Chris Dillow: Hillsborough: the class context

Chris Dillow writes about Hillsborough: the class context.

In all these cases, the police were brutal enforcers of this class-based hatred — and unlawfully so. After the battle of Stonehenge in 1985 Wiltshire Police were found guilty of ABH, false imprisonment and wrongful arrest. And after Orgreave South Yorkshire Police — them again — paid £500,000 compensation for assault, unlawful arrest and malicious prosecution. As James Doran says:

The British state is not a neutral body which enforces the rule of law — it is a set of social relations which uphold the rule of the capital. Law is a matter of struggle — ordinary people are automatically subject to the discipline of the repressive apparatus of the state.

All this poses a question. Have things really changed? Of course, the police and Tories have much better PR than they did then. But is it really a coincidence that the police still turn up mob-handed to demos whilst giving a free ride to corporate crime and asset stripping? When the cameras are off and they are behind closed doors, do the police and Tories retain a vestige of their 1980s attitudes? When Alan Duncan spoke of those who aren’t rich as “low achievers”, was that a minority view, or a reminder that the Tories haven’t really abandoned their class hatred?  

Many younger lefties might have abandoned class in favour of the politics of micro-identities.  For those of us shaped by the 80s, however, class matters. And I suspect this is as true for the Tories as it is for me.

Emphasis Mine

Despite the efforts of the Ideological State Appartuses (such as Universities) to convince us that identity is important, I agree with Dillow that we should focus on class as the battleground for ideas in our struggle against Capitalism.

Even Clinton's campaign is part of this distraction away from class and concentrating on her identity as a woman. This is why the continuation of the Sanders' campaign is so important — it pushes class warfare to the forefront of politics.