04.04.1996

Labour backs more repression

Just a few weeks after the Labour Party supported the government in the renewal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, it has done it again.

True to its loyal opposition form, it has supported extensive new powers to the police.

Powers which attack not just so-called terrorism but the rights of all workers in their fight against an ever more oppressive and monolithic state. Powers which attack the civil liberties of all.

As with most new weapons of war handed to the state, these are powers brought over from the North of Ireland. The inability of the working class to support the republican fighters in their war against the British state has enslaved them at home.

The new powers give the ‘friendly’ bobby in blue the right to stop and search any pedestrian, including their outer clothes and the right to search anyone’s home in a cordoned area. Refusal to cooperate could lead to a six-month jail sentence. Have no doubt that they will use them. In the 70s the ‘sus’ laws were particularly hated by the black population who were systematically harassed under the pretence of suspicion of carrying drugs.

Labour’s excuse for supporting the renewal of the PTA a few weeks ago was that it was being put under scrutiny of a review. Not surprisingly, given the government’s present ability to get away with almost any despotic law, now we see increased and more tyrannical powers.

Labour has agreed to support the bill so that it can be rushed through without discussion because of a supposed emergency IRA threat over Easter.

The bi-partisanship over Ireland comes home with a vengeance. But the Labour Party has been able to get away with this bi-partisanship - not just over Ireland, but over almost everything except detail - because of a lack of independent working class opposition, not least over Ireland.

We should be under no illusions that we can push a Labour government further and further to the left simply by moral or even industrial pressure. Labour is making it known loud and clear that it will use the fist with just as much force as the Tories to squash anything that gets in the way of British imperialism. Only our own political organisation to replace all the parties of capitalism can ensure that we push back the tide of repression.

Helen Ellis