Last week, we learned that, in his final days, Chris Kaba attempted a literal murder on the dancefloor of the now-defunct Oval Space nightclub, shooting a gangland rival in the leg.

The news poured more fuel on the debate over whether Sargeant Martyn Blake, who shot Kaba dead as he attempted to use his £75,000 luxury SUV as a battering ram against the police, should have been prosecuted. But it also highlighted the grim reality of organised crime in Britain today. 

London’s gangs, and the violence they cause, certainly don’t lack press attention. But they’re often framed primarily as an ill-advised pastime for bored inner-city teenagers. 

Gangs are regularly described by left-wing politicians and local councils as a “lifestyle”, a “culture”, and a “public health issue”. The violence they cause is often reduced to a “postcode feud”, implying that gangs are fighting over nothing more than tribal grudges, like rival football fans armed with deadly weapons.

Kaba’s final days tell a different story. According to the Daily Mail, the Oval Space shooting was “part of a vicious war for control over a ‘county lines’ drug dealing network” involving his 67 gang.

If you wanted more information about 67 before last week’s reports, you could read a glowing interview in the Evening Standard, which described them as a “rap group” and a “soft target for tabloid alarmists looking for an easy scapegoat for knife crime.” Their Wikipedia page also referred to them as a “hip-hop collective” until October 25th, when it was finally updated to “petty crime gang”. The page goes on to outline the various petty crimes their members have committed, such as “murder” and “drug trafficking”.

The shooting also points to London gangs’ involvement in the nightclub industry. Oval Space, once a trendy venue before it hosted the 2017 Lib Dem manifesto launch, had its licence revoked weeks after the shooting, with the police commenting that Oval Space “to an extent [was] controlled by gangs”.

This is not “petty crime”. This is organised crime, and one of the more depressing things about modern Britain is that you don’t have to look too hard for it.

You don’t even have to be in the country very long to encounter it. Last week, TV presenter Adam Richman and his crew’s van was robbed, leading him to desperately post on Twitter as his stolen property was moved around London. The police told him to stop doing that. His goods have yet to be recovered.

Richman is far from alone. Virtually everyone in London knows someone who’s had their phone, laptop, bike, or something else nicked. Many have had it happen to them. They report the theft to the police, often with the exact location of the stolen item, to no avail. They may even get to watch their property take its final journey to the airport before it reappears half the world away.

We can tell that organised crime is behind many — even most — of these thefts because, on the few occasions that they are solved, they tend to be solved in massive raids where hundreds of stolen phones or bikes are found in the same location. 

Likewise, the recent surge in shoplifting has more to do with a rapidly-growing black market run by international organised crime than an army of Jean Valjeans trying to feed their destitute families in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.

Some shops, of course, are flourishing despite the shoplifting epidemic. Judging by how every high street in Britain has been taken over by certain perennially empty shops, it seems to help to have no customers. These shops appear to be among the select few capable of paying the eye-watering business rates — assuming, of course, that they actually pay them, which many of Oxford Street’s infamous candy shops don’t.

… it’s increasingly hard not to notice the growing presence of organised crime, much of it foreign in origin, in British life

People will mutter about money-laundering fronts and organised crime in virtually every town and city across the country, but it’s an issue our politicians generally refuse to discuss. When Welsh Tory MS Gareth Davies did point out this phenomenon in the Senedd, he was howled down by other lawmakers. Welsh Labour called his comments “stigmatising.” The BBC’s report led with Davies being “accused of disrespect”.

But it’s increasingly hard not to notice the growing presence of organised crime, much of it foreign in origin, in British life. Even sleepy provincial towns are blighted by dubious high street shops and county lines operations. It’s one of the biggest barriers to the “orderly and civilised” society that Tory MP Neil O’Brien wants to bring about.

Politicians would do well to talk more, and do a lot more, about Britain’s organised crime problem. 

It would help, in the first instance, to bust a few left-wing myths about crime. The idea that most crime is the work of a very small number of very bad people doesn’t sit well with the left-wing mindset, which tends to see most crime as a byproduct of a broken society. This is why so much of our discourse around “gangs” is the way it is. It’s also why Sadiq Khan believes violence against women starts with jokes about women playing FIFA, rather than the people he wants to jump the queue for social housing.

We’d probably also need to build more prisons, control our borders, and give the police and other authorities the right resources, powers, and incentives to go after organised crime rather than easier targets. Plans to reverse the 2014 law that watered down punishments for “low-value” shoplifting, and give anonymity to firearms officers subject to trial, are tentative steps in the right direction.

But more can, and should, be done. A concerted nationwide crackdown on organised crime could reverse its recent rise, put a serious dent in crime rates, and make Britain a safer and more pleasant place to live.

Perhaps more importantly, it would help nip this problem in the bud before it gets really serious. Organised crime in Britain is still nowhere near the level it is in countries like Italy, let alone Latin America, where it’s been a source of widespread institutional corruption and genuine terror. When organised crime gets that far, it invariably takes drastic measures and extraordinary cases of individual bravery to root it out. 

We shouldn’t rest on our laurels. Clamping down on organised crime now is our best, and in the long run easiest, option. Our leaders should take it.