Who guards the guardians?

Baroness Casey has issued a damning report on the conduct of the Metropolitan Police. This independent review was set up last year following the kidnap, rape, and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving member of the London police. During the proceedings another member of the Met charged with rape turned out to be a serial rapist and a violent sexual predator who had preyed on women for over 20 years.
    London’s police say their vision “is to be the most trusted police service in the world”. In their own words they say “we contribute to making London the safest global city, we protect its unique reputation as an open and welcoming city, and we want Londoners to be proud of their police”. But that’s been, once again, seriously questioned.
    While the Met is the public face of law and order in London that’s rolled out to control protests and demonstrations and monitor picket lines for the benefit of the employers that they ultimately serve. Catching criminals is another matter and sadly only a small number of perpetrators are ever brought to justice.
    Baroness Casey was tasked with determining “whether the Met’s leadership, recruitment, vetting, training, culture and communications support the standards the public should expect”. Her report concluded that London’s police is “riddled with deep-seated racism, sexism and homophobia”.
    None of us should be surprised at its conclusions or the corrupt and decadent culture within the capital’s police that the report exposed. Nor should we expect more from the worthy social worker whose recommendations are little more than appeals for the Met to genuinely reform itself.
    Some on the left call for a renewed effort to end the corrupt culture that exists within the Met. Others for the replacement of the Met with a new police authority. Sadly none of this is going to happen and even if it did it wouldn’t change the essential nature of the London police.
    The Metropolitan Police is a key instrument of the bourgeois state and its culture reflects that of those who rely on it to maintain the power of the ruling class in the capital of the country they control. Rapists and murderers within the police force are, naturally, severely punished – not just for abusing their power to break the very laws they’re paid to uphold but also by bringing the institutions of repression that the ruling class ultimately rely on to maintain their power, into disrepute.
    The police are supposed to protect and serve the public; fighting crime and promoting justice for all under the laws of the land.
    Who will guard the guardians is a question that goes back to the philosophers of ancient Greece. Socrates believed the solution was to properly train their souls. These days the talk is of “transparency”, “accountability” and “awareness programmes”.
    Communists rightly argue that only a people’s police force can justly serve the needs of the working class. But we will only get that when we get a people’s government, and that sadly is not on the horizon at the moment,
    In the meantime we must argue for the complete overhaul or break-up of the Metropolitan Police to weed out the psychos and perverts in its ranks and root out the sexist, homophobic and abusive sub-culture that was exposed in the Casey report.