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Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ During the course of our lives how often have we heard the virtues of being a ‘responsible honest citizen’ usually from the police when they are looking for a tout to work for them! 

Another piece of contaminated information we are fed, usually by misguided but well-meaning parents, is “the law applies to all of us” and “we are all equal in the eyes of the law”, sentiments often echoed by schoolteachers. Of course these observations by those who, as children, we are supposed to respect are utter rubbish. We are not all equal before the law and the law. 

While on paper it may apply to everybody that the sentences handed down for similar offences by judges are certainly not equal. In Britain working-class people are more likely to a heavy sentence for such offences as assault as are people from a middle class or bourgeois background. Of those from working class backgrounds people of ethnic backgrounds are likely to get even harsher sentences. Black and Asian people tend to suffer these disparities in British law which is supposed to not recognise or prejudice against race or ethnicity. 

In the UK the state tends to heavily police and prosecute ‘street crimes’, such as low-level theft, which are more visible in working-class areas. Complex corporate fraud, tax evasion usually associated with wealthier individuals are less heavily policed and rarely result in a custodial sentence. Very similar socioeconomic and systematic prejudices are present in the twenty-six-counties legal system. Research published by the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) reveals that individuals from the most socioeconomic and deprived communities are 25 times more likely to be imprisoned than those from financially better off areas.  Even in sport, inequalities on the terraces are apparent. Before the gentrification of football and takeover of big clubs by crooked owners occasionally supporters would invade the pitch. This was usually branded as ‘hooliganism’ or ‘thuggish behaviour’ by the bourgeois media. When, however, the same or similar incidents occur at a Rugby Union game, like Twickenham frequented by the bourgeoisie, the crowd behaviour by the same media is described as ‘high spirits’ or ‘great sport’. 

Back in 1976 I was at a football match between Aston Villa and Manchester United at Villa Park. The Red Army had a reputation, partly deserved, partly not, and we were massed on the Witton Lane End terrace. At the foot of the terracing surrounding the playing area reporters from various newspapers were urging the United fans to “give us something to report tomorrow” and “come on lads invade the pitch”. Adjacent to these reporters were the West Midlands Constabulary who, in theory and if they were policing impartially, should have arrested these reporters for inciting criminality, even riot! Not one reporter was detained yet a young United fan who had done nothing was arrested supposedly for inciting violence! The older United fans, sixties men, restrained the younger hotheads, they’d been there before. The truth was these older supporters did a better job policing our end than did the official forces of law and order!

In Britain the trade unions have the law stacked against them in trade disputes. The right-wing government of Margaret Thatcher introduced a law limiting the number of pickets to a mere six. This number of pickets does not express to those contemplating going to work when they should be on strike the strength and depth of feeling among those taking strike action. The scabs would not take a token picket of six seriously and may claim, as I’m sure the legislators were aware, that this number could be perceived just how weak support may be for the strike. Of course, this legislation suited and continues to be beneficial to the employers as the 1906 reversal of the 1901 judgement by the House of Lords against the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants Judgement (trades dispute act), was eroded by Thatcher. The 1906 reversal granted limited immunities in law to the trade unions. Once again, the law is designed not for the benefit of the working-class but to make life easier and protection of the employer’s profits and property in a trade dispute.

Such draconian anti-union legislation does not apply to trade disputes or trade union laws in the twenty-six-counties where pluralist industrial relations still to a large extent prevail. I remember many years ago a trade union man in Britain, the late Sam McCluskey, the former General Secretary of the National Union of Seamen (NUS) - now part of the RMT union - was asked “what about the law”. He replied his interviewer on the radio; “I’m sick of hearing about the law, the law is there to crush us, I don’t care about the law.” Which gives us a clear idea of Sam’s opinion of the anti-union legislation.

During the eighties we witnessed on TV and, in some cases at first hand, Thatcher’s law being handed out to pickets. Police used baton charges on striking coalminers in the 1984/85 strike simply for wishing to put their case for the strike to would be scabs. The police were instructed to get these blacklegs into work at all costs with minimal or, preferably, no contact with the pickets. At Orgreave Coking plant the law was enforced using mounted cavalry police against miners. At Wapping the print dispute was again policed very aggressively to protect the scabs and property of Thatcher’s mate, Rupert Murdoch. In both these disputes the media told bare faced lies within their reports claiming ‘pickets attacked police’ which was most certainly not the case.

Capitalism is a dishonest system, it is ”not virtuous, it is not a success, it is not intelligent, it is not beautiful, it is not just – and it doesn’t deliver the goods” (John Maynard Keynes). Because this system which the police superintend is corrupt it does not need an honest police force. In fact an honest police force administering the law even handed would be detrimental to the class society which epitomises capitalism, the illegal and legal sides alike. Back in the 1960s reports tell us that many senior metropolitan police officers of inspector and above were in the pay of the Krays in East London or the Richardsons in South London. Both these organisations, the Krays and Richardsons, were ruthlessly violent gangsters. Every now and again a straight honest applicant to An Garda Siochana or one of the many British Police forces slips through the recruitment net. These Gardai or Bobbies usually start and end their careers as beat officers unless they change their ways and become corrupt tools of a bent political and economic system which discriminates against the ‘population’ to protect the ‘nation’.

This is not to suggest individuals who feel aggrieved go out and purposely break the law, do not go and drink a bottle of whiskey and attempt to drive a car just because the rich and powerful can do it. If a working-class person were to do this, get caught, and breathalysed they would lose their licence and/or be given a custodial sentence. If a rich influential person did the same the chances are a mere warning would be given and they might even get an apology! Neither am I suggesting taking a sawn-off shotgun and committing armed robbery which, although in certain circumstances may be understandable, it is not condonable. What is understandable and condonable is a person whose family are going hungry through lack of food going out and by whatever means necessary obtaining nourishment from shops which have shelves full of it. The crime here would be not doing so. Another example of breaking the law being acceptable and condonable is when a greedy landlord wishes to evict a tenant for no other reason than wishing to increase the rent. The wronged tenant would be perfectly justified in occupying the property. They would of course be told; they’re “breaking the law” yet the landlord can quite legally make a family homeless! 

The next time some well-meaning but misguided individual in defence of the system preaches a lot of rot about all being ‘equal before the law’ and how we must all ‘obey the law’ either ignore them or tell them the truth, they’re talking crap! In Nazi Germany the discriminatory laws against Jewish people were enacted at Nuremberg, 1935, many people later must have wished they’d broken those laws!!!

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

A Question Of Law?

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ During the course of our lives how often have we heard the virtues of being a ‘responsible honest citizen’ usually from the police when they are looking for a tout to work for them! 

Another piece of contaminated information we are fed, usually by misguided but well-meaning parents, is “the law applies to all of us” and “we are all equal in the eyes of the law”, sentiments often echoed by schoolteachers. Of course these observations by those who, as children, we are supposed to respect are utter rubbish. We are not all equal before the law and the law. 

While on paper it may apply to everybody that the sentences handed down for similar offences by judges are certainly not equal. In Britain working-class people are more likely to a heavy sentence for such offences as assault as are people from a middle class or bourgeois background. Of those from working class backgrounds people of ethnic backgrounds are likely to get even harsher sentences. Black and Asian people tend to suffer these disparities in British law which is supposed to not recognise or prejudice against race or ethnicity. 

In the UK the state tends to heavily police and prosecute ‘street crimes’, such as low-level theft, which are more visible in working-class areas. Complex corporate fraud, tax evasion usually associated with wealthier individuals are less heavily policed and rarely result in a custodial sentence. Very similar socioeconomic and systematic prejudices are present in the twenty-six-counties legal system. Research published by the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) reveals that individuals from the most socioeconomic and deprived communities are 25 times more likely to be imprisoned than those from financially better off areas.  Even in sport, inequalities on the terraces are apparent. Before the gentrification of football and takeover of big clubs by crooked owners occasionally supporters would invade the pitch. This was usually branded as ‘hooliganism’ or ‘thuggish behaviour’ by the bourgeois media. When, however, the same or similar incidents occur at a Rugby Union game, like Twickenham frequented by the bourgeoisie, the crowd behaviour by the same media is described as ‘high spirits’ or ‘great sport’. 

Back in 1976 I was at a football match between Aston Villa and Manchester United at Villa Park. The Red Army had a reputation, partly deserved, partly not, and we were massed on the Witton Lane End terrace. At the foot of the terracing surrounding the playing area reporters from various newspapers were urging the United fans to “give us something to report tomorrow” and “come on lads invade the pitch”. Adjacent to these reporters were the West Midlands Constabulary who, in theory and if they were policing impartially, should have arrested these reporters for inciting criminality, even riot! Not one reporter was detained yet a young United fan who had done nothing was arrested supposedly for inciting violence! The older United fans, sixties men, restrained the younger hotheads, they’d been there before. The truth was these older supporters did a better job policing our end than did the official forces of law and order!

In Britain the trade unions have the law stacked against them in trade disputes. The right-wing government of Margaret Thatcher introduced a law limiting the number of pickets to a mere six. This number of pickets does not express to those contemplating going to work when they should be on strike the strength and depth of feeling among those taking strike action. The scabs would not take a token picket of six seriously and may claim, as I’m sure the legislators were aware, that this number could be perceived just how weak support may be for the strike. Of course, this legislation suited and continues to be beneficial to the employers as the 1906 reversal of the 1901 judgement by the House of Lords against the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants Judgement (trades dispute act), was eroded by Thatcher. The 1906 reversal granted limited immunities in law to the trade unions. Once again, the law is designed not for the benefit of the working-class but to make life easier and protection of the employer’s profits and property in a trade dispute.

Such draconian anti-union legislation does not apply to trade disputes or trade union laws in the twenty-six-counties where pluralist industrial relations still to a large extent prevail. I remember many years ago a trade union man in Britain, the late Sam McCluskey, the former General Secretary of the National Union of Seamen (NUS) - now part of the RMT union - was asked “what about the law”. He replied his interviewer on the radio; “I’m sick of hearing about the law, the law is there to crush us, I don’t care about the law.” Which gives us a clear idea of Sam’s opinion of the anti-union legislation.

During the eighties we witnessed on TV and, in some cases at first hand, Thatcher’s law being handed out to pickets. Police used baton charges on striking coalminers in the 1984/85 strike simply for wishing to put their case for the strike to would be scabs. The police were instructed to get these blacklegs into work at all costs with minimal or, preferably, no contact with the pickets. At Orgreave Coking plant the law was enforced using mounted cavalry police against miners. At Wapping the print dispute was again policed very aggressively to protect the scabs and property of Thatcher’s mate, Rupert Murdoch. In both these disputes the media told bare faced lies within their reports claiming ‘pickets attacked police’ which was most certainly not the case.

Capitalism is a dishonest system, it is ”not virtuous, it is not a success, it is not intelligent, it is not beautiful, it is not just – and it doesn’t deliver the goods” (John Maynard Keynes). Because this system which the police superintend is corrupt it does not need an honest police force. In fact an honest police force administering the law even handed would be detrimental to the class society which epitomises capitalism, the illegal and legal sides alike. Back in the 1960s reports tell us that many senior metropolitan police officers of inspector and above were in the pay of the Krays in East London or the Richardsons in South London. Both these organisations, the Krays and Richardsons, were ruthlessly violent gangsters. Every now and again a straight honest applicant to An Garda Siochana or one of the many British Police forces slips through the recruitment net. These Gardai or Bobbies usually start and end their careers as beat officers unless they change their ways and become corrupt tools of a bent political and economic system which discriminates against the ‘population’ to protect the ‘nation’.

This is not to suggest individuals who feel aggrieved go out and purposely break the law, do not go and drink a bottle of whiskey and attempt to drive a car just because the rich and powerful can do it. If a working-class person were to do this, get caught, and breathalysed they would lose their licence and/or be given a custodial sentence. If a rich influential person did the same the chances are a mere warning would be given and they might even get an apology! Neither am I suggesting taking a sawn-off shotgun and committing armed robbery which, although in certain circumstances may be understandable, it is not condonable. What is understandable and condonable is a person whose family are going hungry through lack of food going out and by whatever means necessary obtaining nourishment from shops which have shelves full of it. The crime here would be not doing so. Another example of breaking the law being acceptable and condonable is when a greedy landlord wishes to evict a tenant for no other reason than wishing to increase the rent. The wronged tenant would be perfectly justified in occupying the property. They would of course be told; they’re “breaking the law” yet the landlord can quite legally make a family homeless! 

The next time some well-meaning but misguided individual in defence of the system preaches a lot of rot about all being ‘equal before the law’ and how we must all ‘obey the law’ either ignore them or tell them the truth, they’re talking crap! In Nazi Germany the discriminatory laws against Jewish people were enacted at Nuremberg, 1935, many people later must have wished they’d broken those laws!!!

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.
Caoimhin O’Muraile Law

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