On the early morning of June 14, a fire broke out in Grenfell Tower Block, a twenty-four-story high rise of public housing units located in the neighborhood of North Kensington, West London. By June 17, thirty were confirmed dead, with an additional fifty-eight still missing and presumed dead.

Although British prime minister Theresa May called a full public inquiry into the causes of the tragedy, and London mayor Sadiq Khan confirmed a citywide local authority recovery operation, community members led by those close to the Grenfell Tower fire stormed the Kensington and Chelsea Council offices Friday chanting “we want justice,” calling the local council “murderers,” and demanding immediate answers to questions raised by the fire. On Saturday, masses of protesters marched on Whitehall road in Westminster, the center of the UK government, chanting “May must go,” “blood on your hands” and “justice for Grenfell.”

On the day of the fire, Tom Arabia for Jacobin spoke with London-based writer Richard Seymour, author of Corbyn: the Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics and frequent contributor to Jacobin, about the issues surrounding the fire and why the tragedy would prove so politically explosive in today’s context.