UK Police and Crime Commissioner Elections

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

..a new kind of pointless election to engage the populus and make them feel like they have some say over who controls their lives.
Firstly, electing the person who will determine budgets for the regional police force and be in charge of hiring and firing cheif constables...who is going to want to participate in that? I don't see what difference this will make; we'll still have police enforcing the laws and agendas of the state, the fact their 'commissioners' are 'elected' won't change their relationship to us.

Also, apart from some independants, candidates have direct backing from political parties. Almost every police force has a Tory or Labour candidate (except for my one, just a Labour candidate who's a member of Labour Friends of Israel...yay). So these Commissioners will be far more politically motivated and influenced by party allegiance, which can only be a a good thing :/

In Bedfordshire there's a British Freedom Party candidate (far-right, former UKIP guy as leader, members numbering a few dozen) to spice things up a bit.

Just...I don't know, this whole thing makes me equally nervous and furious...seems such an empty gesture to try and make the cops seems more 'accountable' by virtue of the fact that what will no doubt be a tiny turnout voted these people in.

Anyway, your thoughts?

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Oh, for more info and to see current candidates:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_and_Wales_Police_and_Crime_Commissioner_el ections,_2012

[Clarion]

It should be a part of any programme of immediate demands that police chiefs be elected and that police forces be subject to democratic control. Obviously these reforms leave much to be desired but that doesn't mean they should be opposed.

Many revolutionaries have a tendency to exaggerate antagonisms between the police and the community in many areas or among many demographics. Such elections offer an ideal test of what the working class actually feel about the police and can become a platform for socialist ideas on the subject.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I can't even begin to imagine how low the turnout to these will be.

[Pricey]

The police don't need commissars anyway, they much prefer slops from a trough and extendable batons for terrorizing the populace.

[ed miliband]

i love the liberal-left approach to this: if it was labour party policy it would be applauded as an attempt to make the police more democratic, representative and inclusive. because it's tory policy it's about making the police political, as if they were somehow not political beforehand. police commisioners, elected or not, are going to hold political views and dreaming that public figures somehow become neutral once they enter office is madness.

but i find it hard to have any opinion on this whatsoever anyway.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

i love the liberal-left approach to this: if it was labour party policy it would be applauded as an attempt to make the police more democratic, representative and inclusive. because it's tory policy it's about making the police political, as if they were somehow not political beforehand. police commisioners, elected or not, are going to hold political views and dreaming that public figures somehow become neutral once they enter office is madness.

but i find it hard to have any opinion on this whatsoever anyway.

Indeed. Just like bourgeois elections are pointless for workers because it's simply us choosing which bourgeois asshole is going to defend the opposition's class interests against ours, electing police officials will [and this is perhaps worse] merely be us choosing who is going to enforce the will of the bourgeoisie on us, physically speaking.

The great problem with these sorts of things is that, whilst 'more' democracy is not to be sniffed at, it's kinda pointless given the generally centralised nature of bureaucracy in Britain (As well as within the framework of Capitalism). These sorts of things, I feel, would only work well in a decentralised situation, where you could have genuine local elections where the local people actually knew the candidates personally. National elections will always be a sham because patronage, incumbency and money will always dictate the result, not personal integrity nor ability.

[Clarion]

Just like bourgeois elections are pointless for workers because it's simply us choosing which bourgeois asshole is going to defend the opposition's class interests against ours, electing police officials will [and this is perhaps worse] merely be us choosing who is going to enforce the will of the bourgeoisie on us, physically speaking.

This is a nonsense.


choosing which bourgeois asshole

You don't seem to have noticed but we've been sending workers to Parliament for over a century.


is going to defend the opposition's class interests against ours

The solution to this is to run candidates who do speak to the interests of the working class.

Bourgeois oppression isn't involved here, it the working class who constitute a majority in essentially every constituency of the UK. The reason that revolutionary socialists are not being sent to Parliament on mass is because the battle of ideas hasn't yet been won within the working class.

It's the height of sectarianism to sit back with the snobbish apathy of someone who knows better than all these proles while they try to get their candidates into Parliament and into positions of police oversight on their admittedly (very) imperfect platforms.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

You don't seem to have noticed but we've been sending workers to Parliament for over a century.

So what? It's achieved fuck all. Any worker in parliament right now is an open Capitalist. There may have historically been workers in parliament, but there was no real working class representation in/delegation to parliament.



The solution to this is to run candidates who do speak to the interests of the working class.

Historically speaking, that's been a dead end in Britain, since the official 'left' presence is:

a) too negligible to render this a useful strategy, and
b) too mired in petty sectarianism, internal struggle and/or programmatic difficulty to be a desirable presence in Parliament.


Bourgeois oppression isn't involved here, it the working class who constitute a majority in essentially every constituency of the UK. The reason that revolutionary socialists are not being sent to Parliament on mass is because the battle of ideas hasn't yet been won within the working class.

If the battle of ideas amongst the working class was won, workers would be out on the streets and forming extra-parliamentary organisations for themselves, not merely working their asses off to get some representation in that oppressive bourgeois tool of repression (that's all bourgeois political institutions are useful for, in the main).


It's the height of sectarianism to sit back with the snobbish apathy of someone who knows better than all these proles while they try to get their candidates into Parliament and into positions of police oversight on their admittedly (very) imperfect platforms.

I can assure you I am the opposite of apathetic. I am unashamedly partisan when it comes to my politics and apathy plays no part; I wholeheartedly support an extra-parliamentary, Socialist political philosophy. In the UK, history has shown us over centuries that parliamentary cretinism is a dead end. It has never - and will not - achieve anything of substance for the working class in terms of taking political control, our ultimate aim.

[Clarion]

So what? It's achieved fuck all.

I was responding to your claim that elections involved choosing which "bourgeois asshole" was sent to Parliament. I pointed out that regardless of what their views may be or what they do when they get there, there have been a number of working class people elected. I wasn't making an assessment of its effectiveness, don't move the goal posts when your called out on the facts.




Any worker in parliament right now is an open Capitalist.

The working class and capitalist class are different classes, you can't be members of both. They may not seek to challenge capitalism, but neither do 90% of workers, that doesn't make them capitalists.

A small number actually do make flawed attempts to challenge capitalism.


There may have historically been workers in parliament, but there was no real working class representation in/delegation to parliament.

What does that even mean? Workers have been sent to Parliament and broadly speaking their political views in terms of sticking to reforms within capitalism are representative of those of the working class.

The Labour Party served as a working class delegation, and dispite the changing demographics of the PLP, it's non-revolutionary stance and ideological confusion remains a reflection of the broader working class.




Historically speaking, that's been a dead end in Britain, since the official 'left' presence is:

a) too negligible to render this a useful strategy, and
b) too mired in petty sectarianism, internal struggle and/or programmatic difficulty to be a desirable presence in Parliament.

Did I say it would be easy?

If you can't convince a plurality of workers to vote for a revolutionary platform how are you going to convince them of the need for an actual revolution?



If the battle of ideas amongst the working class was won, workers would be out on the streets and forming extra-parliamentary organisations for themselves, not merely working their asses off to get some representation in that oppressive bourgeois tool of repression (that's all bourgeois political institutions are useful for, in the main).[/quotes]

It's not a binary. Putting aside the usefulness of Parliament and elections as a platform for the battle of ideas, the really existing working class is tied to the idea of parliamentarianism. It's pure sectarianism to position ourself outside these flawed political experiments of the proletariat making snide comments. We should be on the inside, the best campaigners in their political activity while pointing out the flaws of reformism and advocating the building of independent working class solutions.



[quote]I can assure you I am the opposite of apathetic. I am unashamedly partisan when it comes to my politics and apathy plays no part; I wholeheartedly support an extra-parliamentary, Socialist political philosophy. In the UK, history has shown us over centuries that parliamentary cretinism is a dead end. It has never - and will not - achieve anything of substance for the working class in terms of taking political control, our ultimate aim.

The last century and a bit has shown ultra-leftism to be at least as ineffective. We don't get to dictate what the current level of political awareness of the working class is, only where we suggest it go. Workers will not take lectures from those who don't play their part in the really existing, flawed movement.

Sectarian purity is cleaner, but it doesn't advance the proletarian cause.