Claudia Webbe

Claudia Webbe is the former chairman of Scotland Yard's Trident Gang Crime Command Independent Advisory Group after pioneering its development in the mid-1990s. She is an elected Councillor in the London Borough of Islington and a member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party.^[1] She is related to the singer and musician Simon Webbe.

Advisor to Ken Livingstone

Webbe was an adviser to the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone (a member of his election campaign team in 2000 and 2004), arguably thus, the first black female full-time paid advisor to a directly elected mayor in the UK.

Webbe spoke out in Livingstone's defence when on 24 February 2006, the Standards Board for England as decided by the Adjudication Panel for England, he was found guilty of bringing his office into disrepute and suspended from office for four weeks. The trigger for the action was Livingstone's comparison of a Jewish Evening Standard reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard.^[2]

Webbe said of Livingstone at the time as published in The Guardian: "I have known Ken for almost 20 years, having worked with him in numerous anti-racist organisations and campaigns including the Anti-Racist Alliance, the National Assembly Against Racism and whilst I was Director of Westminster Race Equality Council, he took up cases that I referred onto him for support. His history of work in the anti-racist movement is unquestionable."

Livingstone launched an appeal and the decision was later quashed by the High Court when, on 5 October, Justice Collins overturned the suspension, stating that the Adjudicating Panel had misdirected itself.

Response to comments by Tony Blair

When Tony Blair, in his 2007 Callaghan Memorial Lecture in Cardiff, said on the issue of gun crime that we cannot pretend "that it is not young black kids doing it..." and stated that the black community "need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids",^[3] Webbe wrote that the Prime Minister's comments were a "kick in the teeth" to the historical and ongoing work of the black community. Webbe argued that "In the absence of statutory provision, black voluntary, community and faith organisations had historically stepped up to the challenge to provide vital...self-help organisations so as to meet the needs of... vulnerable children and young people and challenge inequality and racism".^[4] Effectively Webbe argued that far from sitting back it was the community itself that was providing a safety net of services, support and action to protect young people from harm.

Webbe stated: "The prime minister is wrong to assert or imply that this is a 'black problem': the bullet does not discriminate in its effect, and neither is the black community responsible for the manufacture, supply and importation of dangerous weapons."^[4]

Operation Trident chairman

Following the targeted murders of children in south London in February 2007, Webbe appeared on a number of media outlets and was featured throughout on BBC, BBC News 24, Radio 4, BBC Breakfast, ITV, Channel 4 News and Sky News among others.

Operation Trident emerged in 1998 as a result of sustained community pressure to tackle the disproportionate effects of gun crime on black communities, where both the victim and the assailant are black.^[5] The Metropolitan Police now has a dedicated Operation Trident police response unit. In February 2013, the Trident Independent Advisory group was restarted as the Trident Gang Crime Command with new members.^[6] Webbe has been an opponent of the change, and called it "...a backwards step on race."^[7]

Webbe is the former chairman of the media campaigns group of Operation Trident and thus has been responsible for leading and pioneering its hard-hitting campaigns. This has contributed to transforming the way the police present themselves in building trust and confidence with the community. The latest campaign engaged the UK garage/grime/hip-hop group Roll Deep, whose latest track "Badman" is a message to those who might have been seduced by the glamour of guns. The track's video, directed by Jake Nava (famous for Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love" video), highlights the grim reality of gun crime, its effects on people's lives and the endless cycle of violence it promotes.

Webbe combines her work on tackling crime with being a board director of Crimestoppers. Webbe was also a pioneer of the London Multi-Agency Race Hate Crime Forum an anti-racist campaigning organisation, whose current secretariat paradoxically is the Metropolitan Police Authority.

Anti-racism advocacy

Webbe was the chief executive/Director of Westminster Race Equality Council and the chief executive/Director of Bath and North East Somerset Race Equality Council.

Webbe is also an adviser to the "Kick Racism Out of Football" campaign, which is chaired by Herman Ouseley, the former Chairperson of the Commission for Racial Equality. She is a board director of "Homes for Islington" one of the largest housing management organisations in the UK. However, Homes for Islington is one of the government's controversial Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO). Many campaigners regard ALMOs as one step towards the privatisation of council housing.

Webbe is a public speaker and regarded as a long-time campaigner of human rights, equality and justice and has been the Chairperson of Path (West Midlands) for the past 11 years tackling significant generational unemployment and barriers to career advancement among Britain's minority ethnic communities.

After a long and hard fought campaign in Bunhill she was elected as a councillor to Islington London Borough Council, for the Labour Party, which, now under Catherine West of Tollington, controls the council. Webbe was elected with 2177 votes, which made her the highest placed candidate, alongside her running mates Troy Gallagher, of EC1 New Deal, and Robert Khan, of The Law Society.^[8]

References

External links

• Guardian profile
• Operation Black Vote article
• Television appearances, IMDB
• "Girls and gun crime", Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4
• "Blair blames spate of murders on black culture", The Guardian, 12 April 2007.