Although Bristol's inner-city districts of St Paul's, St Jude's and Easton are currently the subject of urban regeneration, the underlying socio-economic inequalities facing the black, minority ethnic and poor white communities that live there have been ignored. The legacy of Bristol's leading role in the slave trade, the institutional racism that led to the St Paul's riot in 1980 and the domestic Islamophobia accompanying the 'war on terror' have resulted in distrust between local residents and the authorities that claim to be revitalising their areas.
In April 2011, in the inner-city Stokes Croft area of Bristol, a riot broke out triggered by the heavy-handed policing of a sustained campaign opposed to the building of a Tesco store in the area. Stokes Croft is adjacent to the St Paul’s area where, thirty-one years ago, the first of the 1980s series of riots, across cities throughout Britain, took place. This piece examines the underlying background to the ‘Tesco riots’, including increasing gentrification, lack of housing and rising levels of inequality; the mixed and multicultural nature of the local population; and the inordinate power and control wielded by a giant corporation like Tesco. Was the Tesco riot a harbinger of a growing, subterranean mood of resistance? Was it one aspect of a new social movement?
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