Labour halts funds to anti- racist Monitoring Group

The Monitoring Group, the leading anti-racist community-based organisation in West London, has now been stripped of funding by Labour councils in Ealing, Hillingdon and Hounslow.

During the summer, the decision by Hounslow Council to terminate the grant to TMG, which had been operating in the borough since 1986, provoked strong protests, not least from Neville Lawrence and Sukhdev Reel. TMG has been a mainstay of the Stephen Lawrence, Ricky Reel, and Michael Menson campaigns, and is currently handling hundreds of cases of racial harassment.

Hounslow Council insisted it was merely reviewing its expenditure and seeking "best value", but TMG workers are in no doubt that the real cause of complaint was their insistence on maintaining their independence from the Council and a critical approach to the police.

Suspicions were confirmed when the secretary of Pitshanger Labour Party branch in Ealing wrote to the local newspaper, accusing TMG of organising "a campaign of hatred against the police" in league with the Nation of Islam. "What happened to Stephen Lawrence was a tragedy and there were serious mistakes made in the police investigation. Such mistakes are extremely rare...There is absolutely no evidence of any sort of institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police. The allegations are pure filth ..."

The cuts to The Monitoring Group are part of a wave of attacks on independent black and Asian voluntary groups by New Labour local authorities. It seems the aim of many councillors who were once committed to the fight against racism is that the community must be managed, but definitely not empowered.

The Monitoring Group continues its work. Contact them at 14 Featherstone Road, Southall, Middlesex UB2 5AA; email: TMGroup@aol.com

previous article ·  Dec '98 index of LLB ·  write to LLB ·  LLB home page ·  next article