Britain's police: what to do

Submitted by AWL on 10 June, 2020 - 3:09
UK cops

Some ideas for the British labour movement to fight for:

1. The right of oppressed people and the labour movement to self-defence against police violence.

2. Curb police powers, including: sharply restricting the use of force; aggressive prosecution of police who kill and violate human rights; abolition of stop and search; ending undercover infiltration of social movements; disarming and demilitarisation. Replace the Independent Office for Police Conduct with a strong, elected body. Restore and expand legal aid.

3. Accountability including subordinating forces to elected local representatives with real control over budgets and operational policy.

4. Reforms to reduce the police’s role in society and stop criminalising swathes of working-class people, including: dramatically reducing the prison population; an end to police dealing with mental health emergencies; an end to persecuting youth under the banner of combating gangs; an end to persecuting homeless people; legalisation of drugs; legalisation of sex work; an end to persecuting Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.

5. Mobilise to defeat the Immigration Bill. Dismantle the anti-immigrant apparatus; abolish the immigration police. Halt the Tories’ rush to a hard Brexit.

6. Instead of more police: emergency funding to block a new wave of cuts to services; reversal of all cuts since 2010; then major increases in public spending — taking collective, democratic control of wealth to ward off a social disaster and begin to meet working-class needs for decent jobs, homes, benefits and services (including youth services, refuges, mental health services, drug rehab). Abolition of anti-migrant restrictions such as NRPF and the NHS surcharge.

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