by Berkay Kartav, London Socialist Party organiser
For many who have experienced police racism and sexism, the revelations in a BBC Panorama documentary won’t be surprising. But the secret footage of London Metropolitan Police officers’ blatant racism, sexism and bragging about assaults at Charing Cross police station is shocking.
It showed officers talking about shooting immigrants in their heads, dismissing rape claims on the basis that “that’s what she says”, and calling foreigners “scum”, amongst many other racist, sexist and Islamophobic slurs.
One sergeant, known as ‘Stampy’, stamped on detainees’ ankles multiple times, and then bragged about it afterwards, warning the undercover journalist not to talk about it where police station microphones would pick it up.
This scandal comes after many other scandals involving the Met Police, including one which involved Charing Cross police station. In 2022, police officers were found making rape ‘jokes’ and talking about hitting their girlfriends in a WhatsApp chat.
Londoners don’t trust the Met
The latest opinion poll about the public’s trust in the Met was last conducted in 2023 and showed that 51% of Londoners do not trust it. And the direction of travel was downwards. These polls are telling of the growing lack of confidence in the police by ordinary Londoners.
Trust in the Met was dealt a big blow in 2021, when Sarah Everard was raped and murdered by Wayne Couzens, a serving police officer. Couzens had a string of alleged sexual offences but was still allowed to serve in the Met.
In the aftermath, the Met commissioned the Casey report to investigate the police force’s culture and failings. The report concluded that the Met was institutionally sexist, racist and homophobic.
Mark Rowley, current head of the Met, at the time rejected the conclusions of the report that the police force was institutionally racist and sexist. After the most recent revelations, he said the behaviour of those police officers were “disgraceful, totally unacceptable and contrary to the values and standards” of the force — effectively again pinning the blame on ‘a few bad apples’.
On 4 October, police arrested hundreds of peaceful protesters who oppose the genocide in Palestine and showed support for the banned Palestine Action group in Trafalgar Square, not far from Charing Cross police station and only a few days after the release of the Panorama documentary.
Role of the state
That is a good example of the dual role of the police under capitalism. On the one hand they are looked to to defend public safety, but their main role is to defend and maintain the existing order in which the richest in society own and control its vast wealth and resources.
In recent years that has included repressing protests, arresting anti-war protesters and enforcing injunctions stopping striking workers from attending picket lines.
In London, young Black people are frequently harassed by police, targeted for stop and search; over five times as likely to be stopped than white people. Racist policing is also an important tool for capitalist institutions to further spread divisive ideas and divide the working class.
There can be no trust in the capitalist state, or its so-called ‘independent bodies’, to resolve any of these issues. The Met Police should be abolished, with the establishment of local police forces under democratic working-class control, accountable to local communities and trade unions. These elected committees could then oversee and direct all police officers in relation to operational matters as well as being responsible for all appointments, promotions, disciplinary measures and dismissals. In this example, that would mean clearing out all these unaccountable, reactionary officers.
Sadiq Khan, London’s Labour mayor and effectively London’s crime and policing commissioner, has not taken any steps to tackle racist policing.
We need a new party of the working class that can fight police racism and sexism by putting forward a socialist programme — for both working-class control of policing and of the economy. Hundreds of thousands of sign-ups to Your Party announced by Jeremy Corbyn shows the opportunities that exist. In 2026 there are local and mayoral elections in London. Standing in these elections could be part of a mass campaign against brutal cuts and racist and sexist policing.
But these divisive ideas, and the violence used by the capitalist state to keep capitalism in place, can only be put to bed by getting rid of that very system, to be replaced with socialism.