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Workers, Blacks, Youth

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Workers, Blacks, Youth ( WORKERS, BLACKS, YOUTH: THE LOCAL AND national yellow police support units. Most now have in­ Livingstone was condemning London's press is in paroxysms over a claimed stant response units (ten constables plus _ new police chief Kenneth Newman, who crime wave. The Metropolitan Police a sergeant) motorized and highly mobile it is reported is "fascinated by the weap­ has issued figures to 'prove' that for effective crack down. Last years riots onry police use to subdue the populat­ black muggers are running wild in saw the issuing of a wide range of rep­ ion ",Merlyn Rees was on local radio the streets of London. The Daily ression technology. The police are det­ praising him to the skies as a quite, thou­ ermined to use it. Thus as early as Feb­ ghtful, and liberal man. Mail, taking up the racist chorus ruary 26th the Metropolitan Police ass­ screamed "Violence double that by istant commissioner accused ScarmanYs Whites, Yard reveal Black Crime." Report of mpering the fight against Ken Livingstone calls for a "democ­ The Police Federation, taking advan­ crime. ratically accountable police force" a position echoed by 'Militant' in the lab­ tage of two police deaths in early Other side-effects of Scarman were our Party and by the Communist Party I March, is calling for the re-introd­ moves for an independent complaints uction of hanging, in half page ad­ investigation procedure and moves by of Great Britain (who devote several pages of 'Marxism Today' to an inter­ I verts in the dailies. London Police some Labour councils and by Police view with 'soft cop' John Alderson). The Committees to demand the democratic Commissioner McNee, has told crit­ 'left reformist' strategy on policing is, in V ics t~ "get off the backs of the pol­ accountability of the police. Whitelaw essence, democratic contrOl and comm­ was forced to promise some changes in ice." James Anderton, Chief Con- unity policing. Whilst the labolir move­ the complaints procedure and the Police 'I. • wc ill ble of Greater Manchester, is ment should vigorously oppose all eff­ J;r~_ amouring for the Iilbolition of the Federations abandonment of their opp­ orts to strengthen and arm the police osition probably indicates that some win­ and release it from its present weak 'dem­ partially elected police committees dow dressing deal has been worked out and denounces the presence "in our ocratic' rastraints (police committees behind the scenes. Democratic account­ etc) we should support measures-taken , midst" of "an enem, more danger­ ability is another matter. by councils or a future Labour Govern­ ous and insidious and ruthless than A series of duels have been fought ment to exercise accountability or to any since the second world war." out over the last year between police attempt some form of control; we cannot Whitelaw, keen to prove his law and committees (two thirds elected) and the disgu ise or hush up the fact that the left r order credentials to braying Tories key "hard" police chiefs. Margaret refc;lImists strategy i~ fundamentally a ~ s promisi~ the police a new law Simney. the eminently respectable chair­ reactionary utopia. Its aim-democratic - giving them the right to search with­ person of the Merseyside Committee has control of policing-is a utopia in a cap­ italist society. out a warrant on "reasonable sus­ faced a venomous response from Chief Police thugs armed to the teeth during the Toxteth riots, July the picion" (effectively the return of Constable Kenneth Oxford-the butcher implements displayed are: an image intensifier for night Ifision (left) ; shotgun for • 'SUS' abolished a year ago) • of Toxteth. In Manchester, Anderton The police will never submit to a firing CS gas canisters (right); and CS-gas gun (tower right). The labour movement can frothed at the mouth when asked to expect an increase in police use of such weaponry in the future. account for the spending of £100.749 working class (democratic) majority What we are witnessing is not a and the deployment of 600 police to help controll ing their actions. The law and Working class rights could only have But neither should workers share the crim._ve but a counter-attack by the )be Lawrence Seott bosses smash a sit- the police who enforce it, exist to defend the force of law in a workers state where middle class view of crime and what to Police on the series of Iiber~1 prom i_ in and later pickets by the sacked work private property in the means of produc­ the forces r5f order were based on and do about it in either its soft cop (Alder­ forced out of the government in the force. Elected representatives were ref­ tion. They defend the political rule of bound up with the organised working son) or hard cop (Anderton) version. The aftermath of last summers rioting. In erred to as "creepy and dangerous min­ the capitalist class. This can be seen on class. People's courts, a workers militia, former with its smiling prying 'local _nee it is an attack on Scarman's rep­ orities" with "a long term political strat­ a day to day basis at Lawrence Seotts, and above all legislative and executive bobbies' visiting our kids schools, staffing ort of 25th November 1981. egy to destroy the-proven-ttructul'eS of Ansells, Staffa and many other strikes power in the hallds of workers councils their youth clubs, hanging around our the police and turn them into the exclus­ that the police have attacked in the class would establish these rights beyond estates, gathering information from soc­ struggle. Reformists like Benn and Co question. They would create conditions ial workers, teachers etc is just a machine Scarman's job was to repair the dam­ ive agency of a one party state." try to claim that these incidents are dis- • where all could work and where produc­ for creating narks and informers. They age done to the police image as a result tortions or perversions of pure democr­ tion was planned for need, not for profit. prepare the way for the hard cop, the of the most intensive street warfare bet­ The police chiefs hope, by whipping acy. Rubbish. Bosses have the right in They would thus reduce crime and pol­ special branch and the SPG. ween youth al)d the police this century. up hysteria-about law and order, to con· tinue the construction of a powerful pare­ law to close their factories, to sell off the icing to minimal levels. We will never forget that where Hence his stress on the importance of military force unhampered by the for- maChinerY, to ttirow workers on to the there is a strike, an occupation, a picket police winning the "consent and support mal constraints of local or national dem­ line, -a demonstration or a protest by of the community." Scarman's endo,.. street as at Lawrence S:cotts. What law ocracy. In this they have a lot of supp­ workers or the oppressed there the police ment of Devon and Cornwall's chief con­ establishes the right to a job? There is orters. The judges like Lord Denning none. "The Right to Work" under capit­ Crime is caused by inequality, by act as agents of our class enemies. The stable John Alderson's "communit.y pol­ hold the view that a Chief Constable "is vast disparities between wealth and pov­ force that we need to build up to defend icing" was met by most police chiefs alism where the bosses control all hiring not a servant of anyone save the law it­ and firing is really only the right to scab. erty, by the effects of misery, unemploy­ our mass action pickets, disciplined def­ with scarcely concealed grinding of the self." The Tories, whose only hope of ment, rotten living conditions for people ence groups, will be the basis for their teeth. They had little objection to the It is only ever invoked by the bosses re-election is a 'Law and Order' crusade when they are trying to break strikes. and the cruel distortion of their relations - replacement. But this replacement, like idea of,more policing of the1t!ommunity, and who have the virtual affiliation of with each other. It is the isolated, frag­ the replacement of capitalism will not be by intagrating social and welfare services Trade Union 'rights' are simply 'immun­ the Police Federation through MP Eldon ities' from prosecutiOn that the ruling mented, unconscious and therefore self­ a matter of measures in Parliament, it into the information gathering which Griffiths, will make no moves to exercise class has been forced to concede to av- defeating response of the most deprived will be a struggle of classes, workers has reat.;hed 1984 proportions,as a result control over the police. oid further and more radical claims on and opp~essed to the conditions of class against their exploiters in the shops, of compUterisation. However, they did their system. Workers 'rights'-the right society. The working class attitude to offices, factories and streets. It will not not want any criticism or restrictions But what about the Labour Party? to a job, to decent housing, health and crime certainly has nothing in common be a struggle for the spoils of office, or put on "hard methods". As founders of the SPG they are not in welfare and.education are not defended with the anarchists' glorification of the for limited control over the existing pol­ a strong position to criticise. Ex-Home by law at all. They are revokable conc­ lumpen proletariat. The hopelessly crim­ ice, army, judges and so on.
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