The police execution of a worker, Brazilian-born electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, on an Underground train in south London on July 22 was not a “mistake” or “incompetent” policing. It was the Metropolitan Police’s way of announcing their hitherto secret shoot-to-kill policy. As both Prime Minister Anthony Blair and Metropolitan Police commissioner Ian Blair have made clear, this may happen again. Their message is: “Get used to it!” This brutal action is of a piece with other attacks on the rights of working people: moves to expand police powers to wiretap phones, to extend to three months the time that cops can detain people without charges, to increase the cops’ “search and seize” powers, to target bookshops and publications deemed by the police to “incite terrorism,” and to establish a national ID card.

These measures all highlight what the British rulers’ war on terror is primarily about: undermining the ability of workers and farmers to organize and fight the assaults by the bosses and their government.

The police who chased Menezes through Stockwell station and pumped seven bullets into his head turned the presumption of innocence—an elementary right—into the presumption of guilt. They acted as judge, jury, and executioner. Those cops and their superiors, up to and including Ian Blair, should be prosecuted for this crime.

The government and the police want working people to accept increasingly more brutal cop methods and powers. This was the purpose of the massive deployment of armed police in London and around the country on July 28, when machine-gun-toting cops patrolled streets, trains, and stations. This is their goal in the dozens of raids and arrests since 7/7 where they have used assault rifles, tear gas, stun grenades, and Taser guns, blowing front doors off their hinges and forcing people to strip naked as they arrest them.

As part of their campaign of “national unity” against “terrorism,” Mayor Kenneth Livingstone and other voices of big business tell us that London is “united.” But there is no unity of interests between them—the tiny minority of wealthy parasitic families who rule the United Kingdom—and us, working people both here and worldwide.

The main enemy of the capitalist rulers is the working class and farmers, whom the bosses must take on to reverse the long-term decline in their profit rates and the crisis of their system of exploitation. The bosses and their government are preparing today for the fightback they expect in the years ahead by workers and farmers who will resist the inevitably deepening attacks on our wages, working conditions, and social gains.

The British rulers’ involvement in the imperialist wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan is an extension of their war on working people at home. Jean Charles de Menezes was not a victim of “Blair’s war,” as many on the middle-class left say, but of this class war at home and abroad. The Communist League calls for the withdrawal of British and other imperialist troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Ireland, and Sierra Leone. Hands off Iran and North Korea!

Oppose increased police powers, ID cards, and other curbs on rights!
 
 
Related articles:
UK gov’t boosts police powers, conducts sweeps
‘Inciting terrorism’ charge used to attack rights  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home