Protest and the police: From Brixton to BLM

Talking organised dissent with Morag Livingstone

Morag Livingstone is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, writer and author. Her previous books include Hackney Child and Tainted Love both written with Hope Daniels, who walked into Stoke Newington Police Station aged nine and asked for herself and her little brothers to be taken into care.

In 2017 Morag directed the documentary Belonging: The Truth Behind the Headlines, which focused on “how successive UK governments have conspired to work against those they are meant to represent.”

Her new book, co-written with the criminal defence solicitor Matt Foot, is Charged: How the Police Try to Suppress Protest, described as “An investigation into 40 years of battling protest that reveals a hidden police agenda against dissent.”

We spoke to Morag about how the Brixton uprising of 1981 led to the creation of a secret police manual; how the relationship between government and the police has led to a lot of the issues we’re seeing with the Met today; and what the future of protest in London mi…