An army of “homeless people” is stationed across British cities, armed with Heckler and Koch MP7 rifles.
The British Army’s Special Air Service troops have been deployed as part of a new strategy against terror attacks.
Over the past three months, the working class of the United Kingdom has suffered three terrorist attacks, two in London and one in Manchester. For the bosses, these events have underscored the bosses’ debate over which brand of fascism will rule Britain. On June 8, when Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party made a surprisingly strong election showing against the ruling Conservatives, the disagreement got even sharper.
Building a Police State
The British imperialists have created their own terrorists by funding and fueling religious violence in the Middle East in their pursuit of oil, profit, and power.
Now, after these three vile attacks of individual terrorism, the UK’s capitalist bosses are moving more urgently to impose fascism—a heightened form of state terrorism—on the home front.
Prime Minister Theresa May, after being criticized for her role in overseeing police cuts, called for bolstering of police and security forces, including “changing human-rights laws to restrict the movement of suspects and ease their deportation” (Economist, 6/10).
While general police budget has been cut due to dropping crime rates, the budget for counter-terrorism “rose from £579m ($750 million) in 2010-11 to £633m in 2017-18. The intelligence agencies were given the go-ahead to recruit almost 2,000 extra officers in 2015, as the threat from Islamic State emerged” (Economist, 6/10).
Despite these increases, Britain’s former counter-terrorism chief Robert Quick charged that cuts to the police budget, and specifically “community policing,” has “hurt their counter-terrorism efforts” (Guardian, 6/6).
Others are advocating the recruitment of working-class people—including young Muslims—to be the eyes and arms of the capitalist state.
Cornwall police commissioner Alison Hernandez entertained the idea of civilian gun owners “helping defend rural areas against terror attack” (Guardian, 6/12). Though a senior officer dismissed the idea, the debate reflects a ruling class in disarray and in a dance with rising fascism.
Things Fall Apart
After its June 8 elections, the UK now has a prime minister who has lost respect, authority, and the Conservative Party’s majority in Parliament.
Next week, May is scheduled to begin negotiations on Britain’s breakup with the European Union. She appears unlikely to last long as prime minister, but whoever has the job will need to grapple with a UK in internal disarray, with declining real wages and a rise in racist nationalism. In other words, Britain looks much like the U.S. in the Donald Trump era.
Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, the UK’s Bernie Sanders, successfully misled much of the British youth who bothered to turn out to vote. Corbyn proposed not only to nationalize mail, rail, and energy businesses, but also to “raise corporation tax by more than a third over the next three years and plow the proceeds into schools and universities” (Bloomberg, 5/9). The disciplining of billionaires and nationalizing of companies is a hallmark of a country on the road to fascism and war.
Road to Revolution
Workers in UK, Europe, and worldwide have no real stake in one camp of fascists over another. While it is uncertain how the instability of the UK’s rulers will play out, the working class can be sure to expect more attacks on our class—be it from individual terrorists, state terrorists, or more wars.
Progressive Labor Party calls on workers to build a road to communist revolution. We carry on and advance the fight of communists before us. Join us as we construct an international Party to overthrow this horrifying profit system.