crowds cheer police on march through london

schmoo checked out the police march today in central london and witnessed amazing scenes as about 20,000 police staged a protest demo march - and were cheered by members of the public all the way to 10 Downing Street.

Perhaps I missed it, but there seemed no sign of the promised 'Boo a Bobby' anti police counter demonstration by the Class War 'anarchists' - possibly because they could not get up in time.

Few would dispute that there is a lot wrong with the quality of policing in this country, despite considerable improvements over the last 20 years.

However a professional police service is required by any society (including an anarchist society), and should be supported by anyone who wants to live in a society free from the tyranny of selfishness and crime.

news of the world anarchists

Too many people call themselves anarchists, but have actually brought into the 'news of the world' version of anarchism which perpetuates an utterly perverted image of anarchy as being violent, chaotic and totally unrealistic, when the exact opposite is true.

Groups like 'Class War' only serve the corrupt forces of oppression by supplying the right wing press with exactly the stereotype cartoon image they require, on a platter (an emailed press release no doubt), to utterly demonise anarchism. The 'Evading Standards' and the 'Daily Malice' love Class War!

Class War's violence very effectively destroyed the anti capitalist 'mayday' movement which at one point had the chance of gaining widespread public support. Now it seems all the so called 'anarchist' movement can do on Mayday is provide the pathetic spectacle of a few dozen people looking like members of the BNP marching at the rear of the annual Trade Union May Day march.

In fact there seems very little difference between Class War and the BNP. As recent 'anti schmoo' comments on Indymedia prove, just like the BNP, these 'News of the World anarchists' hate hippies and liberals, they support cannabis prohibition, and their main political currency is prejudice, hatred and violence. Class War even supports the death penalty! The only slight difference seems to be that while the BNP use Racism, Class War uses Hatism. They have nothing positive to offer.

true anarchists

Those who think that a true anarchist has to be anti police expose their utter ignorance of anarchist political theory and practice. For example during the Spanish Civil War, when a large part of Spain became an anarchist 'state', they even built an anarchist prison to hold arrested fascist criminals, complete with cells painted in 'dadaist' style intended to psychologically weaken the inmates!

It is time that true anarchists rejected the narrow bigotry of these 'News of the World Anarchists' and reclaimed the streets for a real social revolution, which would be supported by millions of people. As any revolutionary should know, a successful revolution requires the support of important sections of society - including the police. This is why true anarchists should take the position of supporting the police instead of making them the enemy, which they are not. The demonisation of the police is a massive red herring allowing the real enemies of freedom to get away scot free.

Of course all freedom loving, progressive people should stand up against corruption and other crimes against society - and one way is to demand a police force free of corruption, incompetence and prejudice. Taking up a self defeating, ridiculous and childish 'anti police' position will never work.

Progressive, freedom loving people need a professional police service on their side, not on the side of oppression and right wing bigotry.

The only way to ensure Human Rights is to ensure the Rule of Law. And that requires a professional, well trained and well paid police service.

• The 'Evading Standards' is 'reporting' on the front page tonight that there were two arrests after about twenty Class War people turned up. Once again the newspaper was only too happy to use the Class War hate bigots to demonise anarchism.

• Why all freedom loving people should support the police.