Britain riots: Poverty the cause, repression the response

Police forces have flooded the streets of Britain in an attempt to suppress the rioting which has spread across the country.

But it was the casual, racist police violence which has fuelled the angry confrontations and any escalation of violent policing will only reinforce the brutal subjugation of working-class and young people in the most deprived communities.

In regions which have suffered extremes of police harassment, mass unemployment and poverty, this uprising is an outburst against goods in the shops that the youth cannot afford, and against the police they cannot trust.

We see that looting and violence expresses the incoherent anger of people driven to desperation with the vicious cuts to EMA, jobs and local services.

However we say that looting is not the solution. We support the organisation of working-class communities to defend homes and districts against looting, arson and crackdowns by the police.

Tory politicians and the media are exploiting the situation as 'evidence' of a criminal underclass in Britain who present a threat to the established order and must be crushed through increasingly violent policing.

We are clear that the causes of the rioting are poverty and social alienation, exacerbated by heavy spending cuts inflicted on some of Britain's poorest communities. The media and the government must not be allowed to launch a campaign of hate against working class and immigrant youth.

The trade unions need to takée a stand against this happening
by making explicit their solidarity and fighting to strengthen unionisiation and links in these communities.

The greatest danger we face is that the working-class is divided at the moment when we need unity to stand against the police and build the resistance to the destruction of the jobs and services working-class people depend on.

We stand against all attempts by far-right organisations to send vigilante gangs onto the streets to attack working class youth. These fascist provocateurs should be thrown off our streets through mass, working class action.

We are for the working class youth, we are against racism and state repression, we are for working class unity against the cuts ruining our lives and impoverishing entire communities.

The blame for the riots stands squarely with the Tory government and their Liberal stooges:

Such militant oubreaks of anger and resistance are inevitable for as long as they persist with their campaign to make the working-class pay for the capitalist crisis with the gains we have won through decades of struggle.

- Against police violence. No to rubber bullets, water cannons, curfews, mounted units, dawn raids

- End stop-and-searches and other means of repression

- No to looting – yes to mass working class action against poverty and racism

- For the right to defend communities against police violence and repression

- For democratic, community-led security committees

- Amnesty for the arrested - justice for the victims of police violence

- Fight the causes of social deprivation and racism - for common action of the working class against cuts, poverty and unemployment, for the integration of the poorest into trade unions and working class organisations

- Kick the fascists out – the EDL white shirts are not protecting working class areas but dividing them with violence and racism

The despair and anger that the Tory government and their austerity agenda is creating is clearer than ever.

REVOLUTION fights for a mass movement of strikes, occupations, protests and a general strike to bring down this rotten, hated, illegitimate coalition government once and for all

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