THE Tory-LibDem coalition is set to introduce a ‘reform programme’ for the police that will establish regimes of elected police commissioners, who will have the right to hire and fire police chiefs.
This reform will be the means of putting the police under the direct political control of right wing law and order extremists, the hang ’em high brigade and others, who will be elected as commissioners, via press and media propaganda campaigns whipping up fears about how the ‘silent majority’ are being allegedly terrorised and abused by a minority of thugs and hooligans, and strikers, who all deserve to be put in their place, in some prison or work camp.
These commissioners will have the task of dealing with the mass of angry workers and youth who are being produced by the savage programme of cuts that the Tory-led coalition are introducing, and to sack police chiefs who are not willing to go as far as they are.
The elected commissioners will set police priorities in communities, after the abolition of local police authorities in May 2012, and will also be in charge of the formation of ‘reserve police forces’, ie an army of special constables to suppress strikes and deal with social upheavals.
Other plans include the establishment of a UK version of the FBI, a National Crime Agency.
Even the cross party Home Affairs Select Committee has published a report which expresses serious concern whether elected police commissioners will be able to cope with the workload of 18 local police authority members.
Of course they won’t. Their task will be to spearhead the drive of the local police force to control the area, and sack police chiefs who are not prepared for the kind of actions that the Tories want to see used against ‘crime’ and ‘local disorder’.
The same Home Affairs Committee is so concerned about the political nature of these proposals that it is demanding that the Coalition must guarantee that the operational independence of Chief Constables and police forces will remain.
Of course this operational independence won’t remain, since the Commissioners can hire and fire Chief Constables at will.
The Home Affairs Committee wants responsibilities to be clearly defined and ‘clarified in a memorandum of understanding between the home secretary, chief constables and police and crime commissioners.’
The Committee fears that even parliament is to be locked out of the process and have demanded: ‘that arrangements are made for parliamentary scrutiny of the terms of any such memorandum and subsequently its impact on police work. . . The police and not politicians must, as now, be solely responsible for individual decisions with respect to arrest and investigation.’
Home Secretary May said yesterday that ‘These new measures will place the public back at the heart of our drive to cut crime, giving them a say in how their local area is policed by electing a Police and Crime Commissioner, and strengthening the powers that police and councils need to tackle crime and disorder at a local level.’
But even Shadow Home Secretary, Ed Balls was forced to comment ‘This goes against a 150-year tradition of keeping politics out of policing.
‘It raises the very real prospect of a politician telling a chief constable how to do their job. Even the government’s own consultation confirms the very real fear that plans for elected police chiefs will see money spent on bringing politicians into running the police instead of on the frontline.’
The Tory-LibDem coalition is moving to establish political control of the police forces, and large reserve police forces, in order to wage a no holds barred class war against the working class and the mass of young people who will fight for their future in the face of massive coalition cuts.
There is only one way to react to these proposed changes, and that is to organise a general strike to bring down the coalition and bring in a workers government that will smash the capitalist state, disband its police forces, and bring in socialism.