CPGB
Editorial
Editorial
Police violence on Clapham Common is a wake-up call to fight the Tories’ bid to ban protest
Police surround the band stand in Clapham Common, London, after the Reclaim These Streets vigil for Sarah Everard was officially cancelled
POLICE brutality unleashed on women holding a peaceful vigil to honour Sarah Everard will only inflame public anger.
Officers moved in, making arrests and trampling the flowers laid in memory of a young woman abducted and murdered — apparently by a policeman.
The Met’s attempt to defend this violence as a necessary Covid safety measure is disgraceful and authorities would do well to heed the message from women who chanted “Arrest your own” and “The police do not protect us.”
There is no blanket ban on protests under Covid safety regulations, and organisers of Reclaim These Streets tried to work with police to ensure a Covid-safe demonstration. Police cannot evade their responsibility for choosing to ban it.
These scenes should be a wake-up call ahead of this week’s parliamentary vote on the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.
Labour’s announcement that it will oppose the Bill is welcome. The party’s original response — to complain that it doesn’t go far enough in increasing the penalties for attacks on police officers — suggested it would seek to compete with Priti Patel on “law and order” rather than mount a principled defence of our liberties against an increasingly overbearing state.
But a vote against is not enough. Public pressure must be raised to demonstrate the strength of opposition to the Tories’ authoritarian plans.
The call for a demonstration against violence against women tomorrow in Parliament Square is an important signal that women will not be silenced — and will continue to organise protest despite the state’s attempts to shut these down.
Tory MPs must be confronted with the weekend’s events and asked how they justify a dramatic increase in arbitrary police power.
The government says it wishes to grant police additional powers to “tackle non-violent protests that have a significant disruptive effect.”
Its motive is the same that led it to appoint Labour turncoat John Woodcock to direct a probe into “violent extremism” that equates far-right terror on the one hand with “climate change activist groups … overstepping the mark into anti-social behaviour” on the other.
The new Bill will intensify racial oppression in Britain.
It expands measures such as stop and search which are proven to result in increased police harassment of black people. It outlines additional powers to break up Gypsy and Traveller camps.
And an extraordinary increase in custodial sentences for damage to monuments shows a determination to wage culture war against the anti-racist movement after the year Black Lives Matter swept the world.
The Bill continues the work of the Spycops and Overseas Operations legislation in strengthening the repressive apparatus of the state.
It is not unconnected from the drive towards greater state and corporate censorship of alternative media.
Both are a response to the loss of public confidence in the political and economic system. The role of coercion in maintaining capitalist rule is growing as popular consent to it diminishes.
Britain’s rulers are acutely aware of this loss of legitimacy. In their distinct ways, the vote to leave the European Union and the resurgence of a mass socialist movement under the banner of Corbynism both spoke to a popular mood of revolt against the status quo.
The defeat of the latter has weakened the specifically socialist character of that revolt, but the pandemic has highlighted acute inequalities of sex, race and class.
The Black Lives Matter movement and now the public outcry over violence against women are exposing the integral role of racism and sexism in the existing system.
The burgeoning environmentalist movement is underlining its unsustainable character.
Capitalism cannot address these concerns. It seeks to repress them instead. Stopping it from doing so is a task for all of us.
We must stand with the women who will not be silenced over the despicable murder of Sarah Everard. And we must unite to fight back against a policing law aimed at criminalising protest.
Police surround the band stand in Clapham Common, London, after the Reclaim These Streets vigil for Sarah Everard was officially cancelled
POLICE brutality unleashed on women holding a peaceful vigil to honour Sarah Everard will only inflame public anger.
Officers moved in, making arrests and trampling the flowers laid in memory of a young woman abducted and murdered — apparently by a policeman.
The Met’s attempt to defend this violence as a necessary Covid safety measure is disgraceful and authorities would do well to heed the message from women who chanted “Arrest your own” and “The police do not protect us.”
There is no blanket ban on protests under Covid safety regulations, and organisers of Reclaim These Streets tried to work with police to ensure a Covid-safe demonstration. Police cannot evade their responsibility for choosing to ban it.
These scenes should be a wake-up call ahead of this week’s parliamentary vote on the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.
Labour’s announcement that it will oppose the Bill is welcome. The party’s original response — to complain that it doesn’t go far enough in increasing the penalties for attacks on police officers — suggested it would seek to compete with Priti Patel on “law and order” rather than mount a principled defence of our liberties against an increasingly overbearing state.
But a vote against is not enough. Public pressure must be raised to demonstrate the strength of opposition to the Tories’ authoritarian plans.
The call for a demonstration against violence against women tomorrow in Parliament Square is an important signal that women will not be silenced — and will continue to organise protest despite the state’s attempts to shut these down.
Tory MPs must be confronted with the weekend’s events and asked how they justify a dramatic increase in arbitrary police power.
The government says it wishes to grant police additional powers to “tackle non-violent protests that have a significant disruptive effect.”
Its motive is the same that led it to appoint Labour turncoat John Woodcock to direct a probe into “violent extremism” that equates far-right terror on the one hand with “climate change activist groups … overstepping the mark into anti-social behaviour” on the other.
The new Bill will intensify racial oppression in Britain.
It expands measures such as stop and search which are proven to result in increased police harassment of black people. It outlines additional powers to break up Gypsy and Traveller camps.
And an extraordinary increase in custodial sentences for damage to monuments shows a determination to wage culture war against the anti-racist movement after the year Black Lives Matter swept the world.
The Bill continues the work of the Spycops and Overseas Operations legislation in strengthening the repressive apparatus of the state.
It is not unconnected from the drive towards greater state and corporate censorship of alternative media.
Both are a response to the loss of public confidence in the political and economic system. The role of coercion in maintaining capitalist rule is growing as popular consent to it diminishes.
Britain’s rulers are acutely aware of this loss of legitimacy. In their distinct ways, the vote to leave the European Union and the resurgence of a mass socialist movement under the banner of Corbynism both spoke to a popular mood of revolt against the status quo.
The defeat of the latter has weakened the specifically socialist character of that revolt, but the pandemic has highlighted acute inequalities of sex, race and class.
The Black Lives Matter movement and now the public outcry over violence against women are exposing the integral role of racism and sexism in the existing system.
The burgeoning environmentalist movement is underlining its unsustainable character.
Capitalism cannot address these concerns. It seeks to repress them instead. Stopping it from doing so is a task for all of us.
We must stand with the women who will not be silenced over the despicable murder of Sarah Everard. And we must unite to fight back against a policing law aimed at criminalising protest.
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