Solidarity with the police
Over 2000 police officers today demonstrated their opposition to cuts to their pay. Their press release is below. Some don’t feel it’s appropriate to express solidarity with the police. Many of us have ended up on the rough end of their oppression. But as I see it, such oppression is another expression of alienation. And even when they do kettle us, beat us, and arrest us for no good reason, they are still humans. And they are still under attack from the banks and the Tory puppets. Some of them will stand with us. Many won’t. But even if they don’t, we should stand with them, because they are being attacked. Because they may be enforcing an unjust system, but they are also its victims. Because solidarity means nothing if it only expresses support with those with whom we already agree.
So, yes, we must hold the police to account. Yes, too much of their work is dedicated to maintaining an order which enriches the rich. Yes, in Britain and around the world they are too often the hench men and hench women of global capital. But today, let’s be clear – their struggle is our struggle.
Solidarity with them.
Police Federation press release:
The Police Federation for England and Wales has organised a ‘Day of Action’ to highlight the impact of Government cuts to policing, including an open-meeting and lobbying event in the heart of Westminster on 13 July.
Over 2,000 off duty police officers from all over England and Wales will attend the open-meeting to highlight their concerns about proposed cuts to the police service and to ask the Home Secretary to treat them fairly and to honour the police pay negotiation process.
A number of high profile speakers will show their support for police officers on the day including Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper MP, Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee Keith Vaz MP, ACPO President Sir Hugh Orde and Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC.
Paul McKeever, Chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales says;
“We have no doubt that a 20 per cent cut to overall police budgets will lead to more crime. It simply won’t be possible to provide the same level of service to the public that we do now if we are losing officers, support staff, vehicles and stations.
“We accept that cuts have to be made but we ask that the Government acknowledges our unique status; police officers do not have industrial rights, so it is vital that the Home Secretary honours the police pay negotiation process.
“On 13th July we will be calling for a fair negotiation process and honesty about the implications of cuts to policing. The public has a right to know what the likely impact will be if 20 per cent cuts are imposed.”
The police service currently faces a triple whammy attack on pay including; a public sector two-year pay freeze and then a proposed two-year freeze on police officers’ incremental pay and a likely increase in pension contributions of three per cent which will result in many paying 14 per cent contributions. The cumulative effect of all this is that in a recent survey of 42,000 officers by the Police Federation, 98 per cent said morale is at an all-time low.
The ‘Day of Action’ is part of an on-going campaign by the Federation to raise awareness of the likely impact of the proposed 20 per cent cuts and the risk to public safety if the most experienced officers leave or are forced out.
What’s up friends, how is everything, and what you
desire to say on the topic of this article, in my view its really amazing for
me.
Surely when the police struggle as workers against bosses/capital, that fine and we should show solidarity. If they want, for example, longer breaks, better pay or more toilets in the local station that’s all well and good. The problem with this one is that the demand is for maintaining police numbers. This unfortunately is both a struggle by the police as workers against capital but also the outcome of a successful struggle is a demand the working class as a class for itself can ever make, i.e. more police. So you get the near paradoxical situation where the struggles of workers for themselves as individuals is at odds with the struggle of the working class as a class for itself. This is of course due to the anti-working class nature of a lot of what the police do, and the existence of this paradox is made possible by the alienation of this group of workers from their labour. So I don’t see a comfortable answer to the question of whether to show solidarity. Probably the best answer is to show solidarity to the individual workers affected without opposing the cuts themselves. Actual concrete solidarity for laid off cops means campaigning for better benefits etc. which is a good safe working class aim that doesn’t mire one in difficult arguments about whether to support police job losses or not.
“It is wrong headed to support them until they understand the need to support our fight against the ruling elite.”
Well, there’s no point arguing with wisdom like that. While you’re waiting for that understanding and support from the police in your fight against the ruling class, you might ruminate on whether or not you want to take people with you and get somewhere, or forever be pissing in the wind.
Fuck tha Police it is then.
Rupert Murdock and his evil empire are products of the system. That does not mean we should support them. Currently the Police are repressive and reactionary. Public spending on the police is disproportionate because of the attack on our civil liberties. The police see themselves as a special case. It is wrong headed to support them until they understand the need to support our fight against the ruling elite. http://tinyurl.com/6fm5kpc
That’s a very diplomatic and endearing way to look at the current situation. I wish that I shared in your humanity but I could never show any solidarity for anyone who works in the Met or any police force. I’ve witnessed and experienced too many negative things that have happened at the hands of the Met to change my mind.
and by the way, I’m from a mining community and a lot of those people were as racist and as sexist as you could but we stuck by them for the greater cause. And despite their lazy and casual racism they had a lot of good in them underneath it all. As do many people.
At the end of the day, most police are basically very decent people who have to deal with aggressive drunken idiots, very messy road accidents, bereaved mothers, fathers and daughters (not to mention the minor irritant of protestors who hate them just for being police) and all manner of unpleasantness. And as Adam mentioned, just as there are some police we don’t like, there are lots of people in other walks of life that are much more unpleasant but we still stand by them – we don’t often even know anything about them. They’re just people, like the rest of us you know, doing a valuable job 99% of the time. I hope all those who would see them struggle alone never have the real need of a police at any time, although that might be the time when they changed their opinion.
Thanks Alyson. Yes, I’m uncomfortable with the good cop/bad cop distinction. Some police people are more violent than others, but they are all – we are all – products of a system. And at the moment they are all being screwed by that system and they are standing up for themselves. I am not saying that we should excuse their bad behavior, but I don’t think that support is something you have to earn. It is possible to say at once that these people do something we disapprove of and that we support them in their struggle for a better life. Just as I am against the death penalty for those who commit even the most heinous crimes, I don’t want people to be screwed over no matter how much they are screwing other people over. Vengence is never the way forward.
My point about protecting capital Max was not that the police alone do this, but that they are a part of a whole set of institutions which do – including for example the press. So saying ‘solidarity with the police’ even when they support other cuts is surely no different from expressing solidarity with the News of the World journalists losing their jobs, in that they were both working to defend capital and often unlikely to support others losing their jobs. But we should support them anyway because they are being screwed.
Lots of people in this country are seeing massive real terms cuts in their pay because of the government’s shock docrine austerity program. I am against that. The fact that some of them do things I disapprove of is a seperate question.
Going to make a comment here about the ongoing twitter argument: Saying that the police defend capital is laughable and shows that you’re confusing a street protest with a true revolution. If the people rose up in a revolt against the owners of capital there wouldn’t be enough police in the world to stop them. The police are simply easy targets for your fury because they are the obvious embodyment of the state at protests, when you feel that you are closest to the revolution, i.e. they are what’s stopping the revolution.
The truth is that’s not the case, it’s true the protest would likely go further if they weren’t there but the’re’s not enough public will for a true revolution.
The true defenders of capital’s interests are those who work to convince people that they are happy with the status quo. They are far more effective then any policeman will ever be.
Earlier today, someone sent me a link to this article which marks forty years since the Stanford Prison Experiment by interviewing some of the original participants. It seems appropriate to share it here.
The experiment was intended to test how people cope with feeling powerless, but it became a demonstration of how quickly power can corrupt, and violence can become normalised. Some police can be bastards, but they’re all human and today they’re the anti-cuts protesters. I don’t agree with the view that they should be exempt from cuts while jobs and services are cut elsewhere, but this is a rare chance to develop some empathy. Some people might not feel that they can offer solidarity, and I can understand why, but if we can’t manage solidarity, can we at least try for a temporary cessation of hostilities?
I’m just trying to think back to how I got involved in the movement. I was decidedly marching in support of only one issue (fees) but it wasn’t directly for my own gain (I’m a student in Scotland). Regardless I know plenty of people who did get involved because they were initially fighting to keep their own fees down.
I suppose you’re right that the police standing up for themselves makes some of them more likely to see that all cuts are wrong, but I also think it’s unlikely a great many of them will.
Do they deserve our support? Maybe. There’s a ton of bad cops but for every shitty corrupt dick head there’s probably also a decent cop with a family who doesn’t particuarly enjoy policing protests and has never beaten a 16 y/o girl and who these cuts will effect directly.
Solidarity has to work both ways. I’d love to say i stand right by the police in their fight against the government cuts, but if they continue to kettle (imprisonment without access to food, water, toilets, blankets etc), arrest protesters on spurious grounds etc then they shouldn’t expect anything back.
I really want the anti-cuts movement to be a united force involving the police (who are facing damaging cuts themselves), but they have to prove themselves first, which means standing in solidarity with US when WE protest, which, sadly, they have not yet done.
Max – yes, I nearly wrote about that line, but thought I’d leave it for discussion. Obviously I don’t agree with them. But my experience of many of the community groups campaigning against cuts has been that this is the first stance they have taken – ‘our particular services is a special case’. However, by joining people with others, by supporting them in building understanding of the other people or services which are being cut, and by exploring the economic questions with them, I have found that people do beging to see the broader picture.
There is nothing wrong with standing up for yourself and looking out for yourself. When library campaigners do it, we stand with them, even if they don’t sign up to support all other services. We should do the same with the police both because it’s right and also because it’s the only way they will come to have any understanding of the broader questions (though I accept the second reason is unlikely to come to fruition).
I agree with everything you say. We should not be denying solidarity with the police simply because they are police.
However, we should be denying them solidarity because of this little tid bit in their press release ““We accept that cuts have to be made but we ask that the Government acknowledges our unique status”.
They are not asking to not be cut, they are asking to have their cuts transfered to another sector. They are not part of the anti-cuts movement, they are simply loooking out for themselves.
I can not support people like this.