Diabolical liberty (1985)

From the June 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is the individual right to go to work during a strike equal to the collective right to strike? This is the issue at the centre of a row within the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) which resulted in the resignation of Larry Gostin, the General Secretary, four members of its Executive Committee and an Independent Inquiry team appointed to look at the civil liberties implications of the policing of the coal strike. It has also led to reports in the Press that NCCL has been hijacked by the Left, and claims from some NCCL members that, on the contrary, they have stopped the organisation from being dragged off its libertarian course by preventing an unholy alliance with such dubious elements as the uncivil and illiberal right. The latter was the policy that they claimed was advocated by Larry Gostin and his supporters.

NCCL was set up in 1934 as a result of concern about police brutality towards hunger marchers. Its objective as stated in its founding constitution was:

to assist in the maintenance of hard-won rights, especially freedom of speech, the press and assembly, from all infringements by executive or judicial authority contrary to the due process of law, or infringement by the tendency of governmental or other agencies to use their powers at the expense of the precarious liberties for which citizens of this country have fought

and to:

aid in advancing measures for the recovery or enlargement of these liberties (cited in Patricia Hewitt. The NCCL Fifty Years On in Peter Wellington (ed), Civil Liberties 1984. p.15).

Over the years NCCL's activities have included monitoring police behaviour at marches and demonstrations; preparing legal test cases where it is believed that an individual's rights have been abused; setting up enquiries into incidents such as the demonstration in Southall in 1979 which resulted in the death of Blair Peach; campaigns for withdrawal of, or amendments to, legislation which has extended state power such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

NCCL has consistently claimed to be an organisation concerned with civil liberties issues rather than with social justice (a point reiterated by Larry Gostin on his resignation). Patricia Hewitt, a former NCCL General Secretary, wrote:

From the outset. NCCL saw its activities as belonging to a specific tradition of civil liberties — the defence of civil and political rights, such as freedom of speech and association, rather than economic and social rights, such as the right to education or a minimum standard of living (Patricia Hewitt, op. cit., p. 16).

It was hoped that by adopting such a position NCCL would be able to cut across party political divisions. But this stance has not. over the years, always proved successful. In 1946 such eminent members as George Orwell and E.M. Forster resigned from NCCL because they believed it was being used as a front organisation for the Communist Party. NCCL's traditional links with the trade union movement have also led to accusations that NCCL is too closely associated with the Labour Party — a view that has gained increasing currency as a result of the recent developments.

The recent controversy, which came to a head at NCCL's AGM, arises from a resolution taken by the 1984 AGM to set up an independent inquiry into the policing of the coal strike. The inquiry's terms of reference were as follows:

To inquire into and thereby establish the fullest possible account and the civil liberties implications of the role of the police, the police authorities and the criminal courts in the events arising from and relating to the NUM dispute, which began in March 1984 (Preface to Civil Liberties and the Miners ' Dispute, First Report of the Independent Inquiry).

In December 1984 the Inquiry team published an interim report which immediately sparked off angry debate within NCCL. While the report was largely critical of the conduct of the police towards striking miners, it also contained the following paragraph:

We accept that the freedom not to take part in a strike is as much a fundamental right as the right to strike. Going to work during a strike is in any case a lawful activity, and like any other lawful activity ought not to be impeded by violence, threats or physical obstruction. We have identified the freedom to travel unhindered for any lawful purpose as a fundamental liberty; this is equally so whether the purpose is peaceful picketing, taking part in a demonstration, or simply going to work (First Report of the Independent Inquiry, p.6.)

It was this equation of the "right to strike" with the "right not to take part in a strike" and the report's comments about the behaviour of both striking and working miners which led to its being condemned as a "Scab's Charter".

At the end of February, NCCL's executive committee passed a number of motions which censured the inquiry team. Firstly, they "regretted" that the independent inquiry "exceeded its terms of reference in commenting on the conduct of striking and working miners and in setting out civil liberty principles which did not directly relate to the role of the police, police authorities and criminal courts". This resolution was upheld by the AGM. Secondly, the executive committee "regretted" that the presentation of the report, and especially its plea that all sides "refrain from violence, intimidation or other actions likely to cause injury or public disorder or provoke unnecessary ill-feeling", was "unnecessarily damaging to the miners' cause". Again this was upheld by the AGM. Thirdly, the executive committee stated that "the right to strike is a fundamental civil liberty and entirely rejects the proposition that those who break strikes are exercising an equally fundamental right". The AGM passed a similarly worded resolution.

Larry Gostin resigned as General Secretary a few days later because, as he wrote in his letter of resignation:

I, of course, respect the democracy of NCCL, but feel I could not publicly defend the full range of NCCL policies in good conscience, and with conviction and credibility. (The Times. 3 May 1985)

What should be made of this controversy? Is it just an internal political battle between different factions within NCCL? While this may be the case, it raises serious questions which are worth examining in greater detail, particularly that of the right to strike versus the right not to strike.

In the context of the coal strike this issue was made more complicated because the NUM did not hold a strike ballot. The miners who continued to work could therefore claim, with some justification, that since they had not been given the opportunity to express their views democratically through a ballot, the only way they could exercise their freedom of "thought, conscience and belief' (a ''right" contained in NCCL's own Charter of Civil Rights and Liberties) was by continuing to work during the strike.

But suppose that a strike ballot had been called and a majority of NUM members had democratically decided to take strike action. What then would be the position of the minority of NUM members who. for whatever reason, disagreed with the strike? One option open to them would be to obey the strike call but not to take part in strike activities. such as picketing, on the grounds that while the individuals concerned did not support this strike they did support their trade union, recognised the importance of trade union solidarity and felt that more damage would be done to the Union as a whole through continuing to work than they would gain as individuals by exercising the "right" to act on conscience.

An alternative, if the "dissenter" within the union felt strongly enough against the strike would be to continue to work, but at the same time to accept both the "right" of strikers to try to persuade him not to cross the picket line during a strike, and also the "right" of the union to decide that such actions were incompatible with union membership.

Both of these positions are equally tenable for a civil libertarian. A majority of delegates at NCCL's AGM decided however that the collective "right" to strike took precedence over the "right" of the individual to carry on working during a strike. Their argument was that the strike weapon — the most effective weapon that workers have against their employers — is undermined if the majority of union members do not support the strike and so their "collective right" can be rendered useless by individuals exercising their "right" to dissent.

One can't avoid the feeling that those who support this position have taken a number of ingredients (as contained in NCCL's Charter) which they like the sound of, mixed them up and have then become disappointed when they can't stomach the resulting cake — that is, that civil liberties, according to their recipe, also apply to people whose actions they find unacceptable. At the AGM they tried to change the recipe by saying that there should be a little more "collective rights" and a little less "individual rights". Several of the cooks of the original cake took offence and resigned.

However, it has not occurred to any of the protagonists as yet that maybe they need a completely new recipe. An organisation like NCCL whose intention is to defend civil liberties (however they are defined) is only necessary in a society in which the "liberties" of citizens can be curtailed by "governmental or other agencies". In most cases this means incursions by the state — the police, courts, army, government — or by those who hold economic power, the capitalist class, against those who are powerless in society. These two institutions, the state and the capitalist class, are not independent of each other. On the contrary, they live in a symbiotic relationship: the capitalist class, the minority who own and control the means of producing wealth in society, require the state to defend and administer their interests and the state would be unable to function without the resources that the capitalist class grants it. NCCL seeks to defend people from what they regard as the unjustifiable use of state power but to do that within the very system — capitalism — which itself creates the need for the state.

The coal strike exposed the diametrically opposed class interests of workers and the capitalist class. Both sides in the dispute expressed these interests in terms of "rights the right of the Coal Board to manage (to close pits that didn't produce enough profit) and the right of NUM members to express their opposition to pit closures by taking strike action. Some miners did not see the dispute in these terms and mistakenly thought that their interests were better served by continuing to work and claimed the "right" to do so.

While organisations like NCCL and the trade union movement can fight to preserve rights we should never forget what the "right to work" and the "right to strike" really mean. The right to work amounts to little more than the right to sell our labour power for a wage or salary so that we and our families can live. It means spending a considerable amount of time engaged in work that we may not enjoy and from which we, as workers, never derive any benefit. The right to strike is one of the few weapons that the working class has at its disposal to use against capital to prevent working conditions and living standards from being driven down still further. It should be used cautiously since it is the weapon of last resort and entails considerable hardship and suffering for workers engaged in strike action.

Where then does this leave NCCL? If it is to be a consistently civil libertarian organisation that applies the principles set out in its constitution and Charter, and works within capitalism without concerning itself with social justice, then it must accept all the contradictions that that will entail and also the possibility of upholding the "rights" of individuals whose views or actions it finds abhorrent.

Perhaps at least some workers among NCCL's members will have been led by this argument to look more closely at the whole issue of civil liberties and to question the value of trying to defend such rights and liberty in the context of a system of society which itself constantly acts as a fetter on the freedom of all workers — that is the freedom to democratically control the society in which we live and the wealth we produce.

Janie Percy-Smith

Open Prison (2006)

From the February 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

On January 1st, police in Britain were given sweeping new powers. Police are now allowed, if they think it “necessary”, to hold anyone they suspect of any offence – motorists who are not wearing seat belts, for instance, or who commit the felony of driving in a bus lane, or even your young ne’er-do-well who throws his fish supper wrapper away in the street. Moreover, the police will be allowed to store a digital photograph of you on a database even if you have been found not guilty of the charge you were originally arrested for.

The Home Office is changing the law because current legislation on what is an arrestable offence is, they argue, “bewildering”.  So on the one hand you have the Home Office suggesting your average cop is too daft to make his/her mind up as to what is a criminal offence, while at the same time asking the police to make an on-the-spot decision on whether or not it is “necessary” to arrest your average lawbreaker for gobbing his wad of chewing gum onto the pavement.

It’s already bad enough that Britain has more CCTVs spying on us than any other country on the planet (an estimated 300 cameras will have watched me when I get back home after a day’s bargain-hunting in Newcastle), that the British police have the biggest DNA database in the world, that your location can be tracked to within 6 feet when you use your mobile phone. But from this March, almost every car journey made in this country will be logged by CCTV and satellite cameras, and stored away for future reference on a police database.

Terrestrial and space-based cameras make it possible for the state to recognise your car number-plates anywhere you go and, we are told, quite soon they will be able to recognise human faces as well.

With 77 percent of MPs now favouring the introduction of a national identity card and the Identity Cards Bill due another vote in the House of Commons, now that the Lords have made their minor amendments, it looks as if the State – 2008 is when Labour seeks to introduce them – will soon have another means of collecting and collating information about us.

It is anticipated that eventually, as well as carrying our photos, biometric ID cards will hold iris scans and fingerprints. Moreover, the database holding all the information on our ID cards would not only be accessible by the police, but open to the immigration service and numerous public and private organisations.

Forgive me for being alarmist, but I’m betting that in a few years every single adult in Britain will have their mug-shot and their entire personal history on a police database; that the day will come when your movements will be logged the moment you leave your home in the morning.

No doubt people, like me, concerned about increased police powers and increasing state intrusion into our daily affairs will be met with the imbecilic line: “If you’re not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about.” This cop-out totally misses the point. In truth this has nothing to do with our innocence. It’s all about mistrust; about the state saying we can not trust a single one of you as far as we could kick you. The state is saying you have a brain and are capable of thought, so you are therefore a potential threat to very powerful interests and consequently need to be tracked 24/7. This is the state saying they want to know everything about us from the moment we’re born until the second our heart stops beating.

When you consider the state has access to the NHS database, to info transmitted each time we use credit cards (the spy in your wallet), to info that will be contained on the coming national id cards, the info gleaned at GCHQ in Cheltenham, at the NSA base at Menwith Hill that scrutinises our phone conversations and scans our email, the info amassed by Echelon, perhaps the most powerful intelligence gathering organization in the world and sponsored by the USA and the UK, then it’s time to sit up and start worrying.

Think not? Consider also the introduction of radio-frequency identification tagging (RFID) which started in stock control and on motorway tollgates in the USA. Supermarkets are now using this technology – electronic chips that send out a code when exited – with companies like M&S and Tescos investing millions in this new spy hardware. It is anticipated that soon the chips will be small enough to be undetectable in products such as clothing, the carrier being detectable from space.

Our civil liberties are not only being eroded by the day, but the state is intruding deeper and deeper into our personal lives. You can sit back and accept it all as inevitable in this post-9/11 world and reconcile yourself to a lifetime of mind-numbing conformity, inside of your new open prison – for this is what Britain and many other countries are turning into – never daring to think an out-of-the-place thought about the system that exploits you, afraid you may accidentally commit a “crime” on your way to the shops (some security camera catching you walking on the grass or expectorating a lump of phlegm). Or you can organise with others in an attempt to wrest state control from those who use it as a means of utter oppression on behalf of the master class. But don’t take too long to think about it – your thoughts may one day not be your own.

John Bissett

A Strikebreakers Charter (1985)

From the July 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent controversy in the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) which led to the resignation of its general secretary. Larry Gostin, over whether or not the right to work during a strike is a fundamental "civil liberty", showed up the unreal legalistic world in which civil libertarians imagine we are living. “Civil and religious liberty" was one of the slogans under which the bourgeois revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which resulted in political power passing into the hands of the direct ancestors of the present capitalist ruling class, were carried out. This was based on what has been called, appropriately, the theory of possessive individualism in which human beings were seen as originally free and independent individuals who had set up social and political institutions as a way of preserving and furthering their individual interests and rights. This was a revolutionary doctrine at the time as it provided a justification for opposing political regimes left over from feudalism as illegitimate, which denied individuals their supposed nature-given (or god-given, as some put it) right freely to pursue their own self-interest in the economic field. Today this ideology is somewhat anachronistic (the Orange Order parades under it each year in Northern Ireland) and leads to bizarre conclusions when applied to modern-day capitalism.

If we are to take this ideology literally, the fundamental activity of any society — the production of wealth — is achieved today by certain members of society freely contracting to sell their mental and physical energies for a wage or salary to certain other members of society. As this is a contract freely entered into by individuals it can also, according to the ideology of civil liberty, be just as freely ended at any time by one or other party. For instance, if the seller of labour power recognises that the buyer (the employer) has not fully respected their side of the bargain, or if he or she simply wants a better deal, then they are free to refuse to work; they can go on strike. Thus civil libertarians are prepared to recognise a right to strike as a fundamental civil liberty possessed by all individuals in a "free" society. But equally, those like Larry Gostin argue, an individual has the liberty not to strike if he or she so chooses, even if the rest of their work colleagues have decided to exercise their individual right to strike. Hence, for them the right to strike-break is also a civil liberty, just as fundamental as the right to strike.

This whole theory is based on a number of myths, above all that the wages contract is a bargain between free and equal individuals. This is not at all the case since one side (the employer) has the whip-hand by virtue of being a member of the class which monopolises the means of production; that is to say, the means of life. This results in the rest of society being able to live only by selling their ability to work to an employer. They have no choice about this — they are forced to sell it as a condition for obtaining some access to the things they need to live. But this is not all; the employers only agree to buy the ability to work of individual members of the excluded class if they think they can make a profit out of selling what they produce. In other words, the class which monopolises the means of production in effect uses its position to hold the rest of society to ransom by extracting a tribute from them as a condition for allowing them to use the means of production.

So the fundamental social activity of wealth production, far from being achieved through free contracts made between individuals as civil libertarian theory assumes, is in fact achieved through the economic and political coercion of one class in society by another. Social relations at the point of production are relations of coercion, domination and exploitation, in which individual rights are overridden and where might is right. This places strikes in a completely different light. They are a means resorted to by members of the excluded, exploited class to resist and mitigate their oppression and exploitation by the monopolising, employing class. They are part of the class struggle built into the capitalist society which the revolutionary civil libertarians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries helped to usher in.

To be effective, a strike needs to involve as many members of the workforce as possible, ideally all of them, since in their struggle to resist the downward pressure from their employers the only weapons the workers have are their members, their determination and, above all, their unity. That "unity is strength" is something workers have learned by bitter experience. Strikes can — and have in the past — been the work of a determined minority imposing their will on a majority of their colleagues. This can work, but experience has also shown that a strike has much more chance of success if it has the approval of at least a majority of those concerned. This is why it has become a working class tradition to take strike decisions democratically, whether by a show of hands, a delegate conference, individual ballot, or some other way. A unanimous decision would be ideal, and sometimes this is achieved, but more normally the decision to strike is a majority decision. From the point of view of class interest of the workers involved, it is reasonable that this majority decision should be binding on those who voted against strike action as, if the minority were allowed to go to work, the effectiveness of the strike would be undermined. A strike is a trial of strength, a battle in the class war in which unity is an important, in fact the key weapon on the strikers' side. So for naive civil libertarians to intervene in such trials of strength by proclaiming, in accordance with some abstract principle, the right of individual members of the minority to go to work, is to weaken the strikers' side and so, objectively, to strengthen that of the employers. No wonder the trade union members of the NCCL voted against the right to work during a strike as a fundamental liberty. And no wonder Gostin and the others won the support of the media, Tory and SDP Members of Parliament and other opponents of the working class and their trade unions.

We will give Gostin the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is sincere but naive (rather than a conscious agent of the employing class), but this episode well illustrates the unreal view civil libertarians have of the world in which we are living. Present-day society is not a community of free and equal members but a society divided into classes with irreconcilable interests, an antagonism which manifests itself from time to time in strikes. Rather than proclaiming the right of strikebreakers to work during a strike, civil libertarians would be advised to examine whether the fact of a minority monopolising the means of production to the exclusion of the rest of society is not a much more fundamental infringement of the principle they proclaim of an individual's right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". For the class monopoly of the means of production means wage-slavery and the denial of free access to what they need to live and to enjoy life to the majority of the members of society. This is a major denial of liberty today, one whose removal would usher in a really free society of equals in which legal guarantees to protect the rights of the individual would be unnecessary since all individuals would be free. As a matter of fact, with the abolition of class society strikes would no longer happen because the antagonism of interests of which they are a manifestation would have disappeared.

The right to strike is not a characteristic of a free society; on the contrary, it is the hallmark of an unfree society since strikes are only necessary when society is divided into antagonistic classes, one of which exploits the other. Having said this, what is called the right to strike (but which is in reality the might to strike) is important to the wage and salary earning class as long as class society lasts.

Adam Buick

The Patriotism Game (1987)

From the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Have you heard about the new game they're playing in Westminster? It's called "I'm a bigger patriot than you are". In the blue comer there's the Conservative team led by Maggie "Falklands-factor" Thatcher. In the rose pink comer there's the Labour team led by Neil "I'd-die-for-my-country'' Kinnock. And sitting on the fence as usual there's the Alliance in their new yellow team colours. And the prize? Up to five years of intoxicating power; and for the winning team leader residence at that most desirable of addresses - Ten Downing Street.

The BBC put the ball into play by banning a programme about Zircon, a £500 million spy satellite, whose existence had been kept a secret from Parliament. Alasdair Milne, director-general of the BBC, showed his own patriotic colours by insisting that he had not been got at by the Conservative team coach, Norman Tebbit, but had banned the programme all on his own because it "could represent a breach of national security". However. this bold attempt to enter the patriotism game was not enough to prevent him being declared unfit to play by the BBC chief Duke Hussey.

The Tories picked up the ball that had been tossed in the air by the BBC to loud cheers from all sides and immediately appealed to the referee. House of Commons speaker Bernard Weatherill, who ruled that it was off-side for the Zircon film to be shown to Labour team supporters inside Westminster. But just as Thatcher looked as if she was going to surge ahead in the patriotism stakes, there running right beside her was Kinnock who quickly scored a couple of points for the Labour team by not only accepting the refs decision but also supporting the government's motion to stop his own team members from seeing the film. He recognised that Thatcher was wielding the national security card - always a trump - and said:

If the Government says that this is a serious matter of national security, I must take their word for it until such time as that claim is substantiated or otherwise.

This earned him and other leading lights of the Labour team a bonus point in the form of a secret briefing on "Privy Council" terms with the Foreign Secretary which convinced them that national security was indeed at stake. But just as Labour were beginning to look like seriously patriotic contenders, some renegade Labour team members were in danger of scoring an own goal by arranging a private showing of the banned film in Westminster. But they were met by a picket consisting of the Serjeant-at-Arms' linesmen. With some fancy ducking and weaving the renegades headed for Transport House where they watched the film out of sight of the ref.

Kinnock, recognising that the activities of the Labour renegades could lose him points, launched a new attack himself by claiming that if the government side really cared about national security as much as he did, then they would not only have banned the film, but also prevented publication of an article in the New Statesman giving details about Zircon which had been written by Duncan Campbell (who had made the film). This audacious tackle left even some of his own team reeling in astonishment. After all wasn't the New Statesman a Labour supporters' mag? What was the wily Welshman up to?

The score was looking pretty even when Thatcher raised the spectre of the "enemy within", a favourite move for the Iron Lady when feeling cornered. She said:

Unfortunately, there seem to be people who are more interested in trying to ferret out information of use to our enemies than in preserving the defence interests of this country and thus the freedoms that we all enjoy.

It was a good try but Kinnock had seen it coming and had already dissociated himself from the New Statesman and the unfortunate Campbell.

But this was not the last attack the journalist was going to suffer. Three days later the government raised the stakes by authorising a raid on Campbell's home and the New Statesman's offices by its henchmen at the Special Branch. The Labour renegades led by Robin Cook tried to start a new game - the "We-support-civil-liberties-more-than-you-do" game - and began to look as though they might attract supporters away from the patriotism game. But again the Tory team upped the stakes with another surprise tackle by the Special Branch this time on the offices of BBC Scotland who had made the banned film.

At first they looked as if they might be over-stretching themselves. The BBC claimed that the Special Branch's authorisation to play, issued under Section Nine of the Official Secrets Act, did not permit them to remove anything they took a fancy to. A judge agreed and made the Special Branch give everything back to the BBC. The Special Branch withdrew, regrouped and armed with a new search warrant issued under Section Two of the Official Secrets Act, launched a new attack which resulted in them carrying off the trophies they had been looking for - anything they could get their hands on that had anything at all to do with any of the six Secret Society programmes. Kinnock was caught off balance by this new tactic and looked as if he was in danger of forgetting which game he was playing. Was it the "patriotism" game or "civil liberties"? He said that the raid was "deeply offensive to the standards of freedom" but then went on to say:

The Government was told there had been a security leak about Zircon last June - not October as the Prime Minister said. For seven months they have done nothing useful. Now they have ordered the police to go charging off to Scotland to search through the whole series.
I thought wasting police time was an offence.

Was this a crafty attempt to play both the civil liberties and the patriotism games at the same time? Would he be able to pull it off? Would people notice that he was asking for films to be banned and also condemning police raids on the BBC as infringements of civil liberties? By this time the Alliance also thought that it was safe the enter the fray. David Owen briefly jumped off the fence to give a rallying cry. "The BBC must not take this lying down" he said. Roy Jenkins was more or less obliged to stick his oar in since BBC Scotland is in his constituency and asked: "What is the supreme objective for which the Government is prepared to look as though it were running a second-rate police state infused by illiberalism and incompetence?" But what did this mean? Did he want a first-rate police state infused with liberalism and competence instead? David Steel asked a similar question: "Is the knock on the door in the middle of the night to become part of our society?"

Meanwhile the game was getting to be more and more farcical: hundreds of people queued up to see a bootleg copy of the banned film; every newspaper was carrying as many details as they could about the "not-so-secret" spy satellite; Sir Frank Cooper, former permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence, said that "everybody knows where everybody's satellite is and you can see lists which are published in defence journals of who's launched what, where, what its orbit is. And I think you can probably do this using schoolchildren in Milton Keynes or somewhere". And just to put the boot in completely it turned out that the "subversive" Campbell had had a friendly chat over lunch with Sir Michael Havers, the Attorney General. about the film; one of the programmes in the Secret Society series was made with the full cooperation of the Ministry of Defence; and the government really had known about the leak about Zircon and the BBC film for ages without doing anything about it. The Thatcher team tried to win back some lost ground by trying to dissociate themselves from the Special Branch and claimed that they had not authorised the raid on the BBC. So who had? Or had the Special Branch broken away and formed their own independent team?

Or maybe the Tory team weren't playing the "patriotism" game after all. Maybe it was all a front and what they were really playing was that other Whitehall favourite - "Them and Us". The rules for this are as follows: "They" are a very small team but have a number of things in their favour. They control, directly or indirectly, most of the TV and radio companies, most of the daily newspapers and other sources of "news”. What's more they have access to important information that no-one else can see unless they say so. The object of the game is for us to find out as much as we can about government, politics and the civil service. However, they have a few other tricks up their sleeve should we get too close to finding out anything that they think will show them up to be dishonest, incompetent and undemocratic: the umpires — the courts — are usually on their side so that if they say the magic words “national security" then the judges will say that we can't have the information. Also they can make up the rules as they go along to suit themselves. They can also feed us bits of "news" which show them up in a good light in the hope that this will distract us from what is really going on. And finally, if we get too close to the truth, then they can call up reinforcements in the shape of the police and Special Branch. This doesn't mean we can't win. only that it is difficult. However, we have the advantage of numbers on our side. What we don't have as yet is the determination and clear sense of purpose that are necessary. However, if they continue to behave in the duplicitous and ridiculous manner that they have over the Zircon film, then things might very well become considerably easier.

Janie Percy-Smith

The Sedition Act (1935)

From the January 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Incitement to Disaffection Act has been the subject of attacks from many quarters, particularly from organisations with working-class labels, where it has aroused something like hysteria.

The Act will give the Government wide powers in dealing with those “who are attempting to seduce members of the armed forces from their allegiance to the Crown.” Pacifists, Churchmen, Liberals, Labourites, I.L.P.ers, Communists, and even some Conservatives, have been boon companions for the purpose of denouncing this Bill as an attack on “ Liberty, Democracy, Political Freedom,” etc.

The Act, however, is not of fundamental importance. The capitalists, undisturbed in their control of the State machine, have, in fact, always been able to restrict working-class activities when they found it necessary, and will continue to do so until the workers cease voting their masters into power.

It is, therefore, nothing short of impertinence for Liberals, Churchmen and others who have aided Governments in the past to suppress the workers at times of strikes, lock-outs, etc., to pose as protectors of “ Our Rights.”

Similarly with the Labour Party’s protests in the House of Commons.

Mr. Lansbury, for instance, who asked for an assurance that troops would not be used against the workers during industrial disputes (he called it “An open case of favouring the employers!”), must have a conveniently short memory. Else why should he expect a Conservative Government to do what the Labour Government of 1924 bluntly refused to do, when they turned down an amendment by Mr. Lansbury, which would have given Army recruits the option of refusing to take duty in connection with a trade dispute. (Parliamentary Reports, April 2nd, 1934.)

Was not that same Labour Government prepared to use the Emergency Powers Act against the Transport Workers, who were then on strike? (Daily Herald, April 1st, 1924.)

Their objections seem as little sincere as those of the religious fraternity, who denounced the Sedition Bill as being antagonistic to the teachings of Christianity. This Church and its mouthpieces are truly fit apostles of Freedom! (Incidentally, it may be noted that Sir T. Inskip, the Attorney-General, who was in charge of the Bill for the Government, is a devout Churchman.) Among the opponents of the Bill were organisations like the Communist Party and the I.L.P., which toy with the suicidal idea of armed insurrection. It does not appear to have occurred to them that their activities have provided the Government with a good excuse for pushing this Bill through.

It does not, however, materially alter the conditions of the task of converting the workers to Socialism. When a majority of the workers are Socialists and are politically organised, they will gain control of the State-machine, which carries with it control of the armed forces.

There is no need, therefore, to engage in the costly and almost fruitless task of converting soldiers to Socialism first.

In any event it is odd that reformist professional politicians, who do not preach Socialism to the civil population should think it worth their while to peddle their Reformist stock-in-trade amongst the armed forces. Moreover, while the leaders may be aware of the risks they are running, this is not always true of their working-class victims in the Army, Navy, or Air Force, on whom the law is much more severe.

The S.P.G.B. condemns such activities as dangerous and futile from the working-class standpoint.

Dangerous, because it gives reactionaries an excuse and a weapon for political suppression, futile because Socialism cannot be established through a civil war fought by non-Socialists about reformist issues.

To achieve Socialism it is necessary to have a majority of the working class who understand and want a Socialist system of production and distribution, the common ownership of the means of life. Given such a majority organised in the Socialist Party, any questions of the views and actions of the armed forces will fall into their proper perspective. The Socialist Movement has too many real problems to waste time on imaginary ones.

Sid Rubin

After Spywatcher — What? (1987)

From the November 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Will anything of lasting value come out of the Spycatcher affair? That was a question I asked myself on a hot evening in August. Along with many others I was packed into Bristol's Watershed centre to listen to readings from the great forbidden book. One well-thumbed copy was to be raffled at a pound a ticket. Another was to be given away by a local magazine, to the winner of a competition in which you had to image yourself a loony right-wing security agent bent on destabilising the Thatcher government: what rumour would you circulate? The Chair of the meeting reported apologies from a host of celebrities who were on holiday. It didn't matter that the TV cameras weren't here, he said (with only a hint of disappointment in his voice). We still roasted under the spotlights because a trade union camera was recording the proceedings.

The event itself had been preceded early in the morning by a warm-up bout between local MP William Waldegrave and a representative of the National Council for Civil Liberties on Radio Bristol. The NCCL representative had spoken in indignant and stirring tones about censorship and freedom of speech, but without any qualifications. This enabled Waldegrave to complain that the NCCL itself believes in censorship (because it supports the Race Relations Act's embargo on incitement to racial hatred). That point went unanswered, as did the counter-accusation against Waldegrave, that he ignored the seriousness of the charges made in Wright's book by echoing the government line about secret service officers' lifetime obligation of confidentiality. Never mind, a discussion was promised after the readings that evening. That might be worthwhile even if the Waldegrave view was almost certain to go unrepresented.

The readings themselves were entertaining if unremarkable. We can be fairly sure that all the interesting charges made in the book are now already in the public domain, and all that remain are the trimmings. So we heard about the familiar alleged plot to subvert the Wilson government. Khrushchev's vanity, the madness of the alleged plots against Nasser, and the dangers posed for secret service infiltrators of left-wing groups by the promiscuity of their members. The book was well-written and clearly very funny, usually unintentionally. I checked on the safety of my raffle ticket and kept my fingers crossed.

Came the discussion. The Chair suggested, at inordinate length given the tight time schedule, that we confine our attention to four main areas. Alas, he spoke with more insistence than clarity, and when I compared notes with a friend after the meeting we could still only discern three. The first person to emerge from the darkness and brave the spotlight and microphone said he was an ordinary person who belonged to no groups and had never spoken to more than half a dozen people in public. He was just upset to be told he couldn't read the book. A number of journalists spoke with convincing passion on a matter which affects them to a greater degree than, and in a different way from other people. There was the inevitable contribution from a member of the Smash The State Tendency, prompting early departures from the hall. "Thank you. comrade", said the Chair icily. But mainly it was "Thank you, Brian", 'Thank you. Dawn", as a succession of figures, doubtless familiar with one another, made their points

A CND representative reminded us of the extent of surveillance over members and conveyed successfully how upsetting it could be to be on the receiving end. A pleasant man from the Green Party said they were entitled to their paranoia too, and told of delayed mail and phones which didn't work around election time. Well, yes, problems suffered by tens of thousands at other times too. But then, as we all know by now, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. A lawyer pointed out cases where the public interest had been held to outweigh any duty of confidentiality. We were urged to support NCCL and the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom.

Towards the end of the meeting the Chair remarked on the unanimity of the opposition which had been expressed to the banning of the book and invited anyone to speak in favour. No one did. The MI5 man (for he was surely there, and surely a man?) kept silent.

My own feeling was that the set pieces we had heard did little to advance understanding or to place the Wright Affair in a wide enough context. To be sure, more than one speaker reminded us that the dirty tricks of secret service agents go on under Labour as well as Conservative governments, that it was a Labour government which pushed through the Prevention of Terrorism Act in ten days, that it was under a Labour government that the ABC trial took place. And we had been urged to look at the broader political issues, and agitate for more accountability. But accountability in what form, and to whom?

Justified feelings of outrage had been expressed, but it was outrage of a very limited kind. Something had been done which was unfair by the rules of the game, but no one questioned the nature of the game. Did the speakers think there should be a secret service at all? If so, how far did they think it would be compatible with its effective functioning to demand that it be publicly accountable? If not, did they recognise that paranoia notwithstanding, other foreign powers had agents who got up to dirty tricks which might affect us? Were they all, as they seemed to be, content with the minimal degree of genuine accountability which elected representatives are subject to? If so, how much control could that possibly leave us, the ordinary members of the public, over "our” security services? If not, what ideas might they have for moulding a more adequate set of democratic institutions than those associated with twelve crosses in a lifetime? Without the raising of fundamental questions like these, there will be many more Peter Wrights and many more undetected dirty tricks.

Keith Graham

Civil Liberties (1984)

Book Review from the October 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Civil Liberties 1984 Ed. Peter Wallington (Martin Robertson 1984)

Civil Liberties 1984 is a compilation of articles by different authors which taken together form a review of the work of the National Council of Civil Liberties (NCCL) in its 50th anniversary year and provide an assessment of the current state of civil liberties in the UK. The articles could in many ways be reviewed separately as the subjects range from gay rights to the threats to liberty in government decisions on weapons and economic energy systems. It is also perhaps not a book to be read from cover to cover but to select short, well written articles from and to use as a handy reference book, particularly on test cases, although the index is occasionally dubious.

As is stressed in Patricia Hewitt's chapter on the NCCL and its history, the council was founded to advocate the defence of civil and political rights rather than economic and social rights; it is here that its problem lies. The NCCL is continuously beset by a lack of funds and is often unable to defeat vested interests; for example national newspaper magnates considerably restrict the information and opinions available to the public.

The chapter by Polly Pattullo on women's rights well illustrates the limitations of reforming organisations like the NCCL. She criticises, for example, the way in which the Sex Discrimination Act fails to go far enough to protect a woman's ‘‘right" to work for a wage but she fails to realise that even if women did have equal pay for equivalent jobs they would still not be at liberty since both working men and women, and those they support, would experience inequality in access to goods and alienating work would still be compulsory for survival. It is a hollow freedom to fight for the right of everyone to dine at the Ritz without realising that few people are wealthy enough to be able to afford this.

Many articles provide information on the limited extent of our “freedom". As one would expect the book is punctured with Orwellian references to the uses of surveillance and the secrecy of state operations ostensibly for and in the name of the people. As James Michael points out. although not knowing exactly what surveillance is carried out on individuals, people can be inhibited from protesting about society and without the knowledge of information on government decisions and technology the democratic process is seriously fettered. John Griffith in his chapter on The Democratic Process summarises the position well:

This society is pluralist in that power is distributed among many institutions . . . but, at the highest levels of the state, power becomes concentrated in the hands of a few. The oligarchy then spreads its influence widely and deeply over subordinate institutions. private as well as public. Being based on class, it is able to engage the self interest also of that great number who depend on the preservation and continuance of its considerable power. It becomes highly manipulative and can rely not only on persuasion and propaganda but also on that self interest. Its hegemony is all the easier to manipulate because its dependants cannot see any alternative structure that will obviously give them more of the better things in life, (p.85)

In Peter Wallington’s chapter on Freedom of Speech he argues that

We have significantly less freedom of expression either in law or in practice than is generally believed. that on balance freedom is declining and that threats to its preservation are real and imminent. (p.55)

Wallington points to the possibilities opened up by new communication technology but at the same time warns of the dangers of government censorship and control; for example, the government's indirect control on the BBC and IBA and the emergency powers that the government has for a complete takeover of broadcasting if the need arises, (a move considered during the Suez crisis). Wallington also makes the distinction between impartiality in reporting information and news from a so-called middle position which favours the existing consensus and which fails to report and consider the diversity of opinions outside the centre of political thought.

The same criticism could, in fact, to a certain extent be levied at Civil Liberties 1984. The chapters on the police and criminal processes deal with the situation which one would expect under the present system where wealth and consequently power are concentrated in the hands of a few; and so the police and censorship are necessary to keep the majority in subordination. The authors as a whole consider more humane methods of policing while ignoring the reasons policing is a necessity in the present society. They fail to give due consideration to an alternative where people as a whole will own the means of production and distribution; thus privilege and its corollary, money would be rendered archaic. As John Alderson says:

In an ideal world there would be no need for the police . . . But human experience indicates that noble sentiments alone are too weak to control those whose ambitions, greed and anger, give way to threatening and damaging activity on either a small or a grand scale. From rebellion to simple theft there are requirements for laws and for some form of enforcement of those laws. (pp. 170-171)

In a socialist world there will be no need for the police since theft and greed will be unknown in a society which produces in abundance and no one's access to goods is restricted. Freedom of discussion and new ideas for the improvement of living conditions will be welcomed. Alderson reminds us, however, noble sentiments alone are not enough — even for the NCCL. A system designed to preserve a privileged minority is not going to allow reforms to usurp its position. A democratic revolution by the world's people is necessary to produce a society in which all people, regardless of race or sex, can fulfil themselves.

Fiona Douglas

Big Brother (2011)

Book Review from the December 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

The No-Nonsense Guide to Global Surveillance. By Robin Tudge. New Internationalist.

My first thoughts on finishing this book were: not for the paranoid.  Although this journal has covered the issue of global surveillance in the past, Trudge takes us deeper, and into a world in which our every movement is monitored, if not via CCTVs, then via our online activity, whether it be on Facebook or Google (where every word searched is stored and matched to the searcher’s ISP address), or our shopping, banking and travelling preferences and our activity in the workplace. Moreover, this information, whether in private hands, gleaned by the state, by social networks or by social welfare, is shared and converged between corporations and other states on a  scale that beggars belief, and all ostensibly rationalised on the grounds that it is in all our interests.

Our governments, corporations and even social network sites such as Facebook are unremittingly urging us to pass on to them ever more information about us. They simply can’t get enough on us. Tudge informs us that data about the average Briton, for example, is on about 700 databases – and asks “who can name even ten of those databases?”.

For some time, just to take one example of the problem,  there has existed ECHELON, a global communications network, spying on us from land, sea, air and space, “intercepting every phone call, email, fax, telex or message sent…and fed through computers for keywords, and supercomputers for converting speech into text…sifting text for keywords that are flagged up.”  

ECHELON, however, is not just about monitoring us, the potentially revolutionary masses. It is “also used for commercial interest, to earn its way in the world and to profit its backers.” Tudge reports how one Euro MP has claimed: “European businesses have lost over 20 billion Euros due to ECHELON’s interceptions being used to pip the competition – as when McDonnell-Douglas scooped a $6 billion deal with the Saudis over the French and Airbus, while Raytheon muscled in with a share of a £1.3 billion radar deal between Brazil and a French radar company.”

It is, however, in the post-9/11 era that we have seen a huge growth in surveillance. In a  world in which governments are wont to tell us they are fighting for our freedoms, the most effective means of winning consent for repressive laws, the suspension of human rights (eg, habeas corpus) and increased surveillance, is to scare us into acceptance, to create a global society in which we are all under suspicion from boyfriends, men in beards and absolutely anyone boarding an aeroplane.

Indeed, former MI5 chief, Stella Rimington, accused MPs of  “frightening people” so as to pass laws to interfere with their privacy and civil liberties, achieving “precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a  police state.”  An example of this was when the British government used its presidency of the EU to produce a report entitled Liberty and Security: Striking The Right Balance, effectively a manifesto demanding a range of new EU-wide surveillance measures.

There is a lot of ground covering the technology of control in this short book, from the first use of fingerprints in ancient Babylon and by Chinese bureaucrats to authenticate clay tablets and seals on documents, right up to the present and ongoing debate about the need for biometric ID cards. The author is not hesitant in pointing out just whose interests are really at stake. As he observes: “Progress in this field [biometrics] as in many others is not defined by proficiency, but by profit. Despite the economic downturn, the global biometric market is expected to grow at an annual rate of  18% between 2010 and 2012”. So, not only do our masters get to monitor us, but the very practice brings them profit.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has patented wireless sensors which, when linked to computers, monitor workers’ heart rate, respiration rate, temperature, facial movements and brain signals. “When conjoined with workers’ psychological profiles and data on their weight, age and health, managers could be remotely informed of levels of frustration or stress and help or dismiss accordingly.”

The desire of an elite to make a profit at the expense of the majority and the need to make sure the workers do not get in the way of those profits, is really at the heart of the global surveillance society,  and this the author continually draws our attention to. Our governments, and the corporations they serve as the executive for, are indeed very much concerned about security – but it’s theirs not ours, the continuing security of a elite whose power is derived from their class position. They do not see advances in technology as a means to benefit humanity, but as a means to tighten their control over us.

John Bissett

Editorial: War, Plots and Civil Liberties (2006)

Editorial from the September 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Was there really a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners or were the police just using a pretext to fish for information by rounding up and questioning people they suspected were up to something without knowing precisely what? Will ministers eventually say, as they did after the killing of John Charles de Menezes and after the raid on that house in Forest Gate when another innocent man was shot, that its better to err on the side of safety? Better a few innocents are shot than a terrorist act in which hundreds die?

Whatever the truth, the "security alert" last month in which a terrorist attack was said to be "imminent" allowed the state to project itself as the defender of the public. It is no such thing. The state is controlled by pro-capitalist politicians who pursue policies they consider to be in the general interest of British capitalism, even to the extent of putting the lives of the general public at risk.

The present government, led by Blair, has decided that it is in the best interest of the British capitalist class to tag along behind the US government's global pretensions, especially its so-called "War on Terror", which is really a struggle with certain Middle East states and disaffected Arab elites and their supporters for control of that oil-rich region.

The US government is committed to furthering the interests of US capitalism, which don't necessarily coincide with those of British capitalism, and there are pro-capitalist politicians in Britain, some apparently within the cabinet, who think that Blair might have gone too far in his pro-US stance. But it is not up to us as socialists to judge which politicians best represent the interest of the British capitalist class.

It is this pro-US capitalism policy option that has put the "British public" in danger by making them legitimate targets in the eyes of the Islamist opponents of US domination of the Middle East. It is just plain ridiculous for government ministers to try to deny this. What makes it worse is that neither the attack on Iraq nor (even less) giving Israel more time to bomb Lebanon enjoyed majority popular support.

But no government can leave such a vital decision as to whether or not to go to war to a popular vote. This is because the role of governments is to be "the executive committee of the ruling class" and, as the interests of the capitalist ruling class are at variance with those of the rest of us, such a decision cannot be left to us as there is no guarantee that our decision will coincide with what the ruling class judge to be in their interest. In fact, in the case of war, people spontaneously tend to be against it.

It is true that, as most people do support capitalism, if a government launches an effective enough propaganda barrage it can generally persuade people to support a war. But this takes time and decisions about war cannot wait. Blair is on record as saying that as a leader it is his duty to give a lead on going to war, even against majority popular opinion. In Britain, until recently and still formally, going to war was a government decision that didn't require even parliamentary approval.

Democracy and war are in fact incompatible. States have to have a minimal degree of popular support to function, but this need not extend much further than allowing the populace to decide every few years which group of pro-capitalist politicians are to staff the state and, exercising "leadership", use it to further national capitalist interests.

Truth may be the first casualty of war, but civil liberties come a close second. Whether real or manufactured, "terror plots" and "security alerts" provide a pretext for a state to further erode civil liberties inherited from a more liberal past, as the string of laws introduced by the Blair government to increase the powers of the state bears witness.

It can't be denied that there is a conflict going on involving attacks on innocent civilians on both sides. In Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon the US and/or its allies bomb villages and villagers. In America on 11 September five years ago and in Britain last 7 July, the other side killed innocent workers at or on their way to work. Socialists condemn both sides. And we don't swallow the propaganda that the state is there to protect us.