Police fear UK 'summer of rage'

metman

Police are preparing to face a "summer of rage" in the UK as people join protests over the economic downturn, says a senior Met Police officer.



Police are preparing for a "summer of rage" as victims of the economic downturn take to the streets to demonstrate against financial institutions, the Guardian has learned.

Britain's most senior police officer with responsibility for public order raised the spectre of a return of the riots of the 1980s, with people who have lost their jobs, homes or savings becoming "footsoldiers" in a wave of potentially violent mass protests.

Superintendent David Hartshorn, who heads the Metropolitan police's public order branch, told the Guardian that middle-class individuals who would never have considered joining demonstrations may now seek to vent their anger through protests this year.

He said that banks, particularly those that still pay large bonuses despite receiving billions in taxpayer money, had become "viable targets". So too had the headquarters of multinational companies and other financial institutions in the City which are being blamed for the financial crisis.

Hartshorn, who receives regular intelligence briefings on potential causes of civil unrest, said the mood at some demonstrations had changed recently, with activists increasingly "intent on coming on to the streets to create public disorder".

The warning comes in the wake of often violent protests against the handling of the economy across Europe. In recent weeks Greek farmers have blocked roads over falling agricultural prices, a million workers in France joined demonstrations to demand greater protection for jobs and wages and Icelandic demonstrators have clashed with police in Reykjavik.

In the UK hundreds of oil refinery workers mounted wildcat strikes last month over the use of foreign workers.

Intelligence reports suggest that "known activists" are also returning to the streets, and police claim they will foment unrest. "Those people would be good at motivating people, but they haven't had the 'footsoldiers' to actually carry out [protests]," Hartshorn said. "Obviously the downturn in the economy, unemployment, repossessions, changes that. Suddenly there is the opportunity for people to mass protest.

"It means that where we would possibly look at certain events and say, 'yes there'll be a lot of people there, there'll be a lot of banner waving, but generally it will be peaceful', [now] we have to make sure these elements don't come out and hijack that event and turn that into disorder."

Hartshorn identified April's G20 meeting of the group of leading and developing nations in London as an event that could kick-start a challenging summer. "We've got G20 coming and I think that is being advertised on some of the sites as the highlight of what they see as a 'summer of rage'," he said.

His comments are likely to be met with disappointment by protest groups, who in recent weeks have complained that police are adopting a more confrontational approach at demonstrations. Officers have been accused of exaggerating the threat posed by activists to justify the use of resources spent on them.

Police were said to have been heavy-handed at Greek solidarity marches in London in December and, last month, at protests against Israel's invasion of Gaza. In August 1,000 officers, helicopters and riot horses were drafted to Kent from 26 UK police forces to oversee the climate camp demonstration against the Kingsnorth power station. The massive operation to monitor the protesters cost £5.9m and resulted in 100 arrests. But in December the government was forced to apologise to parliament after the Guardian revealed that its claims that 70 officers had been hurt in violent clashes were wrong.

However, Hartshorn insisted: "Potentially there will be more industrial actions ... History shows that some of those disputes - Wapping, the miners' strike - have caused great tensions in the community and the police have had difficult times policing and maintaining law and order."

Both "extreme rightwing and extreme leftwing" elements are looking to "use the fact that people are out of jobs" to galvanise support, he said.

A particularly worrying development was the re-emergence of individuals involved in the violent fascist organisation Combat 18, he said. "They are using the fact that there's been lots of talk about eastern European people coming in and taking jobs on the Olympic sites," he said. "They're using those type of arguments to look at getting support."

Hartshorn said he also expected large-scale demonstrations this year on environmental issues, with hardcore green activists "joining forces" with middle-class campaigners over issues such as airport expansion at Heathrow and Stansted. With the prospect of angry demonstrations against the economy, that could open the door to powerful coalitions.

"All you've got to do then is link in with the environmentalists, and look at the oil companies. They're seen to be turning over billions of pounds profit in issues that are seen to be against the environment."

Guardian
BBC
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Well we had the summer of love, so I suppose the summer of rage was always just around the corner

As things get worse economically, life is bound to get more interesting for police forces as people start listening to mouth-piece agitators who normally wouldn't get a hearing.

r3nu4l

metman wrote: »

"Known activists" were likely to foment unrest, with the recession creating more "footsoldiers" to join them, Supt David Hartshorn told the Guardian.

Here's the original article.
Another Guardian boo boo, it should read 'ferment' unrest, not 'foment' unrest!

Well as a UK resident it will be interesting to see what happens and how the police respond! I'd say the BNP will be rubbing their hands with glee.

super_furry

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/foment

AlekSmart

Too true by far.....
We in the republic have been traditionally difficult to motivate and equally slow to actually get out on the streets.

In the past,administrations were also able to buy-off any particularly serious looking potential threats.
However,our Political system has now run out of slush money and it`s showing.

Added to this is the unique situation of a raft of senior Political figures all lining up to tell the population about the many and varied highly complex "Legal Reasons" why

a)Nobody suspected of massive financial wrongdoing can be named.
b) Nobody suspected of massive Financial wrongdoing can be charged
c) All discussion of this financial wrongdoing is apparently far above the heads of ordinary people.

IMO the issue of Social Welfare funding will be of immense importance in all of this as if the scale and extent of this is in any way reduced we can expect the massive mobilization which this Top Cop speaks of.

r3nu4l

super_furry wrote: »

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/foment

Thanks, my middle-English is not that good Today is a good day, I learned something new!

On topic, I'm very wary of how the British Government have consistently whittled away at civil rights in the name of 'protection' over the last 5 years but I really do feel that some of the 'mouth-piece agitators' in Britain need to be silenced. In many cases they have no real interest in the cause they are speaking so passionately about but are more interested in inflaming passions towards violence, particularly against the police. These are the same people who have cameras on hand to get shots of the 'oppressive use of force to repress the people'. Monty Python here we come...

ART6

The UK is, IMHO, heading fast towards a very serious situation indeed. It has allowed virtually unlimited immigration to the extent that a number of schools in the UK have pupils who can't speak English. They have a serious problem with, particularly but not exclusively, Muslim immigrants joining their black economy and being prepared to work for £1 per hour. They have economic immigrants from all over the east queuing at Calais to get into the UK and claim benefits ("they give you a house in England"). Anyone recall the infamous Enoch Powell speech about "rivers of blood"? We are, however our leaders and our PC activists try to pretend otherwise, tribal creatures.

AlekSmart

Not exactly On-Topic for the UK but relevant I feel.

I was party today to a conversation between two individuals who are members of the Reserve Defence Forces.
During the course of it I heard one refer to a memo from "The Department" which raised the "Alert Status" for operations In aid of The Civil Power.

Now what could this have referred to ?
Does Ireland have some form of Defcon protocol which the Defence Forces must adhere to ?
This lad appeared to be saying that this Status Increase was an Administrative preparation which included ordering and stockpiling supplies of anti-riot equipment and such like.....

Could there be any truth in any of this or was it all cobblers...???

ynotdu

AlekSmart wrote: »

Too true by far.....
We in the republic have been traditionally difficult to motivate and equally slow to actually get out on the streets.

In the past,administrations were also able to buy-off any particularly serious looking potential threats.
However,our Political system has now run out of slush money and it`s showing.

Added to this is the unique situation of a raft of senior Political figures all lining up to tell the population about the many and varied highly complex "Legal Reasons" why

a)Nobody suspected of massive financial wrongdoing can be named.
b) Nobody suspected of massive Financial wrongdoing can be charged
c) All discussion of this financial wrongdoing is apparently far above the heads of ordinary people.

IMO the issue of Social Welfare funding will be of immense importance in all of this as if the scale and extent of this is in any way reduced we can expect the massive mobilization which this Top Cop speaks of.

at the height of the 1980,s recession approx a million paye workers marched in protest,no notice was taken of them then and if it takes army on the streets no notice will be taken now.

hard to believe that it is even more dangerous times now than it was then,the actual survivol of the State is in peril:eek:

jmccoy

AlekSmart wrote: »

Not exactly On-Topic for the UK but relevant I feel.

I was party today to a conversation between two individuals who are members of the Reserve Defence Forces.
During the course of it I heard one refer to a memo from "The Department" which raised the "Alert Status" for operations In aid of The Civil Power.

Now what could this have referred to ?
Does Ireland have some form of Defcon protocol which the Defence Forces must adhere to ?
This lad appeared to be saying that this Status Increase was an Administrative preparation which included ordering and stockpiling supplies of anti-riot equipment and such like.....

Could there be any truth in any of this or was it all cobblers...???

Funny you say that. A high ranking HSE official told me a few weeks ago that the Defence Forces were "being put on standby" for civil unrest in the wake of current difficulties. At first I thought he was bull****ting but I do suppose that he is privy to civil contingency plans.

ynotdu

jmccoy wrote: »

Funny you say that. A high ranking HSE official told me a few weeks ago that the Defence Forces were "being put on standby" for civil unrest in the wake of current difficulties. At first I thought he was bull****ting but I do suppose that he is privy to civil contingency plans.

I have no basis in fact for this,I am merely passing on what I was told by ex members of the army who served in the 80,s.

I must stress they never said it sober,if they are to be believed some top ranking Irish army generals got so worried they wondered was a coup needed then, 3 elections in 18 months etc..........

worrying thing is the present crisis is potentiolly far more dangerous than even then:(

AlekSmart

Wonder if it`s worth bumping this on the back of the "Sacking of Balbriggan" videos now doing the rounds (OK so the wrecking of JD`s will do).

With the trip to Tipp affray and the Dorset St confrontation still fresh in the country`s mind and progressing through the courts (Are`nt they ??), does this latest North County Dublin event add to a certain sense of inevitability about the greater topic of Wide Scale Civil Unrest as the social framework starts to creak under the strain of approaching poverty.....??

I`m somewhat surprised at what again appears to be a lot of Gardai in "soft" uniform and laytex gloves appearing less than certain as to what to do in the Balbriggan vid`s
......I accept that the posted vid`s may not show the full picture but where there is any possiblity of the various "factions" getting within spitting distance of each other then that possibility worsens in severity by a factor of XXX.

cushtac

A bunch of drunken animals causing hassle in a pub (and not for the first time) doesn't qualify as large scale civil unrest caused by economic downturn.

I'd also be very wary of some member of the RDF talking about a rise in some 'alert status'. Firstly the RDF doesn't train & isn't equipped for the sort of aid to the civil power tasks you're thinking of; secondly since RDF units are commanded by PDF officers, the chance of some RDF member being privvy to a letter from the Dept is very, very slim.

An RDF member talking about this is at best engaged in wild speculation and at worst lying.

AlekSmart

AlekSmart wrote: »

Wonder if it`s worth bumping this on the back of the "Sacking of Balbriggan" videos now doing the rounds (OK so the wrecking of JD`s will do).

With the trip to Tipp affray and the Dorset St confrontation still fresh in the country`s mind and progressing through the courts (Are`nt they ??), does this latest North County Dublin event add to a certain sense of inevitability about the greater topic of Wide Scale Civil Unrest as the social framework starts to creak under the strain of approaching poverty.....??

I`m somewhat surprised at what again appears to be a lot of Gardai in "soft" uniform and laytex gloves appearing less than certain as to what to do in the Balbriggan vid`s
......I accept that the posted vid`s may not show the full picture but where there is any possiblity of the various "factions" getting within spitting distance of each other then that possibility worsens in severity by a factor of XXX.

Ahem, no.

The only people who needed Riot gear in that situation were the Public Order unit. The other Gardai were there to keep the crowd back and divert traffic. They would also take prisoners from the Public Order unit. You may have noticed in the video alot of the prisoners were covered in blood. Would you want to handle them with your bare hands or ruin a pair of gloves that you may have spent €40 or more on?

And "Trip to Tipp" and "Dorset Street". What and when were they?