In a single night, Broadwater Farm, a North London council estate, descended into chaos, leaving a police officer dead, dozens injured, and the country grappling with questions of race, class, and state authority.
Yet, amid the violence, a quieter but no less significant story unfolded: the role of left-wing groups and anti-racist organisations in shaping the political narrative, manipulating the community, and confronting the state.
Broadwater Farm, a high-density housing complex in Tottenham, had long been emblematic of the post-war ambitions and failures of Britain’s welfare state.
Constructed in the late 1960s, the estate was intended to provide modern, affordable housing. By the 1980s, however, it had become a symbol of urban neglect: poor maintenance, soaring unemployment, social isolation, and a fraught relationship with the Metropolitan Police.
The “sus” laws — allowing officers to stop and search individuals suspected of intending to commit a crime — were widely resented in the Black community and had repeatedly been criticised for fostering a sense of surveillance and intimidation rather than safety.
The immediate spark came on 5th October 1985, when Cynthia Jarrett, a 49-year-old Black woman, died of heart failure during a police search of her home. Jarrett’s death occurred just days after the shooting of Dorothy “Cherry” Groce in Brixton, another high-profile incident involving police violence in Black communities. In Tottenham, as elsewhere in Britain, news of Jarrett’s death ignited long-standing grievances. On the following night, what began as spontaneous protest escalated into full-scale rioting.
Keith Blakelock, murdered by the mob, October 5th, 1985, aged 40.
Among the most harrowing moments of the Broadwater Farm unrest was the murder of P.C. Keith Blakelock, stabbed 43 times by a baying mob while attempting to protect firefighters.
Blakelock and his colleagues were surrounded. He was fatally attacked with machetes and knives; his death marked the first killing of a police officer in a riot in London in decades.
The scene of his death has entered British criminal lore: Blakelock’s body lay in the middle of the mob, and only after a painstaking and dangerous effort were his colleagues and other officers able to extricate him.
From the outset, left-wing and anti-racist groups — most notably Workers Against Racism (WAR) and affiliated bodies like the Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG) — rejected the framing of Broadwater Farm as merely a scene of criminality. WAR, linked to the RCG, had long been active in Tottenham and other London boroughs, producing literature, organising meetings, and documenting police misconduct. Their stance was clear: the rioting was presented not as senseless violence but as a justified political response to “systemic racism” and decades of institutional neglect.
WAR activists, many of whom were also involved in the Broadwater Farm Defence Campaign (BFDC) – there is always a considerable cross-over between far-left groups – emphasised that the community’s grievances went far beyond any single incident. They highlighted the ongoing misuse of police powers, high unemployment, poor housing conditions, and chronic social marginalisation.
Through pamphlets and leaflets, they drew parallels between the deaths of Cynthia Jarrett and Dorothy Groce, linking them to broader patterns of state-sanctioned violence against Black communities. WAR’s rhetoric framed the riots as a defensive reaction, aimed at protecting the community and asserting dignity in the face of repeated oppression.
Alongside WAR, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) also engaged in public solidarity campaigns and media framing. Its newspaper, Socialist Worker, ran extensive coverage that challenged mainstream narratives portraying the residents as a “mob.”
By London Evening Standard, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57487353
The SWP, along with other left-wing front groups like the Race Today Collective, contextualised the unrest within the socio-economic deprivation and racialised policing that had characterised London’s inner cities since the early 1980s.
They drew parallels with the 1981 Brixton riots, where similar grievances about unemployment, police harassment, and racial discrimination had exploded into violence, and with the 1985 Brixton disturbances, which immediately preceded Broadwater Farm and contributed to a national climate of fear and misrepresentation.
One of the most striking aspects of the left-wing response was their insistence on defending individuals accused in the wake of the riots. The so-called “Tottenham Three” — Winston Silcott, (who at the time of his arrest for the murder of P.C. Blakelock was on bail having been charged with another murder), Engin Raghip, and Mark Braithwaite — were convicted of murdering P.C. Blakelock.
The BFDC, supported by WAR, RCG, and sympathetic activists, mounted a legal and public campaign challenging these convictions. Pamphlets, demonstrations, and local meetings kept attention on the miscarriage of justice, emphasising that the state’s response had targeted an entire community rather than seeking genuine accountability for the officer’s death.
In terms of activism, WAR’s efforts were multi-faceted. They produced pamphlets that analysed police brutality and structural racism, held public meetings to discuss the riots’ causes and implications, and participated in demonstrations calling for justice for residents. The RCG’s publication, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (FRFI), ran a special edition titled “Siege at Broadwater Farm,” portraying the community’s actions as legitimate resistance.
The emphasis was not on condoning violence but on situating it within a political and social framework largely absent from mainstream media coverage. Similarly, The Next Step, another RCG outlet, offered detailed accounts of police actions, interviews with residents, and critiques of government policies, providing an ideological counterpoint to the dominant narratives of disorder.
The political significance of this framing cannot be overstated. By documenting, contextualising, and mobilising, left-wing groups ensured that Broadwater Farm was not simply reduced to a cautionary tale of criminality. They provided the mechanisms by which residents could challenge official narratives, demand justice, and assert political agency.
WAR and allied organisations were not behind the riot’s physical outbreak — it remained a spontaneous community response — but they shaped the post-riot discourse, linking Broadwater Farm to ongoing struggles over race, policing, and social justice across Britain.
Broadwater Farm also marked a turning point in how the British left approached urban unrest. The lessons learned from the 1981 Brixton riots, the Handsworth disturbances, and earlier Tottenham protests were clear: state narratives often seek to criminalise, isolate, and demonise marginalised communities.
By actively defending residents and challenging official accounts, WAR, RCG, SWP, and other left-wing organisations demonstrated a model of political intervention that combined grassroots support with national advocacy. They acted as mediators between the experiences of residents and the wider political consciousness, ensuring that grievances were not silenced in the press’s cacophony of condemnation.
Yet the costs were high. Activists involved in post-riot campaigns faced surveillance, harassment, and accusations of incitement. The broader political climate of the 1980s, dominated by the Thatcher government’s focus on law and order, left little room for nuanced discussion of race and class. Left-wing groups operated under constant scrutiny, but their efforts contributed significantly to later legal and social outcomes. Notably, the eventual quashing of convictions against Silcott, Raghip, and Braithwaite in the early 1990s owed much to persistent campaigns initiated by these activists.
Linking Broadwater Farm to other episodes of urban unrest highlights enduring patterns. The 1981 Brixton riots were triggered by similar tensions over unemployment, police harassment, and racial discrimination. The 1990s disturbances in Brixton, Hackney, and elsewhere echoed these structural problems.
In each case, left-wing and anti-racist groups played crucial roles in reframing events: shifting focus from “lawlessness” to systemic injustice, organising defence campaigns, and ensuring media narratives were contested. Broadwater Farm sits at the intersection of these trajectories — a moment when urban rebellion met organised ideological advocacy.
The death of P.C. Blakelock remains a tragic touchstone. His murder was brutal and horrifying; the imagery of his body lying in the middle of a mob shocked the nation and became a symbol of urban chaos in the popular imagination. Yet the fact that the rioting was both spontaneous and deeply political complicates simplistic readings. Left-wing groups were careful not to, openly celebrate violence; they skilfully contextualised it.
They argued that police negligence, harassment, and systemic racism created the conditions for confrontation — a perspective often ignored in sensationalist reporting. Understanding the community’s anger alongside the tragedy of Blakelock’s death provides a fuller picture of the tensions defining 1980s Britain.
Reflecting today, the Broadwater Farm riots highlight enduring questions about race, policing, and urban poverty. The left-wing groups involved — WAR, RCG, SWP, and the BFDC — exemplify a mode of political intervention that remains relevant: providing community-based support, documenting abuses, and engaging in public advocacy to contest dominant narratives. Their work underscores that riots, however violent, are rarely devoid of context; they are often the culmination of systemic neglect, marginalisation, and institutionalised injustice.
The Broadwater Farm riots cannot be understood solely through the lens of criminality or disorder. They were rooted in deep structural inequities, sparked by incidents of state violence, and shaped by the historical context of urban unrest in Britain.
The murder of P.C. Keith Blakelock was a tragedy that shocked the nation, but the broader story encompasses both community anger and the activism of left-wing groups like Workers Against Racism who sought to defend the events.
Broadwater Farm should not be erased from memory or reduced to a cautionary tale of lawlessness. Instead, it stands as a reminder of the complex interplay between race, class, policing, and political advocacy — lessons that resonate long after the fires on that Tottenham estate were extinguished.
Main Image: BJim Moody – Visiting Broadwater Farm Estate the day after the riots., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50982669
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