[IN THE centre pages of the Sunday Times…]

Scan page 2

IN THE centre pages of the Sunday Times on April 10 readers i "The Police and Criminal Evidence Bill attempts to give new powers to the police. In doing so, it would destroy many of the liberties of England, and it would bring us nearer to becoming a The author is no radical or civil liberties campaigner, but a retired judge, Lord Salmon. The Bill he is denouncing was shaped decisively by the pressure on the government of police chiefs.

Likewise, the news that Manchester police chief James Anderton has established permanently armed patrols has called forth statements in the press against the arming of the police from police officers shot on duty and from their relatives.

Anderton's moves contradict Home Office guidelines that police should be armed only for specific tasks, and were undertaken without the knowledge of the local Police Committee which is supposed to have (very limited!) supervisory powers.over him.

Already, as our centre page feature shows, the police's use of Lord Salmon and his like are playing Canute to a powerful trend for the police more and more to become a vocal, independent, poliIt goes back to the early '70s, when the Heath government beefed up the police against the big strike movements of that period. It came out into the open with the riots in summer 1981. It is paralleled by an increasingly political and autonomous stance from the Army, which for over ten years has had a large share in the direct administration of a whole province of the 'United Kingdom' For those who think that Britain's state forces are so 'constitutional' that they could never act like Chile's did, here is evidence of the forces becoming more and more unconstitutional under our eyes. As the class struggle becomes more tense, might increasBritain is not going to become another Chile tomorrow. But what is going to happen tomorrow is that strikers, black people, and anyone else who falls foul of the cops, will face increasingly We must fight to defend existing rights and existing controls Some police authorities have stopped their chief constables getting plastic bullets. Labour representatives on Police Committees should be pressed to use their position to the maximum - raising calls for the sacking of Anderton and others.

We must make sure that a new Labour government is held to the Campaign Document commitment to bring in elected Police Authorities everywhere (at present they are only partly elected, and there is no Authority at all for London), and gives them full The Labour GLC has been in the forefront of the fight for such accountability measures. GLC'councillor Steve Bundred, interviewed in our centre pages this week, suggests that this fight makes black self-defence groups unnecessary and diversionary: clauses in a factory can contradict keeping the strike-weapon ready! On the contrary, the increasingly strong-arm role of the police which sharpens the fight over accountability also makes self It will also mean that picket lines will have to look more seriously at organised self-defence; and united black/ white workers' defence squads will be increasingly on the agenda.

And beyond that? The present police force - separated off from șociety, but a hot-house for all society's worst bigotries; rigidly hierarchical itself. but beyond control of the community - can only be an enemy for the working class. Through accountability measures we can perhaps restrain it, but never transform it. A socialist programme must replace it with community self-policing - organised labour movement/community patrols, drawn from the people of each area on the basis of universal training and rota for a Labour Unilateral nuclear disarm- • Police accountability, Nationalise the top 25 com- tha Drossamtina found an unusual article.

police state"

guns has increased massively.

tical force.

Ireland.

ingly overshadows rights.

heavy repression.

What should the labour movement do?

over the police - and extend them.

powers.

defence more often needed. service. • Unilateral nuclear disarmament and removal of all ment and removal of all nuclear bases in Britain uclear bases in Britain • Nationalise the top 25 com. paries, return social spend. ing to 1977 tersis in read bris 35 hour week with Far re EEC. ex #AMS. educacon. houso building. Renation. alisation with compensation onty on grounds of proven noad and without gain to the recipients • No incomes policy. Repeal of Tory anti-union laws • Women's rights, including the right to control their own fertility • Repeal the Nationality Act and Immigration Acts How radical is Peter Tatchell spoke to Martin Thomas.

What's your assessment Campaign Document?

Weak, unsatisfactory, and disappointing. But it has got some positive elements worth fighting for. What about the economic policy in it?

Reducing unemployment to one million is not an adequate objective, but I think in terms of the overall programme it's all that is feasible. There is no sense in which this is a really socialist programme. It's a social-reformist staging post. But because we have not done the groundwork to win public opinion to real radical socialist policies, it's all that we can hope for at the moment.

That's not to say that we should become fatalist, and accept a reformist halfway house - it means that we must redouble our efforts for that campaign to win the 1 the hearts and minds of milions of ns of people up and down the country.

At the Socialists for a Labour Victory' meeting at LPYS conference, you said that Labour must couple withdrawal from the EEC with a more internationalist policy. What do you mean?

As much as some on the left deny it, there are very strongly nationalistic and jingoistic elements to the anti-EEC argument, and I think those who pretend that there could be a Fortress Britain solution are extremely naive.

Like it or not, Britain is inextricably bound up with West European capital. The links between big business in those countries are already solidly forged. If we're going to defeat them, we have to develop a similar unity among the working class, socialists, and trade unionists in the West 1 European countries at least - to develop a common Alternative Economic Strategy, if you like.

It's not just a British crisis, it's EEC. It's not just a British crisis, it's a West European crisis - in fact, a a West Futonpan aricio in fant world crisis, but in terms of a set of homogeneous, similar countries, it's particularly a West European crisis, and therefore we've got a common interest with other European workers to fight our way out of that crisis.

Some of us would argue that it follows that the whole campaign for British withdrawal from the EEC is a diversion. It's a "capitalism in one country' solution, and capitalism can no longer exist in one country. If our opposition to the EEC is on a socialist basis, then the answer is not Britain getting out but a socialist Europe. Of course the goal is a united socialist Europe. But in the interim, by withdrawing wp: can resolve some of the economic inequaliies of membership, and we are freer to pursue interventionist government policies of our own choosing and to develop links with other countries outside the EEC.

But the cost of campaigning for EEC withdrawal is that you encourage the false idea that problems come from Brussels, not from capitalism...

In a sense the Common Market is a bit of a straw man. In or out, we are still going to live in a society dominated by capital. But all the arguments about the Treaty of Rome and net payments impede getting on with the real issue, and i think we've got to get out so that all these arguments about the Brussels bureaucracy can be swept aside.

So you get out to prove that it's irrelevant to get out?

I wouldn't put it quite like that! Operating from outside the Common Market, in conjunction with other left governments and movements in Europe, some inside and some outside the EEC, is better than operating inside it.

----- pull-quotes -----

Labour's Cam- paign Document?

by cllr Keenl