Police marching against the cuts?
This is a guest post by Jo O’Reilly.
All protests it would seem are not created equal, or that’s how Tony Rayner, Chair of the Essex Police Federation would have it at least.
As was announced in the Guardian on Thursday, the Police Federations Chair
Paul McKeever has warned MPs that they could face the prospect of
police protests in response to the coalition funding cuts. The cuts mean
that potentially 20,0000 police jobs could go.
Back in Essex Tony Rayner the chair of the Essex police federation
agreed, and then some, tweeting ‘Paul McKeever is a diplomat. We’ll do
more than march.’
He doesn’t elaborate on what ‘more than march’ might actually mean
but it does sound remarkably like a threat of civil disobedience. This is
made all the more unexpected considering the heavy-handed response
by the police to last year’s student protests. I couldn’t help but reply.
‘Here’s hoping your colleagues don’t Kettle you on a cold bridge for five
hours, charge horses at you and hit you with batons’
I didn’t realise at this point that Rayner had already used twitter to make his feelings towards the student protestors known. When tweeting the outcome of the Edward Woolard trial, he added ‘Pity he couldn’t be flogged as well as jailed.’
He response to me was that protesting police officers would not
be ‘smashing up London’.
After I explained that not all of the protestors on the receiving end of
the MET’s aggressive tactics were responsible for ‘smashing up London’
He tweeted back:
‘Probably because they were kettled. Would you prefer water cannon?
Tear-gas? Tanks? This is minimal force.’
In case I wasn’t convinced that protesting police officers should be
treated differently to protesting students he followed that tweet up
with:
‘Is there evidence that any protest by the police in the UK has ever been other than peaceful?’
When others posted links refuting this, or telling him that the law
should treat all protestors the same he tweeted a link to a blog post by a freelance photographer.
The blogs author is hit in the leg by a police baton whilst attempting to
get, ‘The shot that would catapult my days work onto the front pages of the next days papers’ but it is OK he tells us as he is earning money.
He goes on to express his distain for media savvy protestors who try
to bring to account police brutality when they are injured. He doesn’t
clarify however whether he would feel any different had a baton shot to
leg in exchange for a day earnings, instead had landed on the skull. Had
he been left in hospital with bleeding on the brain like protestor Alphie
Meadows it’s possibly he would feel differently.
So there you have it student protest require the ‘minimal force’ of
batons and kettling but police protests do not, and police violence is OK
if you’re getting paid to be there and take photos.
Reader Comments
I support the police taking part in a peaceful march, if only to apply some strain to the minds of students who have been given a skewed view that peaceful protesting somehow involves bringing missiles to throw, smashing windows, dangling from monuments, dropping fire extinguishers into a crowd, going apeshit whenever they are in the vicinity of an unguarded police van.
Will the police protesters be kettled? Will they be charged by horses? I sincerely doubt they will, not because of double standards, but because I think they will show a higher level of respect and maturity towards the concept of peaceful protest than the students have recently demonstrated.
‘Is there evidence that any protest by the police in the UK has ever been other than peaceful?’
OK, I’ll bite. Yes see for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_police_strikes_in_1918_and_1919
And http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Latest/Police.html
Or: http://www.liverpooltimes.net/2007/12/13/liverpool-police-strike-1919-gunboats-up-the-mersey/
I should imagine that the boys in blue will enjoy a very peaceful protest because : a) If it ever got to the point of them withdrawing their labour, Cameron (anagram=mean orc) and his piss poor humunculus clegg will readily come to an amicable and gentlemanly arrangement for fear of civil misrule. The inevitable advent of such misrule (it’s a twister, it’s a twister) means that Camio and clegio NEED the strong arm (and boot) of the law.
And b) our collective constabulary has always got more than its fair share of high felutin’ thrills and spills at any public fayre from Tolpuddle to the miner strike and beyond. Little need of The police kettling the police is there;-)
The way you try and sell it, Ron, suggests that the police have a great influence over the government, that all they need to do is suggest industrial action and whoever is in Downing Street will bend over backwards to appease them.
This does seem to contradict the other popular opinion around these parts that the police are subservient puppets of the ruling class.
Which is it? Who has control over who?
@Cap’n Tripps.
I am sure that you are not quite thinking this through Captain my captain. The police, (like the other trusted members of Kropotkins tower)are not in the same class of subservience as workers. Their subservience is conditional upon their collaboration as a tool of the state-and getting more so by the day under this administration. Do you honestly think that ‘dumb and dumber’ will allow the police to strike? A deal will be done! Though it has been 90 years since the last police strike, it is certainly not outside the realms of possibility. That possibility (which ‘gentleman Jim’ Callaghan will remember!!) will not want to be tested by a government whose position is weak.
“Who has control over who”. You answered it yourself, it is the government who are pulling the strings but the strings are getting taught and brittle. Chinchin:-)
So the police are just acting complacent despite their powerful negotiating position in the face of large cuts to their budgets?
All the more reason to support even the mere suggestion that they willing to exert that power to improve policing.
Or are we against the whole concept of “The Police”, and celebrate their reduced numbers?
Jo, I think you are taking my blog post way out of context. Yes, I accept that if I put myself into a situation where there is a good chance of violence then I have to accept that I may get injured. This has to apply to protesters as well. There is nothing to stop a protester who finds him/herself in a similar position to walk away. If an individual nitices violence why go towards it? Why stay where it is? On the first student protest a crowd of an est 50000 ended with around 200 trapped in a kettle. Do the math! For anyone to deliberatley put themself in a dangerous position and then try to benefit financialy from it is not just moraly wrong, but it can only harm the cause they are protesting about. This will be the case when Jody McIntyres complaints are found to be unsubstaciated.
Bastarcopper, don’t think much of your links ,could’nt find one comment about police being violent at protests even when htey were sacked during the 1919 one,
http://www.policeexpenses.co.uk the website city of London police are trying to ban
It’s interesting