Civil liberties, justice, crime

Public Order Act imminent

The Minimum Service Levels anti-strike bill still has some way to go through the parliamentary process, but the Tories’ Public Order Bill will become law sooner. The Bill severely restricts the right to protest, bringing back the most extreme measures the government failed to get into the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act last year – including some that potentially impact the right to strike (see Amnesty International briefing ). The protests against the Police Act could have been much bigger if the labour movement had not sat them out, but they happened and many were lively. Yet there...

Protest hits Sheffield snooping

As part of a crackdown on student activism, the University of Sheffield has hired Intersol Global, a private investigator firm, to investigate its own students for building occupations. It paid Intersol Global £40,000 in an extraordinary escalation against free expression on campus. On 15 April, Sheffield Solidarity Group organised a protest during the university’s offer-holder open day. The goal was to rally students and the local labour movement in support of the investigated students. Student offer-holders wield economic influence, and universities try to entice them with slick marketing...

Sheffield protests against crackdown

There has been an increased crackdown on student activism at the University of Sheffield which has culminated in management paying £40,000 to hire private security firm Intersol Global to investigate its own students. This represents an unprecedented escalation, especially given that neither of the accused students was in the city at the time of the occupation (one was on a year abroad). In response, Sheffield Solidarity Group (a student group which aims to foster student-worker solidarity across University of and Sheffield Hallam campuses) has called a demonstration during the offer-holder...

The Met: it's not just shape and size

Baroness Casey’s review of the behaviour and culture of the Met Police (21 March) did not mince words, unequivocally branding the Met instituitionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic. Women in the Met claimed they were branded “trouble makers” for reporting sexual assault. One was even forced to patrol with her attacker. Other sections highlight how a Muslim officer found bacon in his shoes, a Sikh officer had his beard cut off, and a gay officer would purposely take the scenic route home for fear of running into his own unit while off duty. The report also outlines a much wider problem...

Legal regulation of drugs

I am sure many supporters of Workers’ Liberty would agree with John Smithee’s sensible call ( Solidarity 665 ) for legal regulation of all drugs. Drug-taking is a victimless crime and prohibition causes all manner of social harm, not least ceding a multi-billion pound world market to organised crime. Many non-addictive and relatively harmless drugs, like psilocybin mushrooms and MDMA, are illegal whereas alcohol and tobacco are highly addictive and very harmful. There is some evidence that humans have taken mind-altering substances since the Stone Age and like music or dance it appears common...

The way for safety in and out of jail

Rules barring some trans women from women’s prisons in England and Wales are to come into force this week. Justice Secretary Dominic Raab had already announced in October that trans women with penises or who had committed sexual offences would not be allowed in women’s prisons. This has now been extended to cover trans women who had been convicted of a violent offence. “We want to have a liberal, sensitive, tolerant approach to the LGBT community as a whole and in particular the trans community who suffer a lot in this country and have high levels of challenges,” Raab told Sky News’ Sophy...

Letter: Regulation of drugs

My view is that Marxists should call for the legal regulation of all drugs by the state in order to take the supply of drugs away from petty dealers and organised crime. I use the term: “legal regulation” rather than “legalise” as the latter term by right-wing Tories and the Daily Mail can be used to distort a sensible policy regarding drugs. Legal regulation would allow quality control and labelling and a public health education campaign. Cannabis should be made available from licensed independent shops; cocaine and ecstasy to be made available from pharmacies; and heroin to be made available...

Solidarity to beat Tories!

“Move fast and break things” (Mark Zuckerberg) and “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste” (Rahm Emmanuel) are today’s rules of combat for the ruling class. From their own angle, they’re right. In the class struggle, the side that is quickest on its feet, most agile, most energetic in mobilising and inspiring its supporters, is more likely to win. The Tories are set to lose the next election, and to have difficulty with their MPs even getting through pragmatic adjustments to their Northern Ireland Protocol. They are still setting a fast and determined pace. They want to get through as...

Making "Prevent" worse

The official review of the UK’s Prevent “counter-terrorism” strategy led by William Shawcross has finally come out , after much delay. Amnesty International UK’s racial justice director Ilyas Nagdee has responded that the review “has no legitimacy. William Shawcross’s history of bigoted comments on Muslims and Islam should have precluded his involvement in this review in the first place.” That is right. As Solidarity flagged up in May last year, Shawcross is a radical right-winger with a startling history of anti-Muslim commentary. The idea that the UK government appointed a former director of...

Did Sadiq Khan spy on climate activists?

The openDemocracy website has revealed how Sadiq Khan’s London administration worked with a security firm to target youth climate change campaigners, seemingly spying on them. When supporters of left-wing group Green New Deal Rising tried to attend an event at the O2 to challenge the mayor over his environmentally damaging Silvertown Tunnel project, security not only barred them but already knew their names. Both the Silvertown Tunnel itself and this latest information are yet more reasons for the London labour movement to call Sadiq Khan to account. • openDemocracy report here

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