Who Polices The Police?

For the following essay I am indebted to Benjamin Zephaniah, Samantha Rigg-David, Jody McIntyre, Merlin Emmanuel, Logic MC, and all those who spoke at or were in attendance of the Equality Movement’s ‘Who Polices The Police? – Public Meeting’ event, which I attended last night in Lambeth Town Hall, Brixton Hill, as much of what follows is inspired by their words.

So, who does police the police? The short answer is, we do. Through our attitudes, through our actions, and through our social consciousness, it is up to us as citizens to police the police, to regulate the regulators, to enforce our collective will upon the agents of our sociality.

The police are an institution who supposedly serve the people through popular consent, and act as a deterrent to committing social crimes, thus protecting each member of society from one another, and the society as a whole from itself.

In reality, what they actually do is serve the state, and protect elite interests. They do this by making private property sacred and deterring people to rise up in a popular movement and enact social change.

This has been proved time and again over the last year of protests and industrial action. Written into British law is that any man, woman, or child, has the right to free protest in the UK. We have the right to free speech, and the right to free action. Yet the police, backed by the state, has criminalised protestors, ‘kettling’ them for hours (depriving children as young as 12 of water, food, and toilet facilities for up to 8 or 9 hours, in the middle of winter), beating them with truncheons, and arresting them in their hundreds, even when (as was the case with the 145 students and young people arrested after the occupation of Fortnums and Mason in March) there is video evidence of police officers describing the occupiers as “peaceful” and “legal”.

But let us not be surprised, for these are the same police officers who seek to criminalise and deligitimise any person they come in contact with, including – but not limited to - the human beings who die in their custody, the families of these victims who seek justice for their loved ones, and in fact anyone who dares speak out against the tyranny and brutality of these racist, imperialist thugs. I could name one hundred names here, but I will cite the case of just one, of which I first heard last night.

It is the story of Sean Rigg, a young black man with no criminal record, who was arrested, violently restrained and bundled into the bck of a police van. When he was removed and thrown onto the cold floor of the yard at the back of Brixton Police Station, he was in a collapsed state, and the Brixton police force stood around and watched as he slowly lost his life. His family’s two-year battle for evidence of what happened to him that night, a struggle which is not nearly over, was emotionally described to those at the meeting by his sister last night in Brixton.

In the last ten years, over 400 people have died in the cutody of the Brtish police, which is almost one a week. That means that once every 7-10 days a human life is taken, either through direct force or neglect, by the very people who are supposedly there to serve and protect us.

The Metropolitan police claim they are working together with us to make a ‘safer London’. Yet, as a young boy I met yesterday (who had more knowledge, awareness, and revelation than many a university graduate I know) pointed out, the crime rate has not dropped since the highs of the 1950s. And, like the openly racist society of this era, it is black and minority ethnic groups who are still by far suffering the heaviest at the hands of this brutal police state.

Benjamin Zephaniah yesterday said “People ask me where I got my socialist politics from. Well I’ll tell you – once when I was locked up in a police cell, being kicked in by some big black boots, I grabbed a hold of one of the boots assaulting me and thought ‘hold on, who’s paying for these boots?’”

And this is where the insult is added to the injury. Not only are we oppressed, abused and intimidated by a highly paid, indoctrinated, equipped and motivated gang of thugs, but the wages, equipment, and indoctrination of these gang members is paid for out of our taxes, out of our parents taxes, and out of our childrens’ future taxes. It is our money that will pay for the tools necessary to oppress and intimidate our children.

But what if there were no police? What if we had to deal with each other then? What if we actually had to live in a society ruled by consent and democracy? Isn’t anarchy an extremely frightening prospect?

Well, as Jody McIntyre eloquently put it last night, who are you more scared of? The person next to you, your neighbour, your fellow demonstrator, the man you cross paths with on the high street? Or the racist, brainwashed agent of the state who openly wields weapons and threatens to physically or psychologically cause harm to you, and who is effectively above the law? And who believes that the garments he wears are more important than the human inside, and the actions he takes, rather than vice versa? Which of these two characters scares you more?

Many people here might argue that the police are not above the law, and in theory, they aren’t. But in practice, they are above the law - to the extent that only 2% of all complaints made against the police force are upheld as ‘legitimate’ complaints (by the police themselves, as they have the right to investigate themselves). And this, despite over 400 people dying from their hands or in their care in the past 10 years, none of which have resulted in a single criminal conviction – even though these are investigated by the so-called ‘Independent’ Police Complaints Commission, the IPCC.

So who would you rather make a decision with, or have make a decision about you? I know which group of individuals I would rather interact with. As citizens of late capitalism, we are obligated to stand up for our rights, because in the end that is all we have.

I would encourage everyone reading this blog to keep in mind the following when dealing with the British Police Force;

1) Under no circumstances should you ever trust the police. They are not there to help, protect, or serve you. They are there to help, protect and serve private property and vested interests. They are institutionalised racists. They do not believe in equality before the law, they believe in capitalism and inequality of wealth and therefore resources. They will always protect their own, and will always choose to pursue the end goal of any situation that most benefits them.

2) The reason that the police can get away with a lot of the injustices and inequalities they inflict upon the general public is because the vast majority of people are uneducated on the law and on their rights. The British legal system is one of the oldest and most complicated ever devised by humankind. But there is a lot in there which can be used to the layman’s advantage, over the power of the police. Educate yourselves, and others around you, about your rights, about the police’s obligations to you, and about the limits of their power.

3) Every interaction with an officer of the state (such as a police officer), is an interaction with an agent of the state. During these interactions, make sure you keep the power balance in your favour. When they ask you a question, respond with the same question. When they talk down to you, remind them politely that you are both equals on the eyes of the law, no matter what uniform you are both wearing, and therefore they should interact with you as equals, and not as masters. When they ask you to do something, ask why they have asked you to do it, and under what law must you consent to doing it. The police rule by power of consent. Law in Britain is based on consent. Do not give your consent for any officer of the law to violate your rights as a free-willed individual. Withhold all of your rights, all of the time, and explicitly say so.

4) The legal system, and the actors within it, are biased in favour of the police, and against you as an individual. But indisputable proof is indisputable proof. If you can, record any interactions you have with any police officers. Be this via recording phone calls, recorded delivery letters, or by recording face-to-face interaction through the camera and voice recorder on your phone, don’t let the lies which the state (and the officers of that state) continually tell, and will tell if any case which comes against them, overpower and overwhelm the truth.

5) The police and the legal system are not independent, they are not impartial, and they are not governed by democracy or popular consent. They are the armed wing of an imperialist, racist, elitist state which values the accumulation of personal wealth over the wellbeing, happiness, health and life of human beings, both within and outside of its boundaries. The current cuts facing higher education and the public sector, the war on drugs, the oppression and degradation of the most economically poor in our society, the bombing campaign in Libya, the racist British empire in Africa and Asia, and the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, are all extensions of the same programme which we are resisting and writing against here. Resist the police, the legal system, and all that they stand for, because they stand in front, and behind, all of the dehumanising and murderous regimes of late capitalist Britain.

Check out and support http://defendtherighttoprotest.org , The Sean Rigg Justice and Change Campaign, The Network for Police Monitoring and The Equality Movement for more information.

A Glimpse of the Alternative?

Yesterday (March 26^th 2011), between 300,000 and 600,000 people took to the streets of London for a national demonstration against the government. Each individual, of course, has different reasons for protesting – but it is not unfair to say that everyone was against the ConDem government’s economic and social policies in one form or another; whether it was because they are cutting your job, or because you don’t want a capitalist state at all.

The main demonstration, organised by the TUC, was billed as a ‘March for the Alternative’. This saw trade unionists, families, public sector workers, students and many others marching along an officially sanctioned route through central London, passing via Westminster and Downing Street before finishing at a rally in Hyde Park, at which academics, union leaders, politicians and community workers gave speeches encouraging the government to reconsider their economic policies and scale back or slow down their planned plethora of cuts to the state and public services.

Students, of course, have been marching since last November against the proposed cuts to education, and raising of the fees cap for universities, and have been pretty proactive in organising actions throughout 2011 (in London at least). However, TUC leaders decided to wait until March before staging their national demonstration, after the budget was announced last Wednesday. This, in my opinion, was a mistake – the burning anger and desire for change so present in November and December has inevitably dampened and subsided through a lack of mass public actions in the early months of 2011. The TUC should have seized the initiative, and organised mass action earlier on in the year, and then again in March.

The TUC were born out of a desire for a union who could organise militant direct action and social transformation, so it frustrates me that they are now so middle-of-the-road. When did ‘Leftist’ become such a dirty word? They described yesterday as ‘Middle Britain’ coming together to effect change, and now cannot bring themselves to call a general strike, or even to give protestors advice that differs from official Met guidelines. I can understand that things have changed since 1868, but why are they suddenly so against direct action?

Their ‘Senior Stewards’ (in their pink high-vis vests) were yesterday making themselves very busy, trying to make sure no-one dared do anything which might disrupt their big day out. In fact, a rather appropriate new label for them was being thrown around yesterday – the Tory’s Unofficial Cops. Do the TUC actually want change, or do they just want it to appear as though they do?

The most depressing thing is that everyone seems to have simply swallowed the ConDem propaganda, and accepted that cuts are inevitable. Even Ed Milliband, supposed leader of the ‘opposition’, decided to take the opportunity yesterday, when speaking at a March for the Alternative, to admit that the only difference between this government and Labour’s policies would be to slow the cuts down. Well that’s wicked – thanks Ed. As long as you take your time destroying British society, that’s fine then.

Of course, the speed and depth of the proposed cuts are a massive part of the problem with the ConDem’s economic policy. But is no-one in mainstream politics willing to even discuss the various alternative economic policies which have been put forward by those outside Westminster? Like the Robin Hood Tax? Or the Green New Deal? Or the corporation tax put forward by UKUncut? All of these are extremely viable options, which aren’t even massively radical.

But the government won’t hear out the debates over these policies, and as I have written before, they will not listen to marches and mass demonstrations. And don’t take my word for it - take Vince Cable’s, who told the BBC today that their economic policies would not budge; “No government - coalition, Labour or other - would change its fundamental economic policy simply in response to a demonstration of that kind".

There it is, as official and in writing as you will ever see – public opinion does not matter to this government. I would normally encourage peaceful protest and demonstrations, but what is the point in walking around central London shouting slogans and waving banners if it doesn’t affect anything? I am not an extremist, but I am a pragmatist. To actually effect the changes everyone was talking about wanting yesterday, or at least to stop all of the cuts we are faced with, we must use direct action.

Which is why I am incredibly disappointed by the TUC, the general public, and by many of my friends’ Facebook statuses and comments over the past 24 hours. Back in November and December, at the beginning of this movement, most people recognised that merely marching and protesting wasn’t going to be enough. However, the matter was still up for debate, and I don’t blame people for being optimistic about the possibilities of influencing policy through peaceful means. However, it is now past all reasonable doubt that non-violent action is a viable option. The only viable options are for direct action against the cuts, and/or to try and bring this government down by force.

When will people in the country wake up and realise this? The (unelected) Tory government is determined to seize this opportunity of power to push through economic policies which are driven by ideology and which have not been voted on or put in any manifesto. Marching won’t stop them. Peaceful protest won’t stop them. They already know they are unelected and unpopular – and they don’t care. They are seeking to protect their own personal interests, to enact their own personal ideologies, and are more than willing to force these upon an unwilling and unhappy electorate. They are either convinced that they are right, or convinced that they can get away with it. But the British public is too reserved, too submissive, or perhaps too comfortable to actually do anything about it. We should take heed of the recent revolutions across Africa and the Middle East, and force the government to listen to us.

So if peaceful protesting won’t effect change, then what to do? Well, first off – the TUC needs to call a general strike, now. Brendan Barber has the power to do this, as he said outright in a speech last week. So why not do it? What is he, and the rest of the TUC, waiting for?

For everyone else, what we must do is to participate in other direct actions. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again – we must strike, occupy, and resist. And we must support those who take direct action against this government, and the evil corporations who profit from and sustain it. As we saw yesterday, David Cameron (also read: the TUC)’s ‘small minority of anarchists’ determined on ‘hijacking’ the protests are no longer a small minority, but are rapidly becoming a majority; particularly amongst the youth. But we cannot leave it to others to change policy or bring down this government for us – we must all play our part in enacting change. Which is why I refuse to denounce the violence we saw yesterday, and why I will continue to actively encourage direct action against this government’s ideological assault against not just the least advantaged individuals and communities in Britain, but against the overwhelming majority of our society.

Sam Bailey

Is it Justified?

First a preamble: this article has taken rather a long time to see the light of day. This is due to the fact that (A) my production of written work is rather slow and (B) that I have dug myself into a hole which I am finding it rather difficult to get out of. However;

I have a problem. It occurred to me about a week after the demonstrations on the 12th of December against the increase in tuition fees, and the problem is thus; On the day of the protest, I broke a law. That law was the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005 (SCOPA), which has a clause in it which states that no-one may protest within (approximately) half a square mile of Parliament.

I broke this (SOCPA) law because I do not accept this law. I do not feel bound by it; indeed I would argue that I am not bound to obey such a law. At no point in my life have I accepted this law, at no point has anyone asked me for my opinion on this law, or allowed me to have a say in its construction. However, in the eyes of the state I am bound by it, and may legitimately* be punished if I break it.

To return to my point - the state considers that I am bound by this law, and in breaking said law it may legitimately punish me. As I have said, I refute this law on the grounds that I have never accepted this law. This argument entitles us to disobey any law that the state should proclaim.

Fine, this is an excellent conclusion - one which many Anarchists have come to - and is valid. We shall then assert that a person has the right to disobey any law which they did not give their consent to. Whether or not they may retract this consent is another discussion.

Now if I (and by degrees the rest of the populace) am not bound by this law, and by the same token persons are not bound to follow any law which they have not expressed their consent to - then under what grounds can I require of them that they should subsidise tuition fees?

The reason I was marching was that I wanted the persons in this country, many of whom don't go to university and have no interest in going to university, to financially support higher education. What right do I have to attempt to force them to pay for tuition fees? Even if 99% of the population wanted the state to subsidise higher education, this argument still stands for the 1% who would be against such a subsidy.

First, one might say that the general population have to pay taxes (whether or not they think it is right or wrong), and that these taxes fund many services that the individual may not wish to support, for example; nuclear weapons, MP's expenses and bank bailouts, to name some current contentious issues. Certainly, many people, if given the choice, would not wish to pay for such service. However, they are forces into doing so by the state, which certainly does not make it right. Even if (as noted above) the majority of the population advocate such taxation, such a scheme still forces the individual to capitulate.

So let us say that the bill had not been passed, and let us say that my protesting had a direct effect upon the vote. My actions would have then ensured that an individual was forced against his or her will to pay for a service they did not want. By breaking this law, they would then face a punishment for refusing to pay their taxes.

So how can I justify my breaking a law when my actions have resulted in another individual being forced to adhere to a law they have not voluntarily agreed to? Indeed, how can I support any action which infringes upon the rights of others?

You probably don't like this conclusion. I don't like it either. If you can prove it invalid please post your response.

*A note on legitimate; even though the practice of kettling is widely considered to be illegal, this is of no importance here. Were I arrested under SOCPA (or for any other crime), the argument still stands.

Richard Trist