Donald Morrison takes a look at the G20 summit in London and the events that surrounded it.

This article first appeared in The Democratic Green Socialist here 

G20 London Summit: ‘Welfare for Wall Street’

“Recession is a stealth bomber that comes inexplicably at night.”

Simon Jenkins, The Guardian

The Problem

There are many extremely wearisome sound bites that have been crafted and bandied about in the midst of this recession. In the top five have to be expressions like ‘credit crunch’, ‘fiscal stimulus’, ‘toxic debt’, ‘sub-prime’ and any sentence which somberly repeats the word ‘global’. These beleaguered and overworked expressions were in abundance during the media frenzy that surrounded the recent G20 summit in London’s Excel centre situated in the looming shadows of the now humbled Canary Wharf.  

Obama announced that the summit represented a "turning point "; Brown deemed the summit the beginning of a “new world order” and Sarkozy marveled at the “scale of this agreement”.  Yet despite the bombastic nature of these statements and the gargantuan figures that seemed to roll off Brown’s tongue so calmly (perhaps Brown will not be satisfied until he has said the biggest number he can imagine in a speech; what comes after a trillion?) one could not help feeling disappointment and frustration toward the whole charad Granted, this pervasive sense of frustration should have been expected by anyone who puts credence in the homespun edicts that one cannot spend to get out of debt and that bad behavior should not be rewarded. Both truths seemingly turned on their head as even more loans and credit are made available on a global scale through the IMF, and countless protesters were arrested as the city bankers - whose greed got us to this point in the first place - only inconvenience is having to ‘dress down’ on their way to work.   

What further added to this frustration was the lack of any mainstream media coverage that presented a substantial and coherent alternative voice on the left to the neo-liberal agenda which prevails. The lack of alternative journalism coupled with the sheer brutality of the metropolitan police, with tragically fatal consequences, lends weight to the ever watchful words of John Pilger when he describes Britain now as a ‘centralised single-ideology state’. This pervasive ‘single-ideology’ or market fundamentalism that has striven to create a global hegemony post-cold war has now been shaken to its very core by the recession (not quite the ‘end of history’ as Fukuyama would have had us believe). No amount of police aggression, new lines of credit and slick media sound bites can hide the inherent contradictions within the capitalist system which have now been laid bare.   In the midst of this ongoing media frenzy it is time to reflect on what happened at the G20 London summit. In particular how riot police, looking and behaving more and more like futuristic storm troopers, dealt with the protesters and also what our glorious leaders have decided to do in our name and with our public money in order to ‘stabilise the patient’.  

The Patient

Barrack Obama’s analogy of the global capitalist system as a sickly patient was fitting as Gordon Brown seemed to take on the consolatory tone of a confident yet concerned doctor. His bedside manner was impeccable as he left the theatre to deliver his diagnosis and remedy to the world’s media - a $1 trillion global enema. His speech clearly exuded confidence as this trickled into the global markets which closed up 4%. His performance won praise from business and world leaders alike.

However, despite talk of ‘stabilisation‘ and ‘recovery’ there is a dawning realisation on much of the world’s population that the illness has merely been abated and that the worst is still to come - that the patient’s condition may in fact be terminal. However, it is the end of an era and the G20 summit has been dubbed ‘historic’ as not since Bretton Woods in 1944 has there been ‘such a reordering of the global economic model’. As John Wright points out, the fact that twenty countries met and not just the usual eight highlights the emerging roles of China, Brazil and India not just as sources of cheap labour but also as expanding markets for export.   Furthermore, the summit marks a transition in capitalism, a transition which has already happened on a national level in the UK, that is a move from the ‘Washington Consensus’ hands-off model of economics to a Keynesian state-interventionist approach. Only a few months ago the financial world would carp about any form of regulation or ‘punitive taxation’ that encroached on their free trade yet now, with many of the leading banks bailed out with public money, they dare not complain.

In fact, as Tommy Sheridan has pointed out, they have been revealed for what they are - ‘subsidy junkies’.So after much wrangling and the usual transatlantic tensions a nine page communiqué was drafted making six key pledges to reform and rejuvenate the stagnating economy. In relation to new regulation these pledges included tighter controls on the previously unaccountable shadow banking system (hedge funds), better accounting standards, naming-and-shaming of tax havens, a curb on how much banks can lend in relation to their capital and a clampdown on banking staff rewards for doing ‘dangerous deals.’ Much of this work will be overseen by a new super-regulatory body in the form of the Financial Stability Forum. Brown and Obama were unable to get a global stimulus package off the ground in the face of joint Franco-German opposition. Nevertheless, Brown did manage to patch together promises from, amongst others, China and Saudi Arabia (despite shocking human rights abuses their money is still green) to loan a staggering $1.1tr to boost the International Monetary Fund and a $250bn injection into international trade deals which have ground to a halt.

This extra money will largely go to Eastern European member counties who have been badly affected as international streams of investment have dried up. Will the UK, perhaps under a future Tory government, have to take out an IMF loan one day soon? Memories of Denis Healey come to mind. When looking over the details of the communiqué one cannot help but ask the overwhelming question: is that it? In essence the grand achievements of the G20 summit amount to regulation that has come too late and the promise of even more loans and credit on an unprecedented level to prop up an already grossly imbalanced and exploitative system. As Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz pointedly observed pumping millions in public money into bankrupt banks was ‘far worse than nationalisation: it is the privatisation of gains and the socialising of losses’. In a global summit such as this one where was the pressure to safeguard the jobs and pensions of workers all over the world? Where was the commitment to safeguard life line services and ensure levels public spending? And where is the commitment to seriously invest in innovative green technologies?  The fact that any green commitments were relegated to the final two paragraphs of the communiqué, a mere vague and uncosted afterthought, is a shaming indictment on the priorities of world leaders.

As George Monbiot powerfully expounded the looming ‘climate breakdown, peak oil and resource depletion will all dwarf the current financial crisis…No expense has been spared to save the banks. Every expense has been spared to save the biosphere.’Yes, more public money in private hands may stop certain companies going to the wall but there is nothing to stop these companies then searching for even cheaper sources of labour and enforcing even more draconian conditions on the working classes they customarily exploit in sweatshops across the developing world. Countries that have become reliant on foreign investment will be first in line for new IMF loans; Hungary and the Ukraine have been the latest recipients. However, the conditions attached to these loans are punitive. The IMF routinely force recipient governments to privatise what should be public services, cut public spending, hike up taxes and deregulate the economy allowing new international co-operations to invest and thus strangle domestic business. There are countless examples of the misery the IMF and the World Bank’s ‘structural adjustment programmes’ have caused from Indonesia to Nicaragua many impoverished peoples are being penalised for loans they did not take and probably know very little about. 

As Noam Chomsky explained in 2005:“Indonesia can't pay off its subsequent debt, so who's supposed to pay it? Poor people in Indonesia are paying for it - they're subjected to Structural Adjustment Programmes - so they get strangled in order to pay off the loans that they never borrowed in the first place.”As Wright forcibly states the IMF structural adjustment programmes turn governments of the developing world against their own population, they become in essence enforcers working on behalf of global co-operations – more IMF loans mean further austerity for working people the world over. On a domestic front things look set to continue on a grim trajectory. Under New Labour the UK has seen its heavy industry and manufacturing base continue to evaporate; the trade deficit has exploded; unemployment is set to go through the three million mark and the Council of Mortgage Lenders have released data showing that 900,000 homeowners have fallen into negative equity. What is more, many commentators have predicted that future budgets will see cuts in public spending and rises in tax. What has been hailed as ‘a new world order’ in the economic sphere is in reality for most of the world’s population simply more of the same old grey unsustainable capitalist greed. 

The Police

There is no doubt whatsoever that the police tactics during the G20 protest were systematically thuggish and brutal, reminiscent of the sever heavy-handedness meted out to protesters at the 2005 G8 protest in Gleneagles. The word ‘systematically’ is key here as this was not just a few maverick officers running amok momentarily intoxicated by the sense of power a shield and baton afford, but rather a certain culture and attitude toward protesters which saturates much of the Metropolitan force from the top down.  The fact that this was dubbed ‘Operation Glencoe’  after the notorious Highland massacre gives us a worrying insight into the prevailing ethos.

From the very start the Met sought to portray protesters as criminals with ‘evil designs’ and prior to the G20 protest had been ‘talking-up’ the likelihood of violence for weeks. Monbiot described how the police briefed journalists and companies in the City about the ‘evil designs’ of environmental campaigners yet failed to allow these very campaigners to put forward their side of the story, even rebuffing them when they tried to openly explain their plans.

Monbiot also draws attention to a recent parliamentary report on human rights on the week leading up to the protest which focuses on misuse of police powers in relation to protesters. "Whilst we recognise police officers should not be placed at risk of serious injury," the report said, "the deployment of riot police can unnecessarily raise the temperature at protests." As thousands of riot police descended on the City it is clear that this report was blatantly ignored by the Met bosses.Furthermore, it is systematic failures within the Met which have allowed police officers, dubbed by The Independent as “secret police”, to cover up or remove their shoulder number. This underhand practice was also prevalent at the Gleneagles G8 demonstration and has allowed certain officers to see themselves above complaint or reprimand as the video footage of a large ‘baton-wielding’ officer striking a small woman on the leg clearly demonstrates. This woman, now revealed as Nicola Fisher, likened it to being “whipped by the Taliban”.

The police tactic known as ‘kettling’ has also come under fierce criticism. An indiscriminate tactic used to cordon off and hold protesters in a police pen for hours without access to water or toilet facilities.The result of this unhinged and provocative show of force by the Met vindicated their prediction of violence during the event - they just failed to mention that they would be the cause. It also ultimately and tragically ended in the death of Ian Tomlinson, a 47 year old newsagent who was pushed to the ground by a police officer and subsequently died moments after trying to get through the crowd to watch a football game. What has been telling about the police is how they have shifted ground as the whole tragedy has slowly been revealed. At first the Met statement said that officers were being pelted with bottles and tried to save Tomlinson. Yet ensuing amateur video footage revealed on the net shows Tomlinson, hands in pockets, walking away from the police then being struck and pushed by officers from behind – unequivocally a victim of unprovoked, unchecked police aggression.

A further example of shifting grounds takes the form of Nick Hardwick, chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), who stated on a Channel Four interview that there was categorically no CCTV footage of the incident because there were no cameras in the area. However, on the Tuesday pictures were published that clearly showed CCTV cameras in the area. The IPCC had to swiftly change its stance admitting that Hardwich ‘had been mistaken’ and that there were in fact three CCTV cameras in the area it just happened that none of them were working. What has compounded this staggering incompetence is the second pathologist report which revealed that Tomlinson did not die of heart failure, which the original now discredited report stated, but of abdominal bleeding, bleeding which could have been caused by a sever blow to the body. Paul King, Ian Tomlinson’s son, stated: “First we were told there had been no contact with the police, then we were told he died of a heart attack; now we know he was violently assaulted by a police officer and died from internal bleeding.”The disgraceful behavior of the Met is however part of a larger problem, a symptom of the vanishing civil liberties that have been ripped from the heart of our civil society by Blair, and continues unabated under Brown in the name of the ‘war on terror’.

This slow erosion of public liberty has concomitantly seen the executive arm of government gain more powers. The surveillance powers bestowed on local councils, prolonged detention without trial for terror suspects, ID cards, the DNA database, the arrest of a junior civil servant and an Opposition MP all seem part of this worrying slide toward a McCarthyite style police state. The fact that police had tried to link Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty and an extremely effective critic of the government, to the Home Office leak is further evidence of the anti-terrorist police taking on a repressive role. Clearly, the events surrounding the G20 summit demonstrate the continuing erosion of our right to freely protest and our right to free speech. 

 The People

Despite this trend thousands of brave people from all walks of life exercised their rights and assembled for two days of protests in the centre of London in front of the world’s media. The mood was one of understandable anger and the message was clear: the working peoples of the world and their families should not have to pay for the actions of the capitalist few. People called for a fairer world, secure jobs, secure pensions, a sustainable future and an end to privatisation, war and poverty. Idealism in its best sense is alive and well in the world today and a democratic socialist society is as practical and achievable as it has ever been. It is up to socialists to point the way to a genuinely new world order - not one based on individual greed and corporate empire but an order in which equality, freedom, sustainability and peace form the axis on which the world spins.