The Grenfell Tragedy – A Systemic Crime Exposing Britain’s Racist Class Divide

This blog post was written in memory of all 72 victims of the Grenfell Tower Fire. My heart is with them and their families, and I ask you to stay to the end, to honour each of them, with me.

This post was rather difficult for me to write. I was scrolling through Netflix, bored on a Friday night, when I spotted a documentary about Grenfell. At the time of the tragedy, I remember it breaking the news. Everyone in the England, shocked to see something so horrific happen in our capital city. I was around 12, not truly understanding the impact of the disaster, but always remembering it being something so scary.

The documentary further enhanced this for me. I urge you to watch it for yourself. To learn the horrors behind an unavoidable disaster, and how it exposed us to the government’s sheer lack of care for the working class and ethnically diverse.

Grenfell Tower stood tall in North Kensington, West London—24 floors, home to over 300 residents from a range of backgrounds, primarily working-class and ethnically diverse communities. On the night of 14th June 2017, a small kitchen fire on the fourth floor rapidly turned into an inferno that engulfed the entire building in just minutes. The speed and scale of the blaze were horrifying. In the end, 72 innocent lives were lost, many of them children, elders, and whole families. The fire wasn’t just a tragic accident—it was a preventable disaster, born out of systemic negligence.

The Netflix documentary leaves no stone unturned. It lays bare the fact that the building’s cladding—specifically, the aluminium composite material (ACM) with a polyethylene core—was highly flammable and completely unsuitable for high-rise structures. Multiple fire safety experts, even prior to 2017, had warned that cladding of this kind posed a severe fire risk. In fact, panels identical to Grenfell’s failed safety tests with fire spreading in under four minutes. Yet, it was still used—because it was cheaper.

Let that sit for a moment. People died, and for what? Saving a few extra pounds here and there?

Emails shown in the documentary between those responsible for refurbishing Grenfell reveal that cost-cutting was prioritised over safety. Switching to the dangerous cladding saved just £293,000—the price of a single flat in London. A senior figure at Rydon, the construction company managing the refurb, even referred to it as “value engineering.” What’s the value in 72 lives lost?

This wasn’t just negligence. It was the result of years of systemic failure, institutional disregard, and government policy that consistently deprioritised the needs of working-class and marginalised people.

Over and over again, residents of Grenfell—many of them immigrants—voiced concerns, wrote letters, and attended meetings. They warned of fire risks. They pleaded for change. They were ignored.

The victims of Grenfell were not only working class—they were people of colour, migrants, people who had already been fighting to exist in a system that constantly dehumanised them. The government didn’t just fail to act—they allowed a culture of inequality and erasure to fester, one that treated these residents as less than.

When the fire happened, the emergency response was sluggish. Survivors and local volunteers were the first responders, long before officials arrived. The documentary painfully highlights how community members were left to organise shelter, food, and aid. Families wandered the streets for days, searching hospitals, clinging to hope.

It’s now been eight years. Eight long years of waiting.

And still—no one has been held accountable. Not a single prosecution. No prison sentences. Not for the manufacturers of the cladding, not for the contractors, not for the officials who signed it off. The public inquiry, while thorough, has been slow, and justice continues to be delayed and denied.

It’s heartbreaking. It’s infuriating. But it’s not the end of the story.

We must refuse to let this be forgotten. Grenfell is not a one-off tragedy—it is a mirror held up to our society, showing us the consequences of unchecked inequality and government indifference.

Here’s how we continue the fight:

1.  Watch and Share – Watch Grenfell Uncovered on Netflix. Share it. Talk about it. Keep the memory of the victims alive and demand others understand what happened.

2.  Support Survivors and Families – Follow and donate to campaigns like Grenfell United, a group of survivors and bereaved families pushing for justice.

3.  Demand Accountability – Write to your MPs. Ask where the prosecutions are. Ask why unsafe cladding is still on hundreds of buildings across the UK.

4.  Stay Informed – Read the inquiry reports. Learn the names of the victims. Understand the systemic failures that led us here.

5. Fight Racism and Classism – Call it out. Whether it’s in housing, education, or healthcare—systemic inequality needs to be dismantled at every level.

Grenfell wasn’t just a tragedy. It was a crime, rooted in racist, classist structures that continue to fail people today. But remembering Grenfell means doing more than mourning—it means acting, fighting, and refusing to stay silent.

To the 72 souls lost, and to the countless lives forever changed—we see you. We remember you. And we will not stop until justice is served.

This blog post was written in memory of the 72 victims and their families. Read their names. Remember their stories. Be the voice that was taken from them.

1.          Marco Gottardi (27)

2.          Gloria Trevisan (26)

3.          Raymond ‘Moses’ Bernard (63)

4.          Fethia Hassan (4)

5.          Hania Hassan (3)

6.          Rania Ibrahim (31)

7.          Hesham Rahman (57)

8.          Mohamed Saber Neda (57)

9.          Fathia Ahmed Elsanousi (77)

10.       Isra Ibrahim (33)

11.       Abufras Mohamed Ibrahim (39)

12.       Anthony Disson (65)

13.       Sirria Choucair (60)

14.       Bassem Choukair (40)

15.       Nadia Choucair (33)

16.       Mierna Choucair (13)

17.       Fatima Choucair (11)

18.       Zainab Choucair (3)

19.       Firdaws Hashim (12)

20.       Yaqub Hashim (6)

21.       Yahya Hashim (13)

22.       Hashim Kedir (44)

23.       Nura Jemal (35)

24.       Ligaya Moore (78)

25.       Mariem Elgwahry (27)

26.       Eslah Elgwahry (64)

27.       Mehdi El-Wahabi (8)

28.       Nur Huda El-Wahabi (15)

29.       Yasin El-Wahabi (20)

30.       Faouzia El-Wahabi (42)

31.       Abdulaziz El-Wahabi (52)

32.       Mary Mendy (54)

33.       Khadija Saye (24)

34.       Jessica Urbano Ramirez (12)

35.       Gary Maunders (57)

36.       Deborah Lamprell (45)

37.       Omar Belkadi (32)

38.       Malak Belkadi (8)

39.       Leena Belkadi (6 months)

40.       Farah Hamdan (31)

41.       Marjorie Vital (68)

42.       Ernie Vital (50)

43.       Mohamednur Tuccu (44)

44.       Amaya Tuccu-Ahmedin (3)

45.       Amal Ahmedin (35)

46.       Amna Mahmud Idris (27)

47.       Fatemeh Afrasiabi (59)

48.       Sakina Afrasehabi (65)

49.       Isaac Paulos (5)

50.       Hamid Kani (61)

51.       Biruk Haftom (12)

52.       Berkti Haftom (29)

53.       Vincent Chiejina (60)

54.       Kamru Miah (79)

55.       Rabeya Begum (64)

56.       Mohammed Hanif (26)

57.       Mohammed Hamid (28)

58.       Husna Begum (22)

59.       Khadija Khloufi (52)

60.       Joseph Daniels (69)

61.       Sheila (84)

62.       Steven Power (63)

63.       Denis Murphy (56)

64.       Mohammad Alhaj Ali (24)

65.       Jeremiah Deen (2)

66.       Zainab Deen (32)

67.       Abdeslam Sebbar (77)

68.       Ali Yawar Jafari (81)

69.       Victoria King (71)

70.       Alexandra Atala (40)

71.       Maria Del Pilar Burton (74)

72.       Logan Gomes (stillborn)