By Andy Fenwick, Worcester South Labour member
Each year we celebrate International Worker’s Day and, in the past, this has meant a trip to my sister’s in Chesterfield to meet up with comrades who I met during the miner’s strike.
This year, with the restrictions imposed by Covid-19, only a limited number of marches and rallies took place. However, a number of Kill the Bill events were scheduled to take place against the Government’s new Police Powers Act. They were held from Aberystwyth to York: 41 rallies were planned in total and the closest ones to me were Birmingham, Coventry and that bastion of the coming revolution, Leamington,or to give its proper title, Royal Leamington Spa. As I had never been to Leamington before, I though this might be the time to expand my geographic knowledge, so Leamington was my choice.
On my arrival, I was pleasantly surprised by the numbers present; I calculated in excess of 250, this estimate derived from the number of Left Horizons leaflets I handed out. Gathered around the bandstand in the Pump House Gardens, the rally was address by local people from all sections of the community, including Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter.
Nurse could have her home wrecked by police
But one of the most powerful speakers was from the travellers’ community, who had just finished her nurse training. Under the provisions of new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, she could be going back to her van, after a day caring for local patients, to find the police had wrecked her home.
I was able to speak from the platform, firstly I welcome the fact that May Day is the most appropriate date to protest against Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill – after all May Day itself was born out of police brutality against striking workers in Chicago in 1886. As capitalism continues to decline and more people see the need to protest, the state will use all of its power to subdue and pacify them. The national media already ignore most protests, unless it is a really big demo like the two million-strong anti-war protest back in 2003. So now the Tories want no protests or best a silent one.
I said that the police do not need any more laws to use on workers, but rather we need protection from the police. I was able to give a quick Cook’s Tour of all the criminal actions of the police, starting off in the 1950s with spying on CND, and corrupt involvement with criminal gangs, followed by their collusion with South Africa apartheid secret police to infiltrate the Anti-Apartheid movement.
Conspiracy to jail innocent building workers
Then, into the seventies, we had the killing of Blair Peach, and an investigation subsequently concluded that Peach had been killed by Special Patrol Group officers, who had preserved their silence to obstruct the investigation. Then there was the conspiracy of a Tory Government with the police to jail innocent building workers.
In more recent times we see that the police can act with impunity as with killing of the innocent Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, or with the shooting of Mark Duggan. These killings were sanctioned by senior officers who, instead of being punished or even reprimanded, were promoted to more senior positions.
If the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is passed we will lose our voice and no longer be able to mount effective protests. Restrictions will become more draconian than the Tory Anti Trade Union Laws and workers will be silenced like Trappist monks.
If a rally in Royal Leamington Spa can attract hundreds of participants, it shows what potential there is for a campaign across the whole country. It is time for those who described themselves Labour ‘leaders’ to start such a national campaign.
