strength of it went
far beyond the formal organization. And I would say ninety
five percent of the non payers were people who just
couldn't have fall to pay. I mean, for working class
(18:36):
people not paying a bill, it's quite a big step
because you know there's going to be enforcement down the line. Yeah,
so you know, often you hear people calling there should
be rend strikes, and there should be this, and people
shouldn't pay their electric bills because they're too much. You know,
this is quite a challenge for people. I mean, obviously
a lot of people just can't pay anyway, but then
(18:57):
they get into debt and that leads a serious trouble.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
But this was for the first time, possibly.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
In history, you know, there was a collective non payments
widespreads so that people felt confident that they can take parts.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
In some areas, local newspapers published lists of the names
of non payers, trying to shame them into paying. This
strategy backfired spectacularly because organizers used them to contact nonpayers
to advise them of their rights, and some people who
hadn't been included on the lists wrote into papers to
complain that they were proud nonpayers, upset that their names
(19:35):
had been left out. In addition to the courts, local
councils used bailiffs to try to enforce payment of the
poll tax.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
The next stage is that people would be sent orders
that if they didn't pay within six weeks or something,
bailiffs would come. Bailiffs were like, you know, official thugs
that would come around if somebody has a debt and
basically say we're going to if you don't right now
on the doorstep. You know, we're going to come in
(20:03):
and take your goods, take your computer, take your whatever.
You know, it wasn't computers at that stage, but you know,
we will take them and then we will sell them.
The council will sell them to raise money to pay
your debts.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
The situation with bailiffs was worse in Scotland than elsewhere.
In England and Wales, councils can only send around the
bailiffs after courts have granted liability orders and then they
can only enter your home if you let them in
or if they find an open window or door. But
in Scotland, sheriff officers can be sent to seize property
without court hearings and they're allowed to break into your
(20:38):
house to seize your property and auction it off.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
So there was a whole period of advising people about
the powers that bailiffs have if you don't let them in,
if you don't open your door, and they can't get
in their power lists, so don't talk to them, don't collaborate.
There were sort of owned trees and mobilizations if bayliffs
(21:03):
were in an area, because they would try to do
you know, like fifty homes in one go in a
particular area. People would have whistles and try to mobilize
people because probably a majority didn't want to pay the
pull tax. Even if they felt they had to pay,
they were still against it, so people would mobilize and
(21:23):
if bailiffs were spotted an area, people would make loud
noises and gather at houses that were being targeted. This
is quite a systematic, extensive solidarity movement at the grassroots
in Scotland.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Because of the different legal situation where bailiffs could break
into your house, physical defense of homes was much more important.
The first attempt of sheriff to raid a property in
Glasgow was at the home of Jeanette McGinn. Over three
hundred people assembled outside her house and the sheriff never
even ended up trying to get inside. Local antipol tax
(21:58):
unions issued guidance advising people facing visits from sheriffs to
move their cars away from their homes and move possessions
to friends houses. Sometimes they would help them move the
goods as well. In Edinburgh, organizers set up a group
called Scumbusters with cars and CEBE radios to monitor bailiff's
movements and mobilized defense of homes. Activists in Scotland also
(22:21):
held multiple occupations of sheriff's offices. In one instance, protesters
demanded that sheriff's abandon an auction of goods seized from
a local woman One Missus pattern, and this was successful,
with sheriffs abandoning the case. Other groups around the UK
used tactics like telephone trees and spied on bailiff companies
(22:41):
to identify their car number plates, which would be circulated
in local areas. Some cars had their tires slashed, and
sometimes entire towns were blockaded. In the tiny village of
Bishop's Lydard, with a population of fewer than three thousand people,
one day, significant numbers of residents took the day off work,
organized themselves into small groups, and built barricades, setting up
(23:05):
checkpoints into the village to stop vehicles and ask them
about their business.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
You know, I'm not saying it happened in every case,
but it happened enough that the Pultex.
Speaker 5 (23:15):
Was becoming unenforceable.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
I when we're talking about millions were getting summons is
millions were getting bailiffs notes.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
Hundreds of thousands were getting visits from bailiffs.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Protesters were demonstrating outside the homes of owners of bailiff companies,
and many of the companies were getting into financial difficulty,
some of them going bankrupt. Bailiffs are only paid on
a commission basis, so they only get a cut of
depths they're able to recoup. So if they don't recoup
a debt, they don't get paid, and they were not
doing a great job of recovering debts. In Bristol, for example,
(23:52):
in a whole year, bailiffs had only managed to get
fifty four thousand pounds from over one hundred and twenty
thousand people who weren't paying. And in Scotland, a survey
by Labor Research showed that after forty thousand visits to
seize property from homes, sheriffs hadn't managed to sell the
property of a single person. In Scotland, the government resorted
(24:13):
to trying to deduct money directly from the bank accounts
of non payers. So organizers invised nonpayers to withdraw money
from the four major banks and instead used building societies
or smaller banks. Bank bosses complained to councils about this,
and so this option was never implemented in England or Wales.
Another option for councils trying to get their money was
(24:35):
wage arrestment, taking money directly from people's pay packets or
state benefits, but this wasn't very successful either, firstly because
councils had to get a legal judgment beforehand. Secondly, if
they managed to get that, there were limits on how
much could be deducted from someone's wages or benefits. So
even if deductions occurred, they still weren't enough to cover
(24:57):
the poll tax. And finally, many people refused to comply
with the process. In order to deduct wages, councils had
to find out who people's employers were, so they sent
people reforms demanding to know where they worked. Now, technically
it was a criminal offense not to fit in the form,
but the punishment was only one hundred pounds fine, which
of course was considerably lower than the poll tax. People
(25:19):
were already refusing to pay, so in Scotland, after a
couple of years of the tax, councils had only managed
to implement wage arrestments for fourteen thousand people and a
little under fifteen thousand seizures directly from people's bank accounts. Now,
this might seem like a lot until you realize that
over a million people in Scotland were refusing to pay.
(25:40):
So the only other stick authorities had to compel payment
was imprisonment.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
And then the next stage was if the bailiffs couldn't
enforce the debts and they were threatening people with jail,
you know, and there was ways of the heads out
of a court hearing disrupt those you know, you can
always pay at the last minute if of all else fails.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
So as the last resort. If people could afford the tax,
then they could always just decide to pay it. But
a good number of people refused to pay on principle
and were imprisoned, and of course those who just couldn't
afford to pay were jailed as well.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
I mean, some of the Trafalgar Square defendants had gone
to jail, but we were also helping them challenge the police,
you know, account of what had happened. And many people
who were arrested on anti poltex protests at Travalgar Square
or elsewhere were being found not guilty by juries. Juries
were generally sympathetic, but in local areas some people did.
Speaker 5 (26:41):
Go to jail for non payment.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
So it was a complex, constantly developing movements.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
The first person to rend with imprisonment was a seventy
four year old pensioner in Northampton called Cyril Mundin. He
was arrested by bailiffs in October nineteen ninety and threatened
with fourteen days in prison if he didn't pay his tax.
Local residents occupied the office of the City treasurer in protest,
holding him inside for over an hour. In the end,
(27:11):
a tabloid newspaper paid his tax and he wasn't jailed.
The first person actually jailed was a man called Brian
Wright in Grantham, who got a three week sentence. Hundreds
of people wrote him letters and cards of support, and
hundreds more demonstrated outside his prison. Council officers were flooded
with hate mail, and activists also visited politicians, including his
(27:32):
local Member of Parliament MP and the government minister. Following
the intervention of his local MP, Wright was allowed visitors
in prison every day and he got released after just
two weeks.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
You know many people did go to jail, Nott sure
how many? I heard one estimate of two thousand people.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
We'll be right back after these messages. If you want
to listen to our podcast without ads, join us on Patreon,
where you can also listen to an additional bonus episode
with more information about Dave's life, activism and connection with
our current Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. Support from our listeners
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the time and money it takes to make this podcast.
(28:14):
You can learn more and join us at patreon dot
com slash Working Class History link. In the show notes,
chaos in the taxation system was mounting, and so grassroots
campaigners wanted to up the pressure.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
The unease began to grip the Conservative Party and there
were mutterings against Margaret Thatcher, I mean all around the world.
The Trafalgar Square battle had got massive publicity and that
undermined the kind of Thatcher, kind of iron lady kind
(28:51):
of propaganda about the ladies not for turning and all
that kind of stuff. So really the last gas, apart
from the local struggle and non cooperation campaign, was the
Trafalgar Square Defenders Campaign was calling for another national demonstration
because Conservative MPs were calling for demonstrations in central London
(29:15):
to be banned or at least the police have the
power to do so, which they've never had. So we
said it's really important to get back to a mass
protest in central.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Love The National Federation didn't want another mass protest. They
wanted a symbolic march of just seventy five people across
the country, consisting almost entirely of members and supporters of
militant but the Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign and numerous local
antipol tax groups and federations insisted that they wanted a
mass protest which would also rally support for those in
(29:48):
prison on the twentieth of October nineteen ninety and the
FED decided that it wouldn't oppose such a move. They've
talked in detail about the debates and preparations for this
protest and what happened afterwards in the bonus episode for
this one, available for Outpatriot supporters. The day before the protest,
supporters of the campaign protested in fifteen countries around the world,
(30:10):
including Norway, Australia, Switzerland, Austria and the US, and protesters
in France occupied the British consulate. On the day itself,
twenty five thousand people rallied against the poll tax, of
whom around three thy five hundred people marched off to
Brixton Prison, where many poll tax prisoners were being held.
They were met by three thousand police in riot gear
(30:33):
and they clearly wanted revenge for the march riot. They
piled in attacking the crowd.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
At a certain point the police just waded in with batons.
I got trunson on their heads. I had to go
to hospital and the whole demonstration was broken up.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
This was despite the fact that Dave was clearly marked
as a protest steward wearing a pink fluorescent hives vest.
Other demonstrators tried to defend themselves and by the end
of the day and unknown number were injured. One hundred
and thirty five were arrested and forty police were injured.
But this time, unlike in March, the police weren't able
to control the narrative of what happened, which was reported
(31:11):
in the media. Because of preparation undertaken by the organizers,
including putting together a video crew, which Dave discusses in
detail in our bonus episode for our Patreon supporters, campaigners
were able to show that the police were the aggressors
who launched a premeditated attack on a peaceful march.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
That was really the last attempt, I think by the
government and the police and the media to really.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
Undermine the movement.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
So it was announced that, you know, at one point
that winter, fourteen million people weren't paying out of you know,
something like fifty percent of the adults in the country
weren't paying. The Conservative Party began to implode on the
issue in early ninety ninety one, the Conservative Party lost
(32:03):
some super safe seats you know, with massive majorities, were
being overturned and they were losing to the Labor Party
and the Liberal Democrats.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
And the general.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Feeling was the poll tax, which had been portrayed as
the flagship policy of the Conservative government at the end
of the nineteen eighties, was actually becoming, you know, the
millstone around its neck, and there was talk of challenging
Margaret Thatcher to leadership battles inside the Tory Party. Some
(32:39):
people were saying it's all down to the poll tax.
We've got to get rid of the poll tax.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Opinion polls were showing Labor as being hugely ahead in
national polls fifty five percent compared with twenty eight percent
for the Tories, although this lead was hugely reduced if
people were asked if Michael hessel Teime were Tory leader.
Hessel Time was a government minister who'd consistently opposed the
poll tax. Eventually, with pressure mounting on Thatcher, the Deputy
(33:06):
Prime Minister Jeffrey Howe attacked her position on Europe and
on her autocratic style, Sensing blood in the water, Other
leading Tories joined in attacking her and the poll tax,
and so the party was forced to hold a leadership
election between Thatcher and hessel Tyne, with the poll tax
being the primary issue at play. Thatcher did come out
(33:28):
ahead of hessel Tyne in the first ballot, but she
didn't win an outright majority, which dealt a death blow
to her leadership. On the twentieth of November nineteen ninety
she was forced to resign. John Major was elected to
replace her, and he appointed Hesseltyne to be in charge
of the poll tax and to undertake a review of
the policy. But importantly, he was not authorized to abolish it,
(33:51):
so the campaign against it continued. In a desperate attempt
to save the tax, the Conservatives tried to lessen the
blow to taxpayers by offering rebates to half of all payers,
which was a move which was mocked by the newspaper
of Business to Financial Times, pointing out that even Major
admitted that quote there must be something wrong with a
(34:11):
tax which starts with the principle that everyone should pay
and ends with a system under which eighteen million out
of thirty six million people have to be offered rebates
end quote. Then they announced that they would reduce the
poll tax for everyone by one hundred and forty pounds
per person, with the difference to be covered by an
increase in sales tax vaight of two point five percentage points.
(34:35):
But this wasn't enough for opponents of the poll tax,
who continued to insist it be abolished completely. In early
March nineteen ninety one, the Tories suffered another devastating by
election loss, losing their fourth safest seat in the country
to the Liberal Democrats. With the poll tax clearly shown
as the overriding issue at stake, organizers planned another mass
(34:57):
protest to coincide with the anniversary the Trafalgar Square riot.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
So we planned an anniversary demonstration. The Trafergo Square Defendance
Campaign and the All Britain Anti pol TAC Federation.
Speaker 5 (35:13):
Planned an anniversary demonstration.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
It was March the twenty third, nineteen ninety one, because
don't forget, councilors were meeting to set the following year's
rate all over the country. You know, it was the
same thing again in the build up to the next
financial year. There were protests all locally, so we said,
(35:36):
of course there must be a national demonstration through central London,
not a rally as in October and this was extremely tense.
We bought Trafalgar Square the Travgo Square defendant's campaign, but
this time the police conceded that the march should go
to Hyde Park. I was involved with the meetings with
(35:59):
the various least senior police officers involved with the demonstration,
and it was extremely tense. Nobody wanted to be blamed
if the whole thing degenerated into a battle, and as
it got closer and closer to the dates, it became
a big political issue in the media and in Parliament.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
In the end, though the demonstration proved to be unnecessary.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Two days before the anniversary demonstration, John Major announced the
poll tax was going to be scrapped.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
He said, it's unenforceable. It's going to be scrapped.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Michael Heselteiin stated that the poll tax would be replaced
in nineteen ninety three by a council tax, a banded
tax based on property value, more similar to the old
rates system. But of course they did still intend to
keep the poll tax for a further two years.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Following that, you know, the poll tax administration kind of
carried on, but you know, the stuff it had been
knocked out of the whole administrative drive to enforce it.
Councils couldn't cope anyway. The registration kind of system was
in chaos, and eventually what was announced was that if
(37:17):
bills weren't well. It wasn't so much announced but we
announced it was that there's a statute of limitations. If
the bill is not collected within six years, it has
to be written off. So we were just calling everyone
to hold firm, don't pay, and millions and millions of
people never paid a penny.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
In loading in Scotland alone. In nineteen ninety four, while
the new council tax had mostly been paid, there were
still nearly one hundred and twenty four million pounds in
arrears from poll tax non payers, and the Finance Officer
for the Authority complaint of a hard core of people
who still weren't paying. By the time the six years
was up, councils in England and Wales had to write
(37:57):
off and estimated five billion pounds in unpaid bills from
four million people. In Scotland, the debt didn't expire in
six years, so the non payment campaign technically continued up
until twenty fifteen. Then the Scottish Parliament passed a law
writing off the last remaining debt from the tax of
around four hundred and twenty five million pounds, in a
(38:18):
move which was still condemned by the Conservatives.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
I think they eventually, you know, a couple of years
after that victory demonstration, they had to bring in a
little alternative tax called the council tax, which was based
on households and homes rather than individuals.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
So it was a big success.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
I'm not saying that the council tax wasn't oppressive, you know,
but it wasn't as bad as the poll tax.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Now this touches on something which unfortunately people comment regularly
on our social media posts about the fight against the
poll tax. A typical comment says something like, then the
poll tax was just replaced by the council tax, which
was exactly the same. But this is just completely wrong.
As we discussed earlier in Part one, the poll tax
was a charge on every individual in a household. So
(39:09):
a household of two parents and two children over eighteen
living in a small flat would pay four times as
much as a billionaire living in a mansion. So in Haringay,
for example, this hypothetical family would have to pay two
two hundred and eighty eight pounds a year, worth over
six thousand pounds in real terms today, compared with only
(39:30):
five hundred and seventy two pounds for the billionaire. The
previous system domestic rates was based on household paying a
single rate based on the rental value of their home,
so a billionaire in a mansion would pay much higher
rates than our example household of four. The current system
of council tax is more similar to the old system.
(39:50):
It's based on households paying a single rate, but this
time based on the sale value of their home. So again,
our billionaire would pay higher rates than our family of
four in Harngay. That was oney three hundred and sixty
three pounds a year when it was first introduced, with
a family in an average flat paying four hundred and
eighty four to six hundred and sixty five pounds. The
(40:12):
council tax is still a regressive tax because it's not
proportional to people's ability to pay. However, it is a
lot less bad than the poll tax, so claiming they're
the same is not only wrong, but it does a
real disservice to one of the most important working class
movements in British history and all of the millions of
people who participated with the poll tax defeated. Dave and
(40:33):
other grassroots activists tried to strategize about how they could
keep momentum going to take on other issues in their communities.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
So as the anti Poultex campaigning began to wane the
necessity for it, we and Haringey were saying, well, you know,
how can we build on this, How can we learn
from what we've achieved, And we encouraged anti poll tax
groups to transfer into general solidarity organizations, supporting a wide
(41:03):
range of campaigns, supporting industrial disputes, supporting you know, clayments
and struggles and whatever in local areas, because that's really
what's needed. It's ongoing solidarity and mutual aid and support
for protests before making society better. That's what we did
in Harringay. All the groups transformed into solidarity groups and
(41:26):
then eventually coalist into one Harringay Solidarity Group, which still
exists today. So we've carried on having monthly meetings since
nineteen ninety two and we've supported wide range of different movements,
not ess campaigns, but also initiatives independent cinema. We do
(41:47):
a newsletter which we distribute for free to the public,
and we've initiated various different housing action groups and so on.
So I don't know if the same thing happened inywhere
else in the UK, but certainly it's something essential that
every area needs, every area in the world needs that
(42:10):
people there's a network of support for challenging those in
power and supporting each other and trying to make society better.
So I think that's the lesson in real life that
we learned from that movement. But the lesson, I think
the wider lesson is that people power is unstoppable. If
(42:36):
it has enough kind of public involvement in public supports.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
They luck out.
Speaker 5 (42:42):
They luck out.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
That brings us to the end of this double episode,
but we've got a great bonus episode where Dave talks
more about some of the different left strategies within the campaign,
how protesters organized the October nineteen ninety demo to monitor
the police and push back against their lies, and about
the activities of the Haringey Solidarity Group. This is available
for our supporters on Patreon and make our work possible.
(43:14):
It does take a lot of time and money making
these podcasts and running the rest of the Working Class
History Project, researching stories and reaching an audience of between
fifteen and twenty five million a month. So if you
do appreciate our work, please do sign up to support
us and listen to that bonus content now. Just go
to patreon dot com slash working Class History link in
(43:36):
the show notes. If you don't have the money right now,
absolutely no problem, but please help us get the word
out about this podcast. Tell your friends and colleagues about here,
and take a second to give us a five star
review on your favorite podcast app like Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
As always, we've got more information sources and eventually a
(43:56):
transcript on the web page for this episode link in
the show notes. One of the main sources we've used
for these episodes is the excellent book Poll Tax Rebellion
by Danny Burns. You can get hold of it on
the link in the show notes. Thanks to our patron
supporters for making this podcast possible special thanks to Jazz Hands,
Fernando Lopezo, Haeda, Nick Williams and Old Norman. Our theme
(44:19):
tune is Bella Choo. Thanks for permission to use it
from Disky Dead Soiler. You can buy it or stream
it on the links in the show notes. This episode
was edited by Ingin Haasan. Thanks for listening and catch
you next time.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Manto belli, mondo bellida
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