30/05/2025
The Origins of Grenfell Silent Walk
“Hi Ishmahil, where are you? I’m in the area. Are you around?” The caller was Matthew Ryder, the newly appointed Deputy Mayor of London for Social Integration under Sadiq Khan. Matthew was a noted Barrister by profession, a founder member of the Matrix Chambers which specialise in Human Rights and Regulatory Law. He most notably had also been a part of Edward Snowden’s legal team, the former US spy who had leaked information about his government’s global surveilance programs, and like Julian Assange was being pursued by the US government.
I had known Matthew since the age of eighteen when I was a young tearaway and having frequent brushes with the law. He was a young intern at a law firm, just growing his whiskers. The fact of seeing a young Black solicitor of an equitable age blew our minds and from that moment forward our crew in Stonebridge were determined to use whatever law firm he was attached to whenever we came into problems. Matthew was intelligent had a composed and calm demeanor and had his finger (more or less) on the pulse of the cultural and racial nuances that blighted Britain. His Intellectual prowess and forensic attention to detail had led him to front many high profile legal battles, including, cases of misconduct among senior police officers and to cross examinine MI5 and MI6 operatives, senior politicians and newspaper editors. In other words, he was elite special forces when it came to getting things done.
He had parachuted into North Kensington as a result of a fire that had engulfed the 24-story residential block of apartments known as Grenfell Tower. At this time the number of deaths and the cause of the fire was undetermined - however, rumours were circulatimg that well over a hundred people had perished and that the external cladding was responsible for the fire spreading so rapidly.
At the time of Matthew’s call on the afternoon of 18th June, I just so happened to be with Yvette Williams, a former Mangrove employee and a woman who was honoured for her work on the Stephen Lawrence campaign. We were attending the meeting of a local community organisation that was going under the name Westway 23. I was extremely familiar with the organisation as it began as an offshoot of a campaign that I had originally started in 2011 under the name “Reclaim Our Community”, with the objective to reclaim the Tabernacle Community Centre which as a result of gentrification had overpriced its services and thus pushed out the grassroots community of Notting Hill. The second leg of the campaign was to reclaim the 23 Acres of land and services under the Westway flyover that was being managed on the community’s behalf by the Westway Trust.
While the objectives of Westway 23 and it’s rank and file were by and large altruistic and noble, I had witnessed the principle protagonists behind the organisation, Niles Hailstones and Toby Belson build a cult like organisation around themselves and their inner circle - that more and more began to service their own personal ambitions, with the community being used merely to hoist them above people’s shoulders where they could be ferried about on bamboo thrones - while centralising power and influence around a system of patronage.
Myself and Yvette were there as this was their first scheduled meeting after the fire. We were concerned that the senior members of this group would exploit the fire to expedite their goals - and wanted to ensure that a unified community response to the tragedy was correctly moulded and not hijacked by this particular group.
They were discussing their general business interspersed with various trivial announcements about the fire. It was at this moment that Matthew Ryder entered and greeted me. I announced his presence and informed the group that he would be extremely helpful in the coordination of services and assistance. At this point he was rudely told by Toby Belson to wait outside. Myself and Yvette looked at each other in amazement. I couldn’t believe it. Here we were in the middle of a tragedy of a seismic scale and the Deputy Mayor, a man who could get things done, had been disrespected. Matthew left without a fuss and could be seen pacing back and forth by the window looking a little perplexed as the meetng continued. I loudly interrupted the meeting, telling Toby who was chairing,that this was an opportunity to take advantage of Matthew while he was here. This young fool seemed to be on a power trip. He said they still had Westway 23 business to discuss and Matthew would have to wait until the meeting ended.
I sat there mouth agape as they continued their meeting discussing who had used threee paper clips instead of two, ratifying the agenda of the last agenda, agreeing the minutes of the last minutes and other such trivial and meaningless drivel that served only to validate Toby’s deluded sense of self-importance. I kept leaving the building to speak with Matthew outside and to fill him in on the details of the community’s response to the fire and our attempts to contain the anger that had been bubbling up around the country. After 30 minutes of this, I had had enough and entered with a stronger tone of defiance. Ultimately, they wrapped up the meeting and invited Matthew in. Matthew explained that he now no longer had much time as he had other people to meet but could assist the group with computers, resources and contacts that could help them where needed. Only at this point did it dawn on members of the group that valuable time had been wasted - time that could have been better spent harnessing the direct support and resources of the Deputy Mayor of London.
As myself and Yvette left that meeting, we looked at each other and rolled our eyes. We knew what we had to do immediately. There was no way we could let this well-meaning, yet grossly incompetently led group seize the narrative. We headed straight to my home where we set about coordinating a campaign and community response to the fire. We would host a march and launch a campaign for justice.
While thinking about the march, I was mindful that the day after the fire, a protest had been called outside Kensington Town Hall. I had returned home that evening, turned on my TV and on the news I saw protestors trying to storm a line of police who were guarding the town hall. I screamed “NO!” at the TV - as I knew that if the anger manifested itself into a riot or violence, then we would have lost control of the narrative - and with it, public support. We were currently in a very good position to demand answers - but only if we maintained public support and sympathy. The nation was outraged by what had taken place and they were watching closely.
I quickly grabbed my bike and sped to the Town Hall. I was there in about 6-7 minutes. Fortunately, someone who I knew by the name of Víctor Lawrence was on the fringe of the crowd. I threw my bike down and without waiting for a response, asked him to look after it. The anger had intensified and the crowd was rowdier and had forced the police to retreat inside the Town hall, where they were backing up the steps. I fought my way into the building and to the front of the angry crowd. There were many faces from the community that I recognised - however, they were disfigured and contorted by rage, to the point where they were almost unrecognisable. I quickly spotted a friend of mine Chris LeMaitre and asked him to help me try and control the crowd. The two of us forced ourselves between the baying pack and the police. “Get the f**k out the way Ishmahil”, a voice screamed directly in my face. It with Ottman, a Morrocan youth from Golborne Road who I had known for many years. I pleaded with him as Chris pleaded with others. He was the angriest and loudest voice there - and understandably so. I spoke directly to him, nose to nose, screaming equally as loud. I told him that this isn’t going to happen. That this isn’t the way. That we knew they were angry but that this is what the state wanted. I told them that if we resort to violence in this case then we would have lost. I gripped Ottman’s shoulder firmly with my hand and squeezed with a force that spoke to him and consoled his anger. I knew Ottman from the streets, as I did many of the faces that were there. I knew what they were capable of, because under normal circumstances I would have been among their ranks, just as loud, just as angry and just as incendiary - if not moreso.
The pack slowly began to retreat down the steps and outside of the Town Hall building - much to the relief of the police - as their lines were on the verge of collapse. On the forecourt of the Town Hall building I seconded a microphone and speaker from the Socialist Worker’s Party and established a ad hoc rally where random speakers took to the mic and vented their frustrations. This succesfully calmed the crowd and we remained there listening to various speakers for the next hour. We eventually decided to steer the pack back into the Latimer Road Grenfell footprint. Along the way it almost flared up another two or three times. By the time we had reached Lancaster Road by the Methodist Church, it flared up again. Youths bottled the police and attempted to storm their lines. Reverend Michael Long was outside with members of his congregation - fearful and in a panicked state he rushed to lock the doors. I arrived just before he could close them and asked him to look after my bike.
Again, myself and Chris LeMaitre managed to defuse the violence. Fortunately, the police were under the very wise directive not to engage the mob - for had they done so, I guarantee that would have been the point where serious rioting and destruction to public property would have engulfed the neighbourhood and possibly even the country. The crowd eventually arrived on Latimer Road and fused with the hundreds of other people that had converged on the neighbourhood. There were scores of youths donning ski masks and balaclavas. Myself and Chris spent the rest of the evening floating around the police lines dissauding the youths from any further violence.
It was this incident that I had at the back of my mind when planning the Silent Walk. I had calculated that if we called a protest whereby people could chant, then given the tension that was in the air, that these chants would devolve into battle cries which would be the precursor to all out war. Such incendiaries within the protest had to be defused - the only way to do so was to protest in silence - so it became the Silent March. After a couple of hours of further planning and deliberation, I felt the word “March” sounded too militaristic - thus it finally became the “Silent Walk”.
We brought in Michael Mansfield to advise the campaign and brought an Imam, a Reverend and a Rabbi to lead the Silent Walk held on the 19th June, five days after the fire to coincide with the launch of the Justice 4 Grenfell Campaign.
As a co-founder of the campaign, alongside Yvette Williams, it was agreed that the positions were only to be held temporarily until the survivors had sufficiently recovered and were in a position to take over the campaign. It is for this reason all positions within J4G were credited as “Coordinator” positions, with no fancy titles or charges. I handed the Silent Walk over to Zeyad Cred, as I had declared very early on that I believed young people should be leading the campaign. Zeyad had shadowed me for the first two weeks after the fire and had acted as a liason between J4G and the survivors. I left him with specific instructions to end the Silent Walk after one year, so that any haemmoraging audience numbers could not be interpreted as a haemmoraging of public support. It could then be held as an annual commemoration. To my dismay and contrary to my wishes, the Silent Walk is still being held as we approach the 8th Anniversary of the tragedy.
On the 28th June, J4G brought together a broad range of community organisarions and individuals at a public meeting held at the Maxilla Centre to form the umbrella of the Justice 4 Grenfell Campaign. It was filmed by Marlon Rouse, the only person who we permitted to film the gathering and was attended by survivors, bereaved relatives, representatives from Lancaster West Residents Assciation - as well as a number of other community groups.
At that meeting I announced that I was standing aside and resigning my position as a coordinator. I did so to demonstrate that I had no ulterior motive for starting J4G and neither had the intention to build a bamboo throne for myself. We had brought in members of the Hillsborough Campaign to act as advisors, we had arranged with members of Momentum to help structure a communications system and my Rice N Peas, collegue Wizard was to organise secure emails. The infrastructural plans were agreed and a meeting was to take place the following week to divide into groups whereby collectives could focus on the legal campaign, counselling and therapy and other services attached to the campaign.
In the following meeting the week after I had left, Niles Hailstones from Westway 23 attended with various stooges and deliberately disrupted and derailed the meeting - from which point forward chaos ensued with a territorial civil war engulfing the community - leaving behind a toxic trail of distrust, suspicion, sabotage and threats of violence - of which I have no doubt was fuelled by the government to drive wedges within the community in order to weaken any campaign for justice.
I began to hear horror stories of threats against peoples lives and intervened on numerous occasions to pacify the threats. Faisal from Grenfell Speaks was threatened with physical harm and a home invasion. Similarly, Sean Méndez from Solidarity Sports was told he would be stabbed if he dared to enter the área. Such was the thuggery that was being endorsed and undersigned. People who should not have been anywhere near a campaign were suddenly empowered and used as thugs to intimidate, bully and silence those who did not fall in line. After a while, I simply sat back and watched from a distance as the very fears we initially had came to pass.
There are many rightous individuals and organisations that have done some amazing things and made huge sacrifices in the quest for justice. They have upheld the community’s tradition and legacy of holding power to account. While others have simply viewed the tragedy as a means of featherimg their own nests and siphoning of whatever resources and hand outs they can get.
As for Grenfell United, its many tentacles and some of the organisations that have sprung up since the fire, I think there are a lot of questions that will one day need to be answered. Grenfell United were compromised and sold out from day one, with government operatives cemented within their ranks and advising them. They cosied up to government thinking they had a friend and a sympathetic ear - only to end up being played like a fiddle. While many within GU have acted in good faith, others have seen the Grenfell tragedy as nothing more than a cash cow, a spotlight, a Golden Goose that just keeps giving.
In order to really unlock the answers as to how the government and local council succesfully managed to infiltrate the community and to silence what could have otherwise been a robust campaign, you simply have to follow the jobs, follow the grants, follow the benefits and follow the money. The money is the Yellow Brick Road that will lead you to all the answers as to why the campaign for justice was derailed - and why justice will forever be deferred.
As for me, I’m a fresh water fish. I refuse to swim in such polluted swamps. I have deliberately kept to the margins - only offering my opinion and advise when solicited.
If Grenfell were to happen today, I wouldn’t attempt to pacify the community or to stop the violence - the government deserves to feel the wrath of the people - I would probably be the person striking the match!
