26.01.1995

Local Bobby turns nasty

THE REAL nature of their local ‘friendly’ bobby in blue has come home to the ‘true blue’ population of Brightlingsea.

“You hear about police brutality, but I’ve never believed it,” said one demonstrator. “We’ve lost all faith in British Justice.” Another admitted, “I’ve never before been in a demonstration and could not believe these police with truncheons and visors looking every bit like storm troopers.”

Last weekend 2,500 protestors - mainly residents of a town with a population of just 8,000 - assembled to stop shipments of live animals.

It would seem that this little town was oblivious to the routine brutality of the police until they stormed into demonstrators whacking them indiscriminately with truncheons, and throwing children over walls ‘to get them out of the way’. All this, simply for defending sheep, a relatively safe sentiment which even the police could admit to having sympathy with.

They were not so sympathetic to the miners and the women who joined them on the picket line in 1984-85. The miners were a threat to the rule of government in 1984-85, as were the Irish in their years of armed struggle against the state.

The residents of Brightlingsea hardly pose such a threat and can therefore be praised by government and police.

But still police tactics of force and brutality are used. These have become par for the course now in dealing with any demonstration. The same tactics that were perfected in the Six Counties and brought home to use against anyone protesting for working class rights: from the miners to the poll tax, and Timex to the Criminal Justice Act.

The fact that the working class in Britain predominantly lined itself up with the British state against the IRA; the fact that the miners were left isolated; the fact that the CJA was allowed to pass: all this has given the state its legitimacy in using force against us all.

Until the working class is united to fight together for human rights, the state will perfect and use its forces of oppression against us all.

Helen Ellis