A leaflet produced by the Roach Family Support Committee in December 1983.

Roach Family Support Committee

A public meeting called to discuss
Colin Roach, the police, Black people and the state

Speakers will include:

Roach Family Support Committee
Newham 8 Defence Campaign
National Campaign Against the Police Bill

14th December
7:30pm (sharp!)
Assembly Rooms, Hackney
Town Hall, Mare St., E8

Buses 253, 106, 55, 277, 278
Tube Bethnal Green
Overground Hackney Central, Hackney Downs

All conscious Black people and other progressive peoples are
welcome to attend

Colin Roach, the police, Black people
and the state

Abstract

“The experience of the Black masses during the decade of the seventies
has alerted us to what underlies the superficial appearence of the British
State: Namely that normal processes of political authority, when they
cannot proceed by co-operation proceed through confrontation and, at a
higher level, through the states orchestration and legitimation of
repression.”

‘The Empire Strikes Back — Race and Racism in 70’s Britain’

When we begin to describe the 1980’s in Britain as the decade of increasing State authoritarianism, it is the deveiopments indicated above that we are referring to and elaborating upon. These developments certainly pre-date the 1970’s and show every sign of entrenchment and deterioration throughout tne 1980’s unless outbreaks of resistance condense into movements of permanent opposition.

By now we should realise that State oppression has assumed a permanent feature of Black peioples lives.

Throughout the 1980’s State oppression wh increasingly conditon and regulate the lives and experiences of other larger sections of working class people.

The major question of the 1980’s particularty for conscious Black people and other progressive peopies. is ‘How are we to campaign against State oppression and injustice in the midst of the State failing to manage the economic crisis and attempting to institute coercive political measures?’

We make these necessarily pohtical remarks because this !S the basic context in which the campaign for an independent public inquiry into the death of Colin Roach and all the surrounding circumstances is taking place.

Colin Roach’s death remains an unqualified mystery. So far the Home Secretary’s (the State) has refused to authorize an inquiry. These are the basic facts which must be challenged – they have not changed.

The Home Secretary’s (the State) opposition to an inquiry was based on the State’s commitment to establish (and therefore not bring into question) its policing strategy for the 1980’s: the intrusive surveillance tactics contained in the possbilities of neighbourhood watch and neighbourhood policing and the authoritarian license inscribed in the excessive powers provided for in the Police Bill.

it is in the face of this that the campaign must be continued.

This public meeting has been called discuss the ways in which campaigns must be prepared to campaign in more concentrated and ionger term efforts than we have previously been prepared to do. We must in other words have the commitment to campaign in a systematic drawn-out fashion since this is how the State cppresses us. In our view there is no other way. This is why in 1984 we shall be saying:

NO COVER-UP
BREAK LINKS


Published by RFSC c/o 50 Rectory Road, Londen N16 Te! 254 7480

NOTES

‘The Empire Strikes Back — Race and Racism in 70’s Britain’ was a book authored by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies and published in 1982. The quote used is from a chapter entitled “The organic crisis of British capitalism and race: the experience of the seventies” by John Solomos, Bob Findlay, Simon Jones and Paul Gilroy and can be found on page 36 of the book.

This leaflet was collected by an Undercover Police Officer and sent to Special Branch. It forms part of the documents released by the Undercover Policing Inquiry. Which is why the scan isn’t of a particularly good quality. The relevant Undercover Policing Inquiries are:

• Officer: HN88 “Timothy/Tim Spence”
• Document: UCPI0000020485.

The leaflet is also available as a PDF on archive.org

More resources and information are available on our Who Killed Colin Roach? page.