Police cuts: a
thinner blue line
BRITAIN FACES the biggest onslaught on public
services and cuts in government spending since the 1920s. Every aspect
of public spending will be hit by the Con-Dem coalition to one extreme
or another, including the operational budgets of the UK’s 43 police
authorities.
These cuts are as vicious as those facing workers in
many other public-sector departments, with the aim of cutting the
overall police budget by a fifth by 2014-15. Police chiefs estimate that
this will cut 28,000 jobs – 12,000 officers, 16,000 civilian staff. This
is on top of a two-year pay freeze and the threat of increased
contributions for lower pensions, as outlined in the Hutton report.
The impact will be felt disproportionately across
the country. Police authorities have two separate sources of funding:
locally, from the council tax; nationally, from the Home Office. The 20%
cut outlined by the government is to the Home Office element. The
council tax levy is organised on an authority-by-authority basis. More
affluent areas are less reliant on the Home Office for their funding.
For example, Surrey police rely on the Home Office for 51.5% of its
funding, whereas Greater Manchester police currently receives 87.6% of
its funding from the Home Office.
The disproportionate effects this will have on
working-class areas will be further exacerbated by legislation
introduced by New Labour in the Police Reform Act 2002, which allows for
private companies accredited by a police chief constable to provide
‘beat bobbies’ for a fee paid by individual residents to the company.
This ‘topping up’ of public services fits the Tories’ conception of how
services will look after they have taken the axe to them. Although
enacted in legislation in 2002, private security services are only now
beginning to patrol the streets, the first being rolled out in
Brentwood, Essex. It is probably no coincidence that this falls within
the parliamentary seat of loc al government secretary
Eric Pickles.
It is that ethos of privatisation which underpins
the coalition’s cuts to police budgets, just as it underpins all of its
so-called ‘reforms’. The government is attempting to use the cover of
economic crisis to carry out shock therapy and fundamentally alter the
way that all public services are provided.
However, these particular cuts have been greeted by
a sense of incredulity in some quarters. Blairite journalist, Michael
White, wrote in The Guardian: "I’m not sure ministers know what they are
doing. At a time of turbulence for British society, I get jittery when I
see a government taking on the police. It’s not a mistake Margaret
Thatcher made in the 1980s". Many working-class people will remember
that bitterly. White goes on: "Her complaint – the old Tory jibe – that
Labour tries to solve problems ‘by throwing money at them’ was not
applied by her to the boys in blue. The result was that, when they
confronted striking miners in the long battle of 1984-85, the coppers
waved their overtime slips at the strikers".
Clearly, it is still the case that the police are
used to help maintain the present system and put obstacles in the way of
working-class and young people’s right to organise, protest and fight
back. The university, college and school students involved in last
year’s inspiring protests against increasing tuition fees and the
scrapping of the Education Maintenance Allowance experienced this first
hand. Demonstrators were forcibly kettled for up to twelve hours in some
cases. Understandably, among a layer of these young people, there will
not necessarily be much sympathy towards the police for the cuts they
face.
This raises the question of what position socialists
should take. The Socialist Party has been unique on the left in very
clearly arguing for opposition to all cuts. We have been firm in
explaining that the cause of the current economic crisis is not anything
to do with the actions of working people but is a systemic crisis made
worse by the grotesque levels of greed on the part of the bankers and
financial speculators.
This is the demand which should be raised in
relation to cuts to the police force. However, to leave it at that would
not be enough. It is also necessary for socialists to raise demands
about the character of the police, democracy and accountability,
alongside opposing the cuts.
The way that all public services are provided is
inadequate and reflects the way the capitalist system is currently
organised. For instance, socialists oppose cuts to funding in the
National Health Service. But we go further than this. We demand an end
to privatisation, the public ownership of the pharmaceutical industry
and other steps that would put control and management of the service
into the hands of the majority in society, so it could be organised in
our interests.
In relation to the police force, these further
demands, beyond the immediate headline of ‘no cuts’, are doubly
important because of the role that it plays in class society. For
instance, many young people would support the call for the immediate
disbandment of the Territorial Support Group. This is the central
operations unit that specialises in ‘public order containment’, and
which perpetrated most of the violence against protesters on the youth
and student demonstrations last year. We agree!
Socialists would also call for democratic control
over how police resources are used and forces are deployed. It is
estimated that the policing of April’s royal wedding will cost in excess
of £20 million, the most expensive public police operation in British
history. An elected body of representatives from the communities and
trade unions with control over the police would likely decide that there
are better ways to spend that money.
Bodies of this type should also have control over
recruitment to the police. Communities should have the right to demand
the removal of police officers who they feel are discriminatory or abuse
their positions. Such a level of direct democratic control may seem a
stretch from where we are now, but is not without precedent. The roots
of the modern police lie in the early 19th century when it was the
responsibility of local magistrates, and watch boards were directly
elected. These represented the interests of the newly-enfranchised
middle-class. What we demand today is for working-class communities to
have a say.
Of course, these cuts do not just affect wider
society. The individuals in the police force who now fear losing their
jobs and worsening pay and conditions will feel the material effect of
the proposed cuts. That will have an effect on their political outlook.
Already, individuals in the leadership of the Police Federation have
raised the idea that police should have the right to strike to defend
their jobs, terms and conditions. Police Federation chief, Paul McKeever,
reflected this when interviewed before the 26 March TUC demonstration: "The
great irony is that officers policing marches like the TUC are actually
facing greater detriment than many of those protesting against the cuts.
We’re not members of the TUC and have to be careful about having too
close an association, though there will be a lot of sympathy towards
those marching".
Individuals in the police force come under opposing
pressures: from the organisation they are part of and from wider
society. This includes pressure from the trade union movement and the
working class. Young people on tuition fees protests last year
recognised this when they chanted at the riot police: ‘Shame on you,
don’t your kids need uni too?’
At a certain point in mass movements, this pressure
can weaken the allegiance of the police and other state forces to the
capitalist class whose interests they defend. An example of this was
seen in Wisconsin, where trade unionists battled against draconian
attacks on their right to organise and collective bargaining. When
police were sent in to break up an occupation of the Capitol building,
they refused, announcing to protestors: "We have been ordered by the
legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right
from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out. In fact, we will be
sleeping here with you!"
This weakening of allegiance could be on the cards
over the next period in Britain. It is something that socialists should
actively encourage. It could be helped along by opposing cuts to police
budgets and supporting calls for their right to strike and full trade
union rights. As outlined above, however, we must not lose sight of the
role that these forces play. We must continue, therefore, to advocate
genuine democratic accountability and control of the police.
Greg Maughan
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