"The UK is not Innocent": Black Lives Matter in Britain

During a Newsnight interview in June 2020, George The Poet refuted presenter Emily Maitlis’ claims that racism in the UK is not ‘on the same footing’ as in the United States. Similarly, when Black Lives Matter UK protestors blocked access to London’s Heathrow Airport in 2016, many people questioned why demonstrations were occurring in Britain when this was ‘America’s problem’. In attempting to absolve Britain from a history of racism, an acknowledgement of such a history – and often the very existence of Black people – is regularly omitted or downplayed in histories of Britain. In this Black History Month talk Dr Simon Peplow (University of Warwick) places the recent Black Lives Matter protests into a longer historical overview of the relationship between Black people and the police in the UK.

Dr Simon Peplow is Senior Teaching Fellow in Twentieth Century British History at the University of Warwick. His recent publications include Race and Riots in Thatcher’s Britain (Manchester University Press, 2019), and co-editing an Immigrants & Minorities journal special issue on race, immigration, and the British media since 1945 (2020).