DOZENS of Labour MPs have correctly attacked the plan of the Justice Minister and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy to axe trial by jury – no doubt this will go along with plans to bring back the noose and hanging, to ensure that ‘justice is done’ and the persecution of the working class continues.
In a letter to the Labour Prime Minister, 39 MPs led by the former barrister Karl Turner urged Sir Keir Starmer to think again, dump the current proposals, and come back with a more credible proposal, stating that they were prepared to vote against his proposal.
The MPs stated that the state being able to restrict trial by juries by up to 50% – would turn the historical clock backwards while ‘depriving individuals of a fundamental right to a trial by their peers’.
They added that: ‘When this is put to the House as primary legislation, there is a growing number of our colleagues who are not prepared to support these proposals.’
A feature of the movement of the 39 MPs is that the group is predominantly, but not exclusively, drawn from the left of the party.
It includes Dianne Abbott, Vicky Foxcroft, a former whip and a leading member of the Tribune group of Labour MPs and Dan Carden, who leads the Blue Labour Group of Backbenchers.
They said that: ‘The drastic restriction of the right to trial by jury is not a silver bullet.
‘To limit a fundamental right for what will make a marginal difference to the backlog, if any, is madness and will cause more problems than it solves.’
The drastic reforms announced by Lammy on December 3 would scrap jury trials in England and Wales for crimes likely to carry a sentence of fewer than three years and remove the right for defendants to ask for a jury trial where a case can be dealt with by either magistrates or a new form of judge-only crown court.
He would also extend magistrates powers to handle cases that carry a maximum sentence of possibly up to 18 months or two years.’
The MPs said: ‘It is our belief that the public will not stand for the erosion of a fundamental right …
‘This problem was not caused by jurors, nor will it be fixed by their eradication from public duty. Every day during the Second World War juries continued to sit reverting from 12 to 7 jurors. We are not at war.’
Mr Turner added: ‘There are the usual suspects. There are people on that letter who have never voted against the party in the entire time that they have been in Parliament.’ I have never voted against the Labour whip in 15 years.
Yesterday afternoon, Downing Street remained insistent that the government would go ahead with plans to overhaul jury trials.’
In fact, the government must not be allowed to push through measures that would end trial by juries and bring back in pre-capitalist feudal measures.
The TUC must be ready to call a general strike if the government uses a parliamentary guillotine to push through their measures that would the first step in abandoning trial by jury, that the working class fought for and won in major struggles.
It is a fact that workers will defend trial by jury with a huge determination, not be pushed back centuries.
In fact, the TUC must now take action to mobilise its millions of members.
It must call a Special Congress to organise a general strike to defend its basic rights, the right to strike and the right to trial by jury. Workers will not accept a return to the jobs, wages and the conditions of the 1930’s.
At its Special Congress, the TUC must put down a motion calling a general strike to bring down the Labour traitors and bring in a Workers Government.
Britain must be run by the working class, established in Councils of Action that run the country and provide jobs, decent wages and housing for all.
Now is the time to build a mass Young Socialists, and many more branches of the Workers Revolutionary Party to lead the British Socialist Revolution!