Kill the Bill

The bourgeois media is having a field day over the riots in Bristol which erupted last weekend. Thousands of demonstrators peacefully rallied in central Bristol on Sunday to protest against the Tory government’s proposed new police powers bill. The street violence erupted during protests against proposed Tory legislation that would sanction up to 10 years in jail for damaging memorials and give the police new powers to curb or ban public protests in the future.
    The clashes were clearly triggered by heavy-handed police attempts to disperse the protesters on Sunday evening. But claims that “professional agitators” and “anarchist” gangs were leading the assaults on the police and the torching of police vans are taken as gospel by the mainstream media while reports of police violence are routinely ignored.
     Boris Johnson was quick to condemn the violence. “I think that all that kind of thing is unacceptable” he said. “And I think that people obviously have a right to protest in this country, but they should protest peacefully and legally”.
    This was echoed by Sir Keir Starmer, the new Labour leader who said that the violence was “inexcusable” and “completely unacceptable”. Another Labour man, Marvin Rees, the Mayor of Bristol, said “smashing buildings in our city centre, vandalising vehicles, attacking our police will do nothing to lessen the likelihood of the Bill going through. On the contrary, the lawlessness on show will be used as evidence and promote the need for the Bill”.
    Yes, no, maybe. Misgivings about the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill goes far beyond the opposition parties in the House of Commons including waverers in the Tory ranks like former premier Theresa May. The Johnson team clearly hope that the unrest in Bristol will sway them back into toeing the Government line. On the other hand the riots that have been the focus of the mass media over the past few days have certainly alerted the public to the dangers posed by this reactionary bill.
    The arbitrary and discretionary powers that this bill provides gives even more cover for the paying off of old scores in the name of law and order while leaving the police even more open to political pressure.
    In 1973 building workers were jailed on trumped up “conspiracy” charges for taking part in an official union picket in Shrewsbury. They were victimised as a result of pressure from the Tory Heath government and the National Federation of Building Trades Employers.
    After nearly fifty years of hard campaigning the sentences were finally overturned this week.
    In 1975 six Irishmen were jailed for life for the Birmingham pub bombings. The “Birmingham 6” convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory and quashed by the Court of Appeal on 14th March 1991.
    More recently we’ve seen the police brutally disperse a women’s vigil for a murder victim in London and a health service protest organiser fined £10,000 in Manchester for breaching the coronavirus regulations.
     The police don’t need more discretionary and arbitrary powers. They’ve got enough under existing legislation – and we’ve seen how that’s been abused by the heavy-handed arm of the law during the lockdowns.

A Nightmare on Downing Street

Boris Johnson achieved his childhood ambition when he stepped into Downing Street this week. The successor to Mrs May has called on all Tories to close ranks around his new government that he says is going to “Deliver Brexit, unite the country and defeat Jeremy Corbyn”. But Johnson can’t deliver Brexit. He can’t unite his own party let alone the country and most pundits believe that the new government will be brought down in the autumn when Remainers on both sides of the House of Commons combine to block a ‘no-deal’ Brexit.

The Johnson camp talk about winning better withdrawal terms from Brussels but none of them seriously believe it’s going to happen. They say that the only alternative is to walk out on ‘no-deal’ World Trade Organisation terms – which is what we thought we were voting for in the first place. But that’s not going to happen either. The Remainers, who’ve been working day and night to reverse the results of the historic 2016 referendum, now have the numbers in the Commons to stop a ‘no-deal’ Brexit.

All the Labour leaders are now in the bag, The Liberal Democrats, the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, and the maverick MPs who have left the mainstream parties over Europe can now overturn the Government – whose parlous majority of two includes the 10 votes of the bigots from northern Ireland.

The Johnson team tell us that whilst Boris likes to play the fool a shrewd intelligence lies behind his oafish persona. To give him a common touch they call him “Boris” or “BoJo”.

But Johnson’s rivals prefer, in an equally childish way, to call him the “Heffalump” or “Bunter” in mocking reference to the new Tory leader’s supposed conduct and girth.

Johnson may not be an Einstein but he can clearly add up, so he must know that he simply cannot achieve in 100 days what Mrs May failed to get in her two and a half years in office.

Some might point the finger at the incompetence of the Tory Brexiteers who have been clearly out-manœuvred by the Remainers and the Europhile Establishment. But for us the lesson is simply that workers can never rely on any other class to defend their interests. The independent working class campaign to leave the European Union (EU), which the New Communist Party argued for time and time again over the years, was dismissed by those who tried to build an anti-EU platform with right-wingers, reactionaries and racists in the name of “broad campaigning”. Now, very late in the day, they understand the need for a Left Exit campaign to counter the Brussels propaganda that most of our unions have embraced.

In 2016 we took part in a referendum that asked a simple ‘In or Out’ question. Fifty-two per cent of the voters elected to leave the EU. We don’t want another referendum. We want a general election and a Labour government that respects the will of people.

In 2016 millions of people voted decisively to leave the EU. The alternative is the EU with its austerity regime, the highest food prices in the world, ham-strung unions, and mass unemployment in Greece, Spain, Italy and throughout eastern Europe. We voted for Brexit. That’s what we want.