NOV 9 SUMMED UP
AS ‘TOTAL’ POLICING ENTERS STUDENT ANTI-CUTS DEMO EQUATION...

SchNEWS - Friday 11th November 2011 | Issue 796
http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news7961.php

[Note: See also London Cops Launch “Total Policing” at Student Protest in Britain.]

Wednesday (9th) saw yet another demonstration against cuts to education and public services, this time organized by the National Campaign Against Fees & Cuts (NCAFC). So SchNEWS donned its best black hoody and attempted to infiltrate the ‘violent minority’. Much to our disappointment, by the end of the day, it was clear that the monopoly of violence was still very much in the hands of the state.

A mixed bag of around 10,000 students, socialists, liberals, workers, unemployed and black block (not necessarily mutually exclusive) left University of London, Mallet Street at 12pm. Armed with fiddles, tambourines, drums, sound systems and an extensive collection of placards including “Creed, not Greed”, “Tax the wealthy 1%”, “I wish my boyfriend was as dirty as your policies” and “Dumbledore wouldn’t stand for this”.

Three helicopters flew overhead as the assembly got ready to rally. The demo shuffled, zombie-like through the streets of London, with progress severely restricted by a heavy police presence. Effectively the cops had decided to place the whole demonstration in a mobile kettle, with lines of police marching alongside; every side street was barricaded with police horses dictating the pace at the front and a further 15 riot vans, 6 police cars and a dog van bringing up the rear. Overall more than 4,000 cops (nearly 1 for every 2 protesters) were deployed. No one was allowed to join the demo and you certainly couldn’t leave – ‘Total Policing’ was the Met’s new buzzword for this particular form of oppressive action.

Friendly bobbies handed out leaflets explaining the new commissioner’s latest brainwave and how all this visible policing was just there to help “facilitate peaceful protest”. Unfortunately it failed to mention the less visible undercovers (who were deployed en-masse), nor did it reference the threatening letters they had sent to people arrested in previous demos (regardless of whether or not their charges were dropped) and police threats to deploy rubber bullets – which had been issued earlier in the week. Fortunately the threats failed to dampen protesters’ spirits and chants of “You can shove your rubber bullets up your arse!” were heard throughout the day.

The use of large numbers of (barely) undercover police was probably the most noticeable deviation from past tactics. Pairs of fairly obvious plain clothed officers walked along with the crowd looking for potential ‘trouble-makers’; once they found someone they didn’t like the look of they’d single them out for a snatch squad to drag away. Numerous photos of this particularly nasty ‘violent minority’, along with pictures of cops continuing to hide their ID numbers and masking-up, are starting to surface.

The actions of the police meant there was very little contact between the protesters and the general public. The police couldn’t prevent construction workers from showing solidarity however and any time the march passed construction sites there was an evident unity and affinity between the builders who cheered the crowd on - which responded in kind with “Students and workers unite and strike!”

A few bankers also got a glimpse of what’s in store for them in the near future as the angry mob passed through the city. Cries of “Tory Scum” and “Banks Got Bailed Out, We Got Sold Out” were directed towards a number of financial institutions. As cops attempted to delay the march at the end of New Fetter Lane, Lloyd's staff decided unwisely to bait the crowd from the upper floors of Thavies Inn House, at one point even throwing objects from the windows. A well aimed potato sailed in the opposite direction, taking out a window on its way; staff then beat a hasty retreat.

By Fleet Street, a call traveled from the front of the protest right to the back informing people that 700 electricians were trying to join the demo but were stopped by a police barricade. The sparks have been on strike over pay cuts and had already marched to parliament. The painfully slow progress of the student demo slowed to a halt as attempts were made to join the two blocks together, but these came to naught, so the demo carried on towards Holborn.

The fact that the electricians couldn’t join a demonstration when they hadn’t committed any offenses to warrant any exclusion may not come as a surprise to regular SchNEWS reader types, but the only positive aspect of yet another example of police tyranny will be that it will make Joe Bloggs and John Doe wake up to hard faced police tactics. Sounds of “Why are they doing that?” traveled through the ether as injustice hit them in the face.

Meanwhile, the portable teapot got piloted as far as Moorgate by a route that avoided all the hot spots such as Parliament and the St Paul’s occupy camp. Billy Bragg entertained the St Paul’s campers with ole favourite trade union ditties.

At the finish line the protesters were released in small manageable groups. Many were fairly keen to leave by this point, with most of the enthusiasm and energy successfully drained by the police tactics. Others headed down to the Finsbury Square occupation, while some stayed at the junction of Moorgate and London Wall to dance to the assorted sound systems.

Throughout the day 60 arrests were made, though only 20 of those actually spent the night in the cells. 3 for violent disorder and affray, 3 for going equipped to cause criminal damage (including our hero with a pen – see Crap Arrest), 1 for breaching S60AA (refusing to take off a mask), 1 for possession of an offensive weapon and 12 for breach of the peace.

One of the less successful actions of the day was the attempted occupation of Trafalgar Square, which consisted of 30 pop-up tents pitching up, followed shortly after by the arrest of their occupants and the removal of the tents. London cabbies had a bit more luck as areas of central London were blockaded in the afternoon by a swarm of black cabs that were supporting the taxi union protest, with the aptly named ‘United Cabbies Group’. Around 4,000 cabs descended on different parts of London from 4pm, Trafalgar Square, Pall Mall, Aldwych, Fleet Street, Shaftesbury Avenue and Victoria Street had all been on the menu.

In recent times there has been a global trend for waves of protests and demonstrations that are slowly joined by all sorts – not just the usual suspects. People across the board are showing their discontent and experiencing police brutality for the first time. It is not just your black bloc, leftists, brew crew, jobless.... these days the discontented come in all shapes and sizes, from all backgrounds, and many workplaces. Builders, nurses, electricians and Harry Potter fans to name but a few are joining the students, anarchists and seasoned activists in the fight.

So even though the police seemed in control in London it is worth considering that many people there are not experienced in the ways of demonstrations, riots and confronting police. The more exposed they become to police brutality and the reality of who the police really serve the more they may react. Here endeth the lesson. Ah, men.

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“Total Policing” and the criminalisation of dissent

By Chris Marsden; 12 November 2011 - WSWS
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/nov2011/pers-n12.shtml

The scale of the police operation mounted Wednesday against a relatively small and entirely peaceful protest against UK education cuts shows that the ruling elite is no longer prepared to tolerate any form of political and social opposition.

If one accepts the police estimate of the size of the protest, the deployment of 4,000 officers, many in full riot gear, represents a police officer to protester ratio of one-to-one. If a more accurate figure of 8,000 is accepted, then the ratio is still one-to-two.

New Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe described the protest as a test of his policy of “Total Policing.” This is what it looked like: London was placed on virtual lock-down, with all major roads along the march’s route blocked off by ranks of police, riot vans, mounted officers and ten-foot-high barricades.

Marchers were met at the rail, underground and coach stations and handed an 11-page brochure, with the capitalized title “TOTAL POLICING” on the front and back. It warned that police would use section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 to search people and enforce the removal of masks.

The march was dragooned by ranks of police at the front, back and both sides along the three-mile route. Helicopters circled overhead, making extensive videos of those taking part.

In a further provocation, the march was stopped every ten metres, meaning that a three-mile route took three hours to walk. This periodic kettling enabled the police to go into the crowd at certain points, pushing and barging [into] people in the hope of provoking a reaction.

A statement issued on the day warned that the planned rally at the London Wall had to end in less than an hour and the area had to be completely cleared in two hours. An attempt to set up a tent camp in Trafalgar Square, in solidarity with the Occupy protest at St Paul’s Cathedral, was cleared in minutes as police dragged away those involved.

The effort by a group of electricians — striking against management threats to cut their wages by up to 35 percent — to join up with the student protest was similarly met with police violence. The electricians’ march was encircled so they were virtually imprisoned. When some tried to break away, riot police waded in with batons and knocked workers to the ground. Police were reportedly armed with stun grenades. Names and addresses were taken under the authority of Section 60 of the Public Order Act.

Before the march, the commander in charge, Simon Pountain, told a press conference that the use of water cannon was not planned, but plastic bullets had been authorized — the first time ever in England.

Over 450 letters were sent out warning anyone arrested in connection with previous public order offenses that a repeat offense would lead to arrest and trial “at the earliest opportunity.” Many of these letters were sent to people with no previous convictions, pointing to the existence of a police database of those whose sole “crime” was to have engaged in a previous protest.

In an article reprinted in the Police Oracle, the Guardian’s crime correspondent blithely described the pre-authorization of baton rounds and the sending of threatening letters as nothing new. “What is new,” she said, was the decision by Pountain to make this public.

Authorization for baton rounds was given during the summer rioting in Britain’s cities, she said, and “perhaps less well known… they were also authorized for use during the student demonstration against cuts a year ago.”

The police are also to be given additional powers, she noted, by Home Secretary Theresa May, whereby a “police superintendent will be able to clear the public out of a specific area during a demonstration — a power not available since the Riot Act was removed from the statute book in 1973.”

Last October’s student protest saw over 150 arrests, both during and after the event. This summer’s riots — provoked by the police killing of an unarmed man — were followed by over 4,000 arrests and over 2,000 prosecutions, with long custodial sentences handed out for the most trivial offenses.

A similar picture is repeated internationally. Wherever workers and young people seek to protest the imposition of savage austerity cuts, they are met with brutal repression.

In Greece, for example, the October 20 general strike protest was attacked by 15,000 riot police and Syntagma Square was flooded with tear gas. In the United States, the Occupy Wall Street protests spread nationally after two weeks in large measure in response to the October 1 arrest of 700 protesters — almost one-third — of those demonstrating on the Brooklyn Bridge. Since then, various local police forces have mounted attacks using riot gear, tear gas and other weapons, bringing the national total of those arrested to over 3,000.

The resort to repressive measures is a measure of the extreme polarization between the classes.

In Britain, the Riot Act now being cited was originally drafted in 1714, making rioting punishable by death. This was reduced to transportation [deportation] for life in 1837.

Its most famous usage was in the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, in Manchester, when a cavalry charge against 80,000 protesters demanding parliamentary reform and relief from crushing economic hardship killed 15 and injured 700.

In Glasgow, on Black Friday 1919, riot police and 10,000 troops were dispatched against workers campaigning for shorter work hours. Black Friday took place in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, at a time when Britain’s elite feared a “Bolshevist uprising.” The fact that similar powers are being enacted today, first covertly and now amid official fanfare, should be a warning to the working class in Britain, Europe and internationally.

Today, a fabulously wealthy oligarchy dictates all aspects of social life in pursuit of ever-greater personal enrichment. Under conditions of worsening economic crisis, this translates into demands for cuts and austerity for millions, for which there is no possibility of securing a democratic mandate.

This determines the moves by bourgeois governments around the world to enact measures characteristic of a police state and, in Greece, the threat of a military coup.

The response of workers and young people must be the building of a mass socialist movement and the adoption of a revolutionary perspective for a truly democratic and egalitarian society, based on the expropriation of the oligarchy and the organization of production to meet the social rights of all to education, health care, housing and a well-paid job.