Dave Walsh, Liverpool Socialist Party
The new ‘Hillsborough Law’ will force public bodies to co-operate with investigations or potentially face criminal sanctions. Keir Starmer will put the law to Parliament next year.
The new law is being portrayed as a ‘magic bullet’ that will help prevent scandals such as Grenfell, Orgreave, Post Office Horizon, infected blood, servicemen used as guinea pigs in nuclear tests, and many others. In all these cases, victims were ignored, publicly ridiculed and denied justice for decades.
But does this new law really offer people protection? Would it have prevented the deaths at Hillsborough or the subsequent cover-up? After the ‘Battle of Orgreave’, many miners were prosecuted for riot, which carried a maximum life sentence, but the cases were dropped because police evidence was deemed ‘unreliable’. How would that have been prevented by this law?
Would it have stopped property developers using cheap, flammable cladding? Or Post Office bosses from sending their employees to prison after they knew the evidence from their system was flawed? Or army chiefs from exposing their soldiers to a radioactive blast?
What all these crimes have in common, is they were perpetrated by a powerful establishment against powerless people. The crimes were committed and then covered up because it suited their needs, and they showed no fear of the law at any stage. That’s because the law is theirs to use as a tool of oppression, not a means for ordinary people to achieve justice.
The New Labour government isn’t pretending their new law will prevent tragedies in the future, they only pretend it will help provide justice after they happen. Look how long the various inquiries into these scandalous events take – and when they’re done, the establishment hopes the anger has dissipated and those responsible get away with it.
The army veterans who were deliberately exposed to radiation, suffering devastating health problems, were all offered medals. The new Hillsborough Law is a medal which Starmer hopes will satisfy the public.
If we want to stop these tragedies and scandals from happening, then we must rid ourselves of the ruling class that causes them in the first place. And we must create a democratic worker’s society where decisions are made based on need and not profit.
