Hundreds gathered in Windrush Square, Brixton, last night to celebrate the death of former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.
From about 5.30pm, people waving banners proclaiming “Thatcher’s Dead” chanted slogans. About 150 later danced to a sound system set up outside the Library during the event which continued until the early hours.
Police were also deployed to move revellers along in the early hours of the morning, as can be seen in the video.
Meanwhile, political leaders from the mainstream political parties have condemned the party, with Chuka Umunna MP calling it: “extreme bad taste”. The Conservative leader on lambeth council, John Whelan, branded the event “despicable”.
Scroll down for photographs of the events by Tim Dickens, Jeannine Mansell and Zoe Jewell.
Video below from Youtube, uploaded by user “meanutt”.
Pictures below (in daylight) by Tim Dickens
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Was more than happy to see the party going on. She caused more death and pain than any of us ever could imagine — and while I don’t condone violence, I’m not concerned about some random drunken people damaging the shopfront of a major corporation. Boo hoo hoo
Disguising that people would vandalise their own community. I have no problem with peaceful protests but this is shameful. it heartens me to know that the vast majority of people in Brixton aren’t like this. A small minority of attention seeking twats that are determined to bring Brixton into the gutter.
I think Einstein summed it up nicely:
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
BTW when you compare that last photo with how Morleys looks on a normal Brixton day (in Google St view http://goo.gl/maps/OSBtA ) you get an idea of the type of people responsible for this shambles. This isn’t Brixton residents rising up and voicing their displeasure at Thatcherism, it’s a bunch of over privileged middle class kids acting like thugs for kicks.
Couldn’t agree more and not very bright either. Foxtons is symptomatic rather than causal. They would be better off scrawling ‘stop making Brixton attractive’ on the town hall. The majority, if not all, of these ‘protesters’ weren’t around when Thatcher was doing her worst so have no direct experience. They are just playing into the hands that taunt them. Lets face it the right like a bit of class war. How about some intelligent peaceful protest with debate. Some cool music might help as an accompaniment.
The final picture says its all.
Bunch of selfish, greedy locals only looking out for themselves and their own gain.
Celebrating Thatcher’s death or emulating the very Thatcherite characteristics the protestors so detest?
I doubt many (if any) of them are actually locals. They seems like the typical rent-a-mob protesters who turn up at anything where they think there might be a chance to get away with smashing things up & getting in the papers.
This party and these people make me intensely proud to be a South Londoner! This is the kind of thing that needs to happen more often. Gwan Brixton!!!
If you are seriously condoning violence and vandalism and criminal behaviour on your own doorstep Brixton certainly does not need you. Take a look at the bigger picture. When people stop moving their businesses to Brixton because of this behaviour and the jobs that go hand in hand with that business also disappear dragging down the whole community what will you do then? Smash up another bloody shop in protest? Burn it to the ground? Ridiculous, yes there are problems in Brixton, yes they need to be fixed. Destroying Brixton and it’s reputation does NOT fix them you are simply adding to them. Use your brain for gods sake.
Yawn!
You’re in a minority here. And please, learn how to spell and use punctuation…
Looks like we have a Thatcher supporter here. No one destroyed anything, calm down! You’re worse than the daily mail.
You think having this on our local high street is a GOOD thing?
If you live in Brixton then please move & never come here again.
Makes you proud? Your comments makes me feel very much the opposite. Please move to an island somewhere that you own and burn down your own palm trees. Don’t bring down our community.
I was very hearrtened to encounter the celebrations in Brixton last night. From my observations they were very good natured. Thatcher’s death was indeed an occasion to celebrate. Afterall she was herself resonponsible for the deaths of 323 poor souls on the General Belgrano as it sailed away form the Falkland Islands. She was also responsible for ruining countless lives in the UK through her economic policies, rising unemeplyment and war against the unions. She sold off the family silver, squandered North Sea oil revenues, rushed through privatisations and ushered in the get rich quick “loads a money” culture which, together with deregulation of the banks, ended up in the crises we have today. We must not forget the anti-gay legislation she brought in with clause 28 and the regressive pole tax that everyone was expected to pay whether rich or poor. In my view the celebrations last night were not in bad taste but a justified response to her death. All of us who sufferred during the Thatcher years had good cause to be thankful last night. Hopefully we will never see such a divisive and uncaring leader again.
I think we need to separate out The Prime Minister from The Person. If one has strong opinions against Thatcher’s policies and actions as a Prime Minister, the time to celebrate and have street parties would be when she is no longer in power, i.e. 1990. In 2013 she was no longer Prime Minister, but an elderly lady with dementia. To celebrate her losing an election is understandable but to celebrate her death is, in my mind, tasteless, and has nothing to do with her work (good or bad) as a Prime Minister. Her death cannot be compared to that of Saddam Hussein as he was still working his evilness up until his death, and would have continued to do so. It would have made no difference to our country if Thatcher had died in 1995 or 2013.
“This is not a time for celebration. The death of Margaret Thatcher is nothing more than a salient reminder of how Britain got into the mess that we are in today. Of why ordinary working people are no longer able to earn enough from one job to support a family; of why there is a shortage of decent affordable housing; of why domestic growth is driven by credit, not by real incomes; of why tax-payers are forced to top up wages; of why a spiteful government seeks to penalise the poor for having an extra bedroom; of why Rupert Murdoch became so powerful; of why cynicism and greed became the hallmarks of our society.
Raising a glass to the death of an infirm old lady changes none of this. The only real antidote to cynicism is activism. Don’t celebrate – organise!”
Yeah, the current goverment is doing a great job aren’t they. Lets blame her for everything.
Depressing how much of a shambles the left of politics is.
M, it;s depressing that you think this represents the left
I personally think the protest was a bit distasteful if it was solely based on an old lady’s death.
However I think what gave the get together in the square more relevance is that Thatcher, even in death, is the ideological figurehead of the current Tory party – which is also bringing in comparably unpopular policies (see poll tax vs bedroom tax); so people wanted to make some noise about someone who influenced the current unpopular government.
Either way though, the banners etc weren’t very dignified.
(NB. to write off the protesters as “too young to know” is incredibly patronising. Young people can also study history and be critical of where we are as a country as a result of that history)
For me Brixton represents a strong community, where a lot of love and respect is shown for one another. This goes against all of that, nothing good can come out of celebrating someone’s death, no matter how evil they were. I’m embarrassed to be a Brixton resident today, negative publicity is not what we need.
This makes me desperately sad about the state of the country. I doubt any of these people were even alive when she was in power so they have just unquestionably absorbed what somebody else has told them. They are giving a bad name to the people who actually have good reason to speak out against Thatcher’s policies by using foul lanaguage and vandalising their own community. Regardless of anything else, she was the first female PM and the first female leader of the Western World and she was a little old lady with a family. Sad to live in Brixton right now.
People don’t have to be around and over 16 when someone is in power to be affected by their policies, nor do they have to have been around then to develop a political opinion about what they did (should no-one condemn hitler just because we “weren’t there”? ). It’s totally reasonable to expect the children of affected families to grow up with similar political views to their parents, and if they are educated they can learn about what happened then and form opinions however they see fit. This does not, however, make it acceptable to go around trashing the streets and community in some fake response to the death of a disliked political figure. However, I suspect those left “rioting” and such at the end would use any excuse to act the way they did and the vast majority of those out to celebrate would condemn their actions. I personally chose to stay indoors and reflect on the suffering of those families affected by Thatcher’s policies.
Bunch of attention seeking fools. Most people (like me) who hated Thatcher just breathed a gentle sigh of relief when she died. Not these idiots. To them, an event simply isn’t significant unless they personally become a part of it.
Who cares if the staff in the Ritzy are intimidated by the massing drunken crowds? Who cares if their sign was damaged and they & their company get a huge amount of flack from people thinking the sign was official? Who cares if the drunken mob try and trash the high street? Who cares about more bad press for Brixton? Who cares about the graffiti and vandalism in our lovely communal area?
They certainly don’t care. All that matters to them is that they were there, and their Twitter, Instagram, Facebook & Tumblr feeds prove it. They don’t care about society or community unless it’s an online one which makes them look ‘cool’.
And before anyone says it was only a handful of troublemakers, I say bullshit! If one person is doing something and a hundred stand around watching, cheering, photographing and videoing they are as much a part of it as those committing the crime.
A lot of people are moaning about the gentrification of Brixton. I’d say it’s more of a dumbing down.
So if Margaret Thatcher was ousted in 1990 and resigned as an MP in 1992 – these revellers must have formed their politcal opinions by the time they were around 10 years old. How advanced – you’d think that they would have used this intelligence to some good in later life. What a shame this is all they can manage. Can they please remove the MASSIVE chip from shoulder, surely they must be sick of carrying it around by now?
I think the saddest thing in all of this is that as a society it doesn’t appear any good is coming from the situation (regardless of whether you personally think Thatcher’s death is a good or bad event).
Once again, people looting their own community (my community!) and vandalising a charity shop. What is the point of that? Grow up.
Organise and run a protest by all means but don’t use violence and vandalism to prove your point, we are all better than that.
Looks like most of them weren’t even born when she was in power…
Which public buildings were vandalised Liz?
pathetic. shame on them.
you forgot to report about the vandalism of numerous public buildings, the hijacking and destruction of the ritzy sign.
Slight exaggeration there, Liz… No?
Numerous buildings?! Sorry, no… A couple, yes.
Don’t go by what the papers say, go out of your house and see for yourself!