The following article attempts to contribute to the discussions that have followed the recent riots in the UK by looking at the relationship between the riots and the class struggle by placing them in the framework of the nature and evolution of the class struggle. The first part, published here, considers the question in the context of the history of the workers’ movement and the general nature of the class struggle. The second part will look more specifically at the summer riots in the UK.

The ICC's next Public Forum in London will focus on some of the most important developments in the world situation in the last few months: the 'debt crisis', social revolts, the war in Libya and the riots in the UK. All welcome. 

The ruling class in Britain has offered a number of explanations for the recent riots. Whatever their individual analyses, those in parliament recalled to discuss the four nights of riots stood united behind the wave of state repression in some of the country's most deprived areas. Speakers queued up with suggestions about how the capitalist state can exercise social control, intimidate groups and individuals, monitor all our communications, and beef up its ability to physically confront any threat it chooses to identify. In practice, courts have carried on sentencing overnight, people have been remanded for sentencing in higher courts; there have been dawn raids with doors broken down, and the press have published galleries of people in the hope that others will, in the words of the Sun, “shop a moron.”