Riot in Bristol over squat eviction/Tesco (Stokes Croft) St. Paul)

Yes, it was a real one. I would love it if they built a Tesco on my street. I don't have a car, and it would be a cheap and local place to do my shopping. We don't have stuff like a big Tescos in Ankara, but I nowadays we do have smaller supermarkets. I can remember before there were any big supermarkets in Ankara, and we had to go to all of these little local shops, which charged really high prices. It wasn't so great.

I'm a worker. I don't own a shop. Logically I should be pleased if people undersell all of the locals. Yes, it is a big capitalist company, but then I work for big capitalist companies. So What? You can't opt out of interaction with big capitalist companies. What are you advocating, support your local petit-bourgeoise?

What does 'taking cash flow out of the area exactly mean, and more importantly what does it have to do with anything?

Devrim

Right, and if you do that, then you are probably going to end up in fucking commuter belt (or a regional town like Bristol where the same model is happening anyway).

This is somewhat like Devrim's (albeit cynical) question about why don't they like Tescos. It doesn't really make sense to fight again against 'gentrification' as such, in the same way it doesn't make sense to fight against corporations, or tax evasion, or tuition fees (or for that matter Middle Eastern dictators) as such. However that doesn't mean that this Bristol riot, or UK Uncut or the university occupations or Tunisia and Egypt aren't important.

Ellar:

Was asking myself the same question; wasn't that much more than what happens my way (Montpellier, SW France) every mardi gras. To compare it with 1980 or 81 is a bit off: those riots were far bigger and involved a lot more burning and attacks on the cops and shops. No time at the moment to go into greater details about the differences, but it's indicative of the 20 year sleep of UK class struggle that this, relatively minor, as far as I can see, in comparison with past explosions (or even with Millbank), is presented as a "riot".

Bristol AF blog post up:

http://bristolaf.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/the-battle-of-stokes-croft/

nvm

Yeah, I fucking love shopping at Tesco personally.. And like Devrim I don't think we should have a political objection to Tesco any more than we should to a local business.
I still think it's really exciting, because (and this is based on talking to friends in Bristol who aren't political at all, as well as the reports written by politico's) it really doesn't seem like it's just a load of anarchists who hate Tescos. It seems like a whole local community's against it, for whatever reason. If rioting and stuff is more normalised as a response to squatting evictions and perceived destruction of communities, then that can only be a good thing.

Not only this, but it sounds like Tescos wasn't even the main focus of the riot (just the only shop that had its windows done in). Clearly some people there were specifically having a go at Tescos, but some others just got dragged into it and objected to the police behaviour, and according to the Commune article there were at least two separate groups of people, one of which wasn't really aware of the Tesco windows until they heard about it at the end of the night.

There are likely to be a lot of evictions over the next few years - both political squats and people from their houses, hopefully this a sign of what the resistance will be like to those, rather than the start of an anti-Tesco campaign.

I understand your point Devrim, and I know one shouldn't answer a question with a question, but what are you advocating? Supporting one of the biggest retailers in the world for cheaper penguin chocolate bars while we wait around for the revolution? It is of course a really difficult one, these 'least worst' debates always spiral into petty feuds, but i have to say, I think I am with the local petit-bourgois and the local communities having to leave the area because of gentrification processes (as Mike Harmann illustrating for us). I think actually people learn a lot more about the iron laws of capital in times like this, rather than just sitting in their rooms reading Das Kapital. It's a consciousness raising exercise, i thought at libcom there was the attitude that you have to change peoples minds through their everyday lives right?

As for being a riot, legally it looks like it was over 12 people so it does constitute a 'riot'. But its not really a big one....

Was the 1980 riot in Bristol really the first one though? Or just the first one of that size?

If this was 1980 I don't think us two would ever have even found out about this happening in the first place.

Is this a dig at me. If it is, it is sort of at the wrong person. I think that the last time I even opened a page of capital was about 30 years ago.

I am not sure what you mean by support? Yes, I would shop there if I had the chance. Does that mean that I support them? Am I supporting our Islamicist city council by riding the bus? I think that this is a very 'consumerist' way to look at things. It doesn't come from collective class politics at all.

I am not with the local petit-bourgeoisie. On a personal level I dislike them more than I dislike the big corporations, which are sort of faceless, and doesn't provoke the same sort of personal dislike. The gentrification issue is different.

Which is why I asked why people were against it.

I don't think that it makes much sense to fight against tax evasion, but I do think that it makes sense to fight against tuition fees. I think they are quite different things.

Devrim

Tesco was the focus - the cops tried to evict the squat as it was involved in opposing the shop since it opened. Shop in Tesco's if you want, but don't cuss others for picking a fight with them (and maybe now WINNING that fight)

Gentrification - of course, but that's a different matter, different subject.

Too many x

Not a riot? x, says who? You? x.

Bristol a 'provincial town' - it's a fucking CITY of 400,000 people, pound for pound the most active place around, and has been for years. x.

TOTAL respect to anyone involved last night, don't listen to these x, those in the know KNOW it was a fucking big deal. Of course not as big as St Pauls or Hartcliffe, but big enough to not be dismissed with a jab of some x finger on a keyboard.

It's this kind of x judgementalising that gives Libcom a bad name. Sorry for being so rude and aggressive, but ...... fucks sake!

admin: no flaming

On reflection I don't think I was sure what you meant by 'support' either, but i guess I should have done the whole pedantic routine rather than try to answer your question . It is also worth keeping it mind that it is often hard in practice to split the local greengrocer (local bourg) from the local community. As I thought i had made clear when i referred to it as a consciousness raising exercise, I don't expect people to convert to libertarian communism over night.

As for a 'consumerist' way of looking at things, you seem to be defending Tesco because its cheap for your consumer habits? Thats exactly the sort of docile consumer that they want you to be, as their motto goes 'every little helps'!

The Das Kapital thing was not meant to be personal no (after all, we have never met and I don't know your reading habits), just a dig at what i see as a certain amount of fatalism from some parts of the left. A blasé fatalism that you seem to be presenting here.

Whether you like the petit or not on a personal level is really dependent on your locality and personal disposition isn't it? I think I hate middle management rule following dickhead Tesco shift managers with their silly blazer jackets and stupid headsets more than I hate the guy at the greengrocer....but this is minor quibbling.

Yeah they are quite different, although there are different aspects to anti-gentrification stuff too. Similarly UK Uncut starts to show signs of not being just about tax evasion - some of them were getting involved in the Office Angels stuff yesterday.

The squat that was evicted was not only people in opposition to Tescos, but is also due to be redeveloped as flats. Probably the squat would not have been defended without the background of the Tesco protests, but the Tesco would not have been smashed in without the eviction of the squat. The arrival of shops like that is part of a process of rising rents and house prices etc. - it provides an anchor for other shops and housing developments to anchor around, and then people get forced out. Tesco is being targeted not because it's Tesco as far as i can tell, but simply because it's the first big shop to open on that street at all.

Actually I haven't. I just asked why.

I don't think that I am actually defending Tesco, but I would question the idea of whether a consumer can be anything but 'docile'. To me using the term implies that there is a non-docile consumer? What would that be?

Which brings up the question of what the 'community' actually is.

Yes, it is personal. I don't think that there is a supermarket near me that is big enough to support those sort of people. On the other hand I can remember a time during the real bad years of financial crisis when it was quite normal for people to be in hock to the local shop keeper and for them to be charging outrageous interest on the debts. I just don't like them, and if they are being put out of business by big supermarkets, there is a little part in side me which says good. Of course when we think about it logically, it is all capitalism.

Yes, it is.

Devrim

Well can't you just muster a bigger part of the inside of you to say 'good' that a Tesco has been trashed rather than complain that it implicates you on some level with a petit-bourgeoisie?

You will have to cut me a bit of slack Mike. It is difficult to discuss the details for me. I try to sort of keep up with what goes on in UK politics, but I only have a vague idea of who UK Uncut are, and no idea what the office Angles stuff is.

Now what I imagine (and I could be completely wrong) is that this is members of an activisty liberal protest group getting drawn into a dispute an a temp agency, which of course is a good thing.

What do we draw from this though? Is it that we should be involved in things like UK Uncut to try to move them into things like this, or that we should be involved in a dispute at a temp agency to try to draw people from out side into it?

I don't support riots just because they are happening, and I don't think that it is wrong to ask what it is all about. At the moment in this country, we have had mass riots across the Kurdish areas, as well as in İstanbul, and mass demonstrations across the entire country. Fortunately only one person has been murdered by the state so far. These demonstrations and riots, over the banning of 12 candidates from the upcoming general elections are massive, and are in many ways, though obviously not completely, animated by the Kurdish nationalists and the left. Is this somewhere that you think that revolutionaries should be getting involved?

We, the ICC in Turkey, don't think so. This week we weren't sitting on our hands. We were involved in supporting the hundreds of thousands of health workers who were on strike (I have only see one member of another left group on picket lines and demonstrations).

I don't think that it is wrong, or cynical as you earlier put it, to ask what this movement is about.

Personally I find the whole question of gentrification quite a difficult one to deal with and don't really know how to react to it. It raises a lot of really important question about the nature of 'community organising', and what class struggle is. I would note though that from my limited observations a lot of the people involved in 'anti-gentrification' stuff when I lived in London were actually a part of the process (as you outlined it earlier) themselves, and that much of what they (remember I am talking about the 80s and Class War) did, was little more than stuntism.

Devrim

I don't feel any sympathy with them (or their insurance company). I would just like to know first why it is happening, and second what people think is positive about it.

Devrim

If that is the case Devrim, then perhaps you could spare your judgments until you inform yourself?

Meant in the least bitchy fashion possible.

Is the Tesco getting smashed really that interesting? We've had that discussion numerous times. In case people hadn't noticed there were several hundred people rioting last night.

Among whom were a lot of people who weren't the 'usual suspects'. I think that's a very important point to make.

I don't think I have made any judgements. I have just asked questions.

Devrim

Whats 'good' about what is happening in Bristol is that, from my armchair, it seems like the police attempted to attack part of a community and didn't bargain for the rest of that community to fight them back. I don't care if all they want to do is remove a Tesco's and re-assert the local shop, supporting petit-borgeious against multinationals may be a bone of theoretical contention but it is hardly comparable with Devrim's tale the banning of nationalist candidates in Turkey.

Unfortunately the revolution hasn't happened yet and people do have to buy their food from somewhere or someone. Personally I don't care where I buy it from, but I wouldn't want another big corporation to set up in my high street (or the first in this case), because Tesco's and the like are faceless and destructive to notions of solidarity and community spirit.
Gentrification is part of this destruction, where new richer professionals move into an area to live but not work or socialise. What Mike Harmann has described is happening in Deptford and surrounding areas of SE London where huge new developments are being built along the Creek with rents the like of which no-one in the area can afford (and that includes Goldsmiths students) The yuppies and their modern equivalent will not be seen buying from the market on saturdays, they will be in Tescos.

The point I was trying to make though was just because there are confrontations with the police it doesn't mean they are necessarily good things.

Devrim

Yep. The dispute at the temp agency is one incidence of wage theft so far, not really an ongoing dispute by people currently working for them, but I think SolFed are trying to find other people who've had trouble with them (of which I'm sure there are lots).

I think it's more about the current opposition to the cuts keeping some of the momentum that it gained towards the end of last year, and IMO the premise behind UK Uncut (if rich paid taxes that'd plug the deficit) is so completely bizarre and unlikely that an actual class approach to the cuts can only look more straightforward.

It's not cynical to ask what it's about, but it is cynical to say "I love supermarkets because small shops are bastards and I wish there was one in my street.", which I was merely predicting would come next Of course there's some truth to it, but only really at the level of "it's all capitalism". It's the same as things like "Defend the NHS" or "Defend council housing", or "defend Royal Mail" against privatisation. There is plenty of leftist crap about privatisation (or in favour of nationalisation) that doesn't deal with what actually happens in these processes at all - but privatisation is nearly always accompanied by real material attacks on wages and conditions.

\

Yes it's a complicated issue and there are a lot of things about it I'm not sure of myself, although it's a process that is occurring in a lot of places, and has real effects on peoples living conditions and the class composition of areas. From my list above, if you move into any working class area that you weren't born/grew up in, then you are at risk of being some kind of gentrifier - it is really a process of local migration of different groups of people, which often (but not always) ends up in gentrification as the final stage. So leftists making it just about Tesco and 'yuppie flats' doesn't deal with what actually goes on and is extremely limited, but so is dismissing resistance to it on that basis.

I think though that even in these sort of things we have to be careful. Surely what we are about is not defending nationalised industries, but defending jobs, conditions, and services. Now, it is true, as you say, that "privatisation is nearly always accompanied by real material attacks on wages and conditions", but ı think that any sort of restructuring generally is. How many redundancies did the nationalisation of Northern Rock involve.

I don't think that this is an abstract point, but more about trying to outline a class orientation. Of course all sorts of arguments come up in the course of people defending nationalised industries. Possibly the worst one I ever heard in the UK was Alan Tuffin, head of the UCW when I was a postman, whose argument basically went along the lines of 'If it is privatised it won't be the Royal Mail, then we won't be able to have the Queen's head on the stamps. "The Queen's head must not be allowed to role"'.

Now of course, I don't think anybody is making arguments like that here, but also attacks on conditions were pushed through by the union (on counters not letters) with them arguing that 'if we don't accept this they will privatise it'. I think that we have to be very cleat that what we are defending is jobs, conditions, and services, and not nationalisation. For us accepting cuts to ward off nationalisation sort of defeats the point.

So to try to come back to this campaign about Tesco, do you think there is any defense of working class interests here in being against Tesco?

Devrim

http://nickcleggbristolmedia.eventbrite.com/

That'll be cancelled then.

+1
seems to be more like millbank in nature, and unlike march 26th.

Agreed on all this.

I don't think this was a riot "against Tesco" - definitely some of the people involved last night had previously been involved in protests against Tesco, but it appears the police managed to piss off several hundred people, many of whom were not involved in that campaign - by rampaging through the streets, blocking roads, hitting random people with truncheons etc.

UK Uncut has been organising occupations of high street shops (ones accused of tax avoidance) in tandem with many of the local and national anti-cuts protests. I don't see that much difference between occupying a Top Shop and kicking in the windows of Tesco politically - in fact it's very similar in terms of focus.

I don't think this is something revolutionaries should 'support' in the sense of getting involved in those specific campaigns on their own terms - but things have already moved beyond just focusing on specific symptoms or populist targets like that for a decent number of people. And frankly while I'm the last person to fetishise confrontations with the police, and the marches last year showed a real risk of that (i.e. too much reliance on set-piece central London demos), those confrontations have also radicalised a lot of people over the past few months. Also there is a fundamental difference between a face off with the police in Oxford street (or any other town centre of a major city) and a mostly residential neighbourhood.

Samotnaf may see stuff like this in France every other week, and you might see riots and shootings in Turkey, but this is extremely unusual in the UK so I'm reluctant to write it off (while it may not come to much yet either).

While I agree with this, I also did like seeing Tesco's getting smashed up..

Mike the stuff about gentrification is interesting, I'm down the road from where you live and we've had quite a lot of attempts to gentrify, mainly because 25 years after the riots house prices here are still a lot cheaper than stoke newington or hackney in spite of having better transport links etc. They recently tried to build (are still trying) to build a massive gated development by the tube station as a ground zero for gentrification but there's a community campaign holding it up.
Gentrification is also an effect of crazy london house prices, lots of people look in areas that have decent housing stock and relatively low prices, I can remember students just starting to move into Manor house and being terrified of the locals, a lot has changed since then.
I was in a housing estate in Hoxton today actually and saw a dude who really shouldn't have been able to walk the streets without getting a beating. bloody gentrification