By Sean Carey

The explanation of the riot that happened on Tottenham High Road in north London last night after a march to protest the killing of a local 29-year-old black man, Mark Duggan, who was shot by police marksmen on Thursday evening, has followed a predictable pattern.

The local MP, David Lammy, was quick to point the finger at unnamed people from outside the area who hijacked the otherwise legitimate, peaceful protest from the Broadwater Farm estate, scene of a 1985 riot, to the Tottenham Police Station.

The Daily Mail, the paper of Middle England, also gave details in its story of events about “unconfirmed reports [that] suggest a group of around 150 youths arrived in the north London suburb from 4 p.m.”

This evening (Sunday), trouble is reported in the neighbouring area of Enfield, where a police car has reportedly been vandalised and windows smashed on the high street. The local MP, Nick de Bois, has also blamed “outsiders.”

But how true is the “outsider” hypothesis in accounting for riots? In the UK in the early 1980s, people often thought that “outsiders” were responsible for disorders simply because a large crowd would gather when there was an incident which then developed into a riot. Commentators put two and two together and reasoned that the rioters could not all have been local. But research I was involved in strongly suggested that the people who were present on the streets at the time rarely came from outside the area, especially on the first night of disorder.
Continue reading “UK riot blamed on outsiders” →