Labour backs Tories to criminalise squatting

When 90% of those responding to a consultation on new anti-squatting laws say changes aren’t needed, what does the ConDem government do? Rush through new legislation that makes squatting a criminal offence for the first time, of course.

A new clause tacked on to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill means that anyone found squatting in any residential property would face a year in jail and/or a £5,000 fine.

Even the secretive, unaccountable Association of Chief Police Officers told the Ministry of Justice that the existing law was "broadly in the right place. In its evidence to the government, the Metropolitan Police said that “despite some of the claims in sections of the press, the reality is that there are already more than adequate means for removing squatters.”

That puts the police well to the left of Labour, who are poised to back the government’s sleight of hand. According to reports in The Guardian, Labour intends to back the change to “show their support for homeowners”.

All the housing campaigns and advice organisations were dead against any change and the Law Society and Criminal Bar Association were strongly opposed to new trespass laws.

Labour’s support for any new “law-and-order” measure is intended to curry favour with the right-wing media. With Ed Miliband’s party supporting free schools, the sale of council homes, cuts in welfare benefits and refusing to support unions resisting attacks on their pensions, they are in a race to the bottom with the Tories.

Labour MP John McDonnell MP is increasingly a lone voice against what is practically a national coalition in a whole range of policy areas. Describing the new clause as an “appalling attack on the homeless”, he has urged the party’s rank and file to put pressure on Miliband’s team to oppose the clause, more in hope than in expectation one would think.

All the housing charities, Crisis, Thames Reach, Shelter, Homelessness Link, Housing Justice , St Mungo’s and the Squatters Advisory Service argue that squatting is a symptom of the worsening housing crisis and that for many homeless and vulnerable people squatting is the only way of avoiding rough sleeping.

Leslie Morphy, Crisis chief executive, said: "A year's imprisonment for some of society's most vulnerable and desperate people is draconian and utterly counterproductive. Independent research is clear that 40% of single homeless people have resorted to squatting.”

Recent research for Crisis shows that squatters are among the most vulnerable homeless people and suffer from learning disabilities, mental illness and drug and alcohol problems. Squatters are more likely to suffer from mental illness and drug addiction than other homeless people, according to a new report.

“They squat out of necessity, not choice, in atrocious conditions where they are least likely to be disturbed. These are people that need help, not a year behind bars and a £5,000 fine," said Morphy.

The report also found that 78% of homeless people who squat had approached their council for help and been recognised as homeless but were not entitled to housing as they were not considered a priority.

There are more than 730,000 vacant homes in England alone, according to statistics. Yet most people, whether earning or not, cannot access social housing or afford private rented accommodation, let alone get a mortgage because house prices have gone into orbit.

A social system that cannot provide decent housing for its citizens, that is slashing living standards and driving people into despair to appease the money markets, and is now planning to criminalise those who seek a roof over their heads, simply doesn’t merit support of any kind. And nor does Labour, which endorses these vicious attacks.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Secret police defend the status quo

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) is a state-sponsored, privately-owned organisation accountable to no one which has been running its own operations, both high profile and undercover, since the 1980s.

Moving forward from its role as a national police force developed during the 1984-5 miners’ strike, ACPO put itself even further outside of state control when in April 1997 It was incorporated as a limited company, one month before the election of the Blair government.

Its dramatic expansion, which saw the infiltration of the climate change movement, took place during the rule of New Labour. ACPO’s operations are funded by the Home Office and tributes levied from the 44 police forces and the income from an annual exhibition.

ACPO describes itself as “an independent, professionally led strategic body” and “in times of national need ACPO - on behalf of all chief officers - coordinates the strategic policing response.” Planting agents inside the environmental movement comes under that heading and is “proportionate to the risk”, according to Liverpool chief constable Jon Murphy. Defending the use of agents, he says:

"There are many people who have got perfectly legitimate concerns about any numbers of issues about which they may wish to protest …Unfortunately, in the midst of some of these groups – recent history would evidence this to be true – there are a small number of people who are intent on causing harm, committing crime and on occasions disabling parts of the national critical infrastructure. That has the potential to deny utilities to hospitals, schools, businesses and your granny."

This is nonsense of course. The state protects infrastructure because it is corporate property. If any part of the state were truly concerned about grannies being without energy, they would do something about energy prices. In the winter months, around nine older people die every day as a result of cold.

Two more undercover cops have been outed. Lynn Watson, real name unknown, claimed to be a care worker from Bournemouth when she appeared in 2003 at a protest at Aldermaston nuclear weapons research unit. She moved to Leeds to become active in groups who used the Common Place social centre.

Jim Boyling, a serving officer in the Metropolitan police, used the identity Jim Sutton to infiltrate Reclaim the Streets and during his five years undercover started a relationship with a fellow activist.

Murphy claims this was a breach of discipline, and that agents are specifically banned from sleeping with the enemy – but presumably acting as an agent provocateur, as Mark Kennedy/Stone is said to have done, is OK.

He was a high profile activist, who trained others to take part in the proposed action at the Ratcliffe-on Soar power station, gathering over 100 people at a nearby school where they were arrested in a dawn raid after he tipped off police.

Of course, the presence of agents is not the reason climate activists have not succeeded in changing Britain’s energy policies. Actions and protests in and of themselves cannot change the basic capitalist power relationships in society. All policing is designed to protect these relationships as part of the work of the state. It is the state itself that we need to transform.

As those who threw down the Berlin wall showed, when a moment of real political transformation arrives, agents can’t prevent it – even in a country where the Stasi was woven into the fabric of society. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be wary of the activities of agents, and expose them when we can.

We can fight for the idea of a sustainable economy and alternative energy strategies most effectively by building People’s Assemblies. Linking the struggle to defend the eco-system with actions to defend livelihoods, jobs and communities is the way forward. The only way we can shift to a green economy is by transcending the profit-driven capitalist economy and that will require mass political action.

Penny Cole
Environment editor

The dirty hand of the state exposed

But for the exposure of police agent Mark Kennedy, there is every likelihood that six climate activists would shortly be staring at long prison sentences, framed on conspiracy charges by the state. You can be sure that no one at Scotland Yard would have given a damn.

Kennedy, known as Stone to activists, cost the state an estimated £2.25 million over nine years, most of which was spent infiltrating the climate change movement and passing information back to his masters within the sinister Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).

No one will know how many people were victims of Kennedy’s duplicity but what is clear is that he actively encouraged activists to plan a shut-down of the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottingham in 2009. More than 100 people were arrested before the action in a pre-emptive raid and have appeared in court recently charged with various offences.

That Kennedy acted as an agent provocateur during this whole episode is proved by the fact that the trial of the six collapsed charged with conspiracy collapsed yesterday when he indicated that he would give evidence for the defence.

Kennedy worked for the National Public Order Intelligence unit which was set up in late 1990s to spy on “domestic activists”. It now one of three groups run by the National Co-Ordinator Domestic Extremism, which has an £8 million budget. This allowed Kennedy to visit more than 20 countries on a false passport and to fund transport and other resources used by climate activists.

At the heart of the operation is ACPO, which has the status of a private company with a board of directors. There are presently 349 members of ACPO from police forces around the UK. In what are deemed times of “national need”, ACPO co-ordinates a countrywide, strategic response. During the 1984-5 miners’ strike, it was a law unto itself, setting up road blocks and organising mass arrests of strikers.

It was the alertness of those who had worked with Kennedy in Nottingham that revealed his true identity and the defence barristers’ demand for information that led to the dropping of the case – after 20 months. It’s a great thing that he has been exposed.

The state is clearly prepared to pay over the odds, and even finance activities in order to frame and arrest activists. This is also the case in anti-terror operations where people have been entrapped and sent to jail as a result of the work of agents provocateurs.

The state’s target are the leaders and those organising things so it is vital to get information from the inside. Technology cannot replace agents. But this causes moral and psychological problems – as shown by Kennedy’s breaking down after being confronted by his ex-comrades.

Does Kennedy’s “going native” indicate the existence of “conscience” in the police? No it doesn’t. The moral high ground may indeed belong to eco-campaigners, but for every one exposed, dozens if not hundreds are likely to in place as informers and provocateurs.

No organisation or group challenging corporate power and the state’s agencies can consider itself immune. The present state exists to defend the status quo and will act independently of elected politicians where necessary. It is definitely not for turning.

“Domestic terrorism” units undoubtedly operate today amongst students, eco-campaigners, anti-cuts activists, left-wing organisations and other groups small and large. What are the best means of undermining them and their aims? By organising to involve the maximum number of people in a strategy to reconstruct the state along democratic lines.

The police and their secret agencies should be exposed, disbanded and replaced with bodies accountable and under the control of communities and elected bodies like People’s Assemblies. A charter of democratic rights would guarantee the freedom to organise without the fear of state infiltration and provocation.

Corinna Lotz
Paul Feldman

We are all 'terrorists' now

As politicians of all shades flail about in the wake of the financial and economic crisis, the growth of the neo-fascist British National Party and Parliament’s loss of authority, secret units of police are carrying out their time-honoured function – to spy on anyone who does not fit into (their idea of) the status quo.

An investigation by a team of Guardian journalists reveals that no fewer than three secret units run by the totally unaccountable Association of Police Officers (Acpo) are being funded to the tune of £9m by the Home Office. Their function is to gather intelligence, operate a chain of databases, and warn those who might be “on the receiving end” of protests. (The £9m is, of course, in addition to the hundreds of millions spent on the operations of the state intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6.)

Following the climate camp protests around the Drax power station in Yorkshire in 2006, police and government officials invented a new term – “domestic terrorism”. This categorisation was first used when New Labour and the police characterised animal rights campaigners as “terrorists” between 2001-2004. But now the term, which is not legally defined, is used as a blanket justification for gathering and holding details and photographs of individual protesters and activists on massive police databases. According to the investigation:

• The National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) collects and processes information collected by police forces around England and Wales. It is fed intelligence by surveillance units such as Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT) and Evidence Gatherers.
• The nationwide system of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR), which can place a marker against a car, is used by “interceptor teams” to monitor attendance at protests and stop individuals.
• “Spotter cards” are used by the CO11 Public Order Intelligence Unit. Comedian and campaigner Mark Thomas discovered his face on one accidentally dropped at a recent Docklands arms fair.
• The National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit (Nectu) is used to keep files on groups and share information with big business. Initially set up in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire to curb animal rights’ activists, it works with police forces and companies
• The National Domestic Terrorism Team, set up in 2005, liaises between detectives and police forces.


As Thomas points out, “the very phrase ‘domestic extremist’ defines protesters in the eyes of the police as the problem, the enemy.” And, that “any targeting and treatment of demonstrators (at the G20 for example) that creates a ‘chilling effect’ – deterring those who may wish to exercise their right to protest – is profoundly undemocratic.”

The first comprehensive history of Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5, just published, The Defence of the Realm, documents how the secret forces of the state have always made those fighting for basic rights a target for surveillance, and often arrest and detention. Those who lead such movements, including political organisations and active trade unionists, are always the first in line.

A quarter of a century ago, Prime Minister Thatcher denounced the National Union of Mineworkers and its leaders as “the enemy within”. The Tory government of the day unleashed all its power to destroy a single trade union. There is no doubt that the ruling classes are still haunted by that era.

Only today, it is not a Tory government but New Labour which is funding secret activities by the police. Not that whatever government comes to power next spring is likely to disband any of these new police units – on the contrary. This state is tooling up for a period of massive social unrest.

Mark Thomas concludes: “This is exactly the time to worry.” Too right. But not only to worry, we would add, but to work for the deconstruction of the existing state and its intelligence agencies.

Corinna Lotz
AWTW secretary

Behind the Royal Mail sell-off

As postal workers gather outside Parliament today to lobby the government over plans for a partial sell-off of the Royal Mail, as a prelude to mass redundancies, any lingering doubts they might have had about where New Labour’s priorities lie should be dispelled by reports of yet another bail-out of the banks.

The extra £500 billion in liabilities taxpayers are said to be facing to prop up RBS and Lloyds will take the state’s commitment to the insolvent banking system to a staggering £1.3 trillion (£1,300,000 million if it makes the total any easier to understand). That’s equivalent to the value of the British economy’s output for a whole year. 

Meanwhile, on the back of a paltry – by comparison - £5,900 million deficit in the Royal Mail’s pension fund, New Labour is planning to sell off part of the company to a transnational corporation. New investment will be undertaken at the price of “modernisation” of this nominally public service, resulting in large-scale job losses and price increases. The break-up of post office services is an indication of what is to come. 

That, at least, is the plan and it is entirely consistent with New Labour’s role in life. This is to use the capitalist state to create opportunities for global companies operating in Britain to extract maximum profits from working people. With the capitalist economy in freefall, new opportunities for profit-taking are most welcome by business and part-privatisation does just that. 

It is no use the Communication Workers Union leaders pussy-footing around in a futile bid to try and isolate business secretary Lord Mandelson, who is introducing the legislation in the House of Lords on Thursday. Prime minister Brown and the rest of the cabinet are equally behind the sell-off because they are unreservedly committed not just to the preservation of but also to the enhancement of corporate and financial interests. 

Yet the transfer of wealth from taxpayers to banks will not avert the slide into slump that is now taking place at a rapid pace on both sides of the Atlantic. In America, Citibank and AIG insurance are once more on the point of collapse. Wall Street has fallen back to 1997 levels. A new shock to the system is being prepared that will produce social outrage and upheaval in country after country. The massive anti-government demonstration in Dublin at the weekend – equivalent to a march in London of 1.5 million – is a sign of what’s coming up the line. 

That’s why Brown’s bovver boys – aka the Metropolitan Police – are letting it be known that they are preparing for a "summer of rage". Superintendent David Hartshorn, who heads the Metropolitan police's public order branch, said. "Obviously the downturn in the economy, unemployment, repossessions, changes that [public mood]. Suddenly there is the opportunity for people to mass protest. It means that where we would possibly look at certain events and say, 'yes there'll be a lot of people there, there'll be a lot of banner waving, but generally it will be peaceful', [now] we have to make sure these elements [“extremists”] don't come out and hijack that event and turn that into disorder." 

There are also reports that a secret police intelligence unit has been set up to spy on political groups, to mount surveillance and run informers on “domestic extremists”.  The unit is being set up by the unaccountable and secretive Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) and will be based at Scotland Yard. Acpo was instrumental in co-ordinating the attacks on miners during their 1984-5 strike. 

Postal workers should challenge their leaders to start from these realities and mount a real, militant campaign against the Royal Mail sell-off. They would find ready allies throughout the country if they were involved in action to defeat and bring down New Labour to defend their jobs and pensions.  Any other course is sure to reinforce the government’s determination to pursue its role as the agency of big business. 

Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor

 

Rendition: lies and their liars

Who would you rather believe when it comes to "extraordinary rendition" – the British government and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) or the respected human rights body, the Council of Europe (CoE)? New Labour’s denial that British airports were used by the CIA for refuelling en route to torture camps is worthless. ACPO’s endorsement only shows that the police are lying too on behalf of their paymasters. The ACPO statement has been described as "miraculous" in its timing, for it appeared just as a CoE report was published showing how the CIA ran torture prisons in Poland and Romania after 9/11, with Britain providing support by allowing the agency’s planes to land at military and civilian airports. ACPO’s spin on behalf of New Labour is flatly contradicted by recent events. On 2 June a plane repeatedly linked to CIA torture flights was spotted at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk. Watching aviation experts said the aircraft, piloted by crew clad in desert fatigues, was immediately surrounded on the runway by armed American guards. Its registration number identifies it as a plane which the European Parliament says has been involved in "ghost flights" to smuggle terrorist suspects to torture camps around the world. The American Federal Aviation Authority lists the plane as being operated by two companies, Aviation World Wide Services and a sister company, Presidential Airways. These are shell companies operating as subsidiaries of Blackwater USA, "an important contractor for the CIA and the US military", according to the European Parliament. A recent book on Blackwater by American author Jeremy Scahill, described the company as the world's "most secretive and powerful mercenary firm". It was founded in 1997 by Erik Prince, a fundamentalist Christian millionaire.

The CoE dossier, compiled by Swiss senator Dick Marty, said the US had used Britain's help to establish a "global spider's web" of jails and airports to pursue a war on terror without rules. So-called US "high-value" detainees (HVD) were held in secret CIA detention centres in Poland and Romania between 2002 and 2005. It describes in detail the scope and functioning of the US’s HVD programme, which it says was set up by the CIA "with the co-operation of official European partners belonging to government services". A secret agreement between the US and NATO allies in October 2001 provided the framework for the CIA to do its dirty business in Europe. The programme "has given rise to repeated serious breaches of human rights", the report by the CoE’s parliamentary committee declared, including the torture of detainees. The report said that only Bosnia and Herzegovina and Canada, a Council of Europe observer state, had fully acknowledged their responsibilities with regard to the unlawful transfers of detainees. Marty said: "The fight against terrorism must not serve as an excuse for systematic recourse to illegal acts, massive violation of fundamental human rights and contempt for the rule of law. I hold this view not only because methods of this nature conflict with the constitutional order of all civilised countries and are ethically unacceptable, but also because they are not effective from the perspective of a genuine long-term response to terrorism." His report, which is worth reading in full, contrasts with the statement from the British Foreign Office, which said: "We have been through the records, and there is no evidence of detainees being rendered through the UK since 1997." Who would you rather believe?

Paul Feldman, communications editor