An injury to one is an injury to all Volume 3 No. 126 7 February 2008 S& WoORlKiEdRS’a LIBrERiTtY y 30p/80p Government wallows in crisis and cash scandals Scapegoating BY ROSALIND ROBSON N increase in, and a strengthen- ing of, stop and search powers Alooks set to become a key part of the government’s “tough on crime” agenda. Currently the police have to state a specific reason for stopping someone and/or searching them in the street. The reason has to be in line with current black and legislation. They also have to give you form stating exactly why they stopped you and what the outcome was. If the stop and search is conducted under anti- terrorism legislation the police do not have to suspect you of having committed a crime in order to stop you. New Labour have extended a anytime, anywhere, any reason “stop and search” scheme to four piloted areas. A just- published review of policing (the Flannegan review) recommends ditching the police form when police stop “suspects”. The freed Asian up time, says the review, will enable the police to carry out more stop and searches. Whatever the government does, the Tories will say they have not gone far enough — short of having the legal right to batter you to death, the Tories want the police to be given many many more powers. It all looks bad especially as, in prac- tice, the police often stop people simply because they are black or Asian and young. In the cops’ minds they are more likely to have committed a crime, so they deserved to be stopped. youth Continued on page 2 2 NEWS SWP- Scapegoating youth Respect to From front page economy. illiberal to do anything better. Why the government believe stopping and Increasing stop and search is a policy of people It is the job of socialists, people who want to challenge searching is a good way to winkle out Islamist who have no imagination, ability or inclination to create a better society, to advocate something terrorists in this way, is baffling — as if the aver- deal with crime as a social problem (or for that better. age would-be suicide bomber goes around with a matter, Islamist terrorism as a political and social In the first place we have to fight hard to jihadist handbook in their back pocket! In reality problem). defend civil liberties. Weak as water statements the stop and search routine, under the anti-terror And increasing stop and search means increas- from the professional civil liberties organisations Livingstone laws, has been a pretext and a prelude to taking in ing racist harrassment, discrimination and injus- have been the reaction to these proposals. We “suspects” for questioning (Asian looking people tice on our streets. need to be clear: nobody should have to put up with “Islamic-sounding” names). A big increase Fact: black men are six times more likely to be with being routinely harrassed on the street, in in police questioning and arrests of Asian people stopped and searched than white men. Black public or in private, anywhere, as they go about since 2001 has produced a tiny number of rele- people in general are four times more likely to be their business. BY MARTIN THOMAS vant charges being brought. stopped and searched than white people. And We call for social answers to crime. Instead of Both New Labour and the Tories say that there Asian people are twice as likely to be stopped and building more, bigger prisons, spend more money ET’S look on the bright side will be no reintroduction of “Sus Laws”. Twenty searched. Stopping black people if they have nice on drug rehabilitation. first. SWP-Respect is reaffirm- or thirty years ago the police routinely used 19th cars is not about protecting black people from Ling the need for a left challenge century vagrancy laws to gave them unlimited crime, as David Cameron would have it, it is to Livingstone as London mayor. power to stop and mainly young and/or black about accusing them of stealing a car! Stopping George Galloway and his Respect- men they suspected of committing a crime (hence young Asian men is not about stopping them from Renewal are now backing “Red Ken”, the “sus”), or ”being about to commit a crime”. being stabbed, it’s about assuming they are a and appealing for a vaguely-left That person could be arrested and charged and terrorist. “Progressive List” for the Assembly. convicted merely on the say so of the police. The Fact: 67% of stop and searches are currently SWP-Respect says it will run candi- police used the Sus Law to routinely harrass for drugs. dates in the London mayor and assem- mainly young black men, labelled as criminal by Put the two facts together and you get the bly elections (May 2008) to respond to a racist criminal justice system and the wider police’s favourite script about average everyday the needs of “working people” and society. crimes: all young black men are drug pushers. present a “positive alternative”. Surely New Labour won’t reintroduce this? The racist assumptions absolutely stink, but SWP-Respect is emphatic — has to Don’t be too sure about that. What’s the context? that is not the sum total of the stupidity of this be, I guess, following the split-away of This measure, and others such as ASBO and kind of policing. Galloway and most of the Respect other anti-social behaviour policies, are the result Only 7% of all drug-related stop and searches councillors in Tower Hamlets — about of the prevalent “fear of crime” ideology. Crime actually result in an arrest. It seems likely there- the need to win votes across London is a real problem and a rational cause for fear for fore that the police are rountinely harrassing and not just in Tower Hamlets and many working class people, especially if you live people either for personal possession of drugs, or Newham, where Respect won a large in a deprived area. But there is also a great deal of because they just want to, because they haven’t hysteria and ignorance being pedalled by media got anything better to do, and they really don’t chunk of its votes last time round, in and politicians. know how to prevent drug-related crime. 2004, on a “Respect-is-the-party-for- To hear some of them talk you would think that In the 1980s hatred of the “sus laws” was one Muslims” pitch. the streets of Britain’s cities are like the Wild of the incendiary ingredients of a series of huge So up to a point SWP-Respect is West. (For instance the recent Jacqui Smith explosions of anger by black youth on the streets trying to do the right thing. But its comment about how “one does not go out on the of British cities. In April 1981 the police sent 100 leaflets for the London elections, and streets of Hackney after dark”). Urged on by the extra police into Brixton under “Operation for a current by-election campaign in Tories, the government are pushing the police to Swamp”. Nearly 1,000 people were arrested. This Leyton, East London, contain no refer- get out on the streets more, to “clean up” anti- followed years and years of “sus law” operation. Create a society where people have equal and ence (even by implication) to the work- social behaviour, be a physical intimidating pres- When one young man was arrested, his head full access to housing, education and health care. ing class or to socialism — only a fairly ence in working class communities. Everything bleeding, a crowd of people rescued him from the Instead of creating ever more sophisticated random list of “bullet-point” demands, area of urban life is to be policed — from stop- police. The police went wild, wielding batons and anti-social interventions for youth, have a budget presumably chosen on the calculation ping teenagers from drinking in public to deter- chasing people as the people of Brixton fought for youth facilities, or stop cutting and dumbing that they represent left-wing ideas ring litter droppers with talking CCTV cameras. back. Elemental battles like these helped change down further education. which will play well with the electorate. It is all a convenient distraction for a govern- the law — for the better. Instead of threatening to evict council tenants if On Thursday 31 January SWP- ment that’s up to its neck in petty corruption and Do New Labour and the Tories want to see they don’t look for work, create real jobs and charges of incompetence, a government that is such things happen again? Maybe not. But they Respect called a rally of its London Backlash against the SUS laws, Brixton, 1981 supporters to choose candidates to fill (rightly) anxious about a serious downturn in the are either too stupid, too parsimonious or just too the gaps left in its London Assembly list by the Galloway split. Two of us were there from Workers’ Liberty, with a leaflet advocating that portrayed in the media as an Arts vs Sports SWP-Respect go back on its previous stand-off. This angle has in some ways played opposition to the rail union RMT initi- into the hands of government spin. New Labour ating a broad working-class left list for and the Olympic cartel have talked a lot about London (a vocal minority opposition in the regeneration of one of the most deprived the London Transport region RMT, Bread and roses areas of Europe, the sporting legacy for the which may have been a factor in the underprivileged next generation etc etc.