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