No Accounting for Some...

One of the perennial refrains of Britain's right-wing press goes along the lines of 'Isn't it outrageous that Labour wants to persecute our brave soldiers/policemen by investigating and sometimes prosecuting them for alleged war crimes and/or excessive use of force?'  Which ignores the fact that this doesn't just happen under Labour governments and that accountability is a cornerstone of any democratic system.  People can't be allowed to use 'It was a war' or 'We were just enforcing the law' as a cover for committing illegal acts - regardless of circumstances, they still must be held accountable for their actions, they have to be able to justify what they have done.  What the foaming-at-the-mouth headlines in the likes of the Telegraph, (which is fast outpacing even the Mail for insane and utterly delusional, fact free, right-wing rants masquerading as journalism), fail to mention, of course, is that the soldiers against whom prosecutions have been brought (or, at the very least, have been investigated with a view to possible prosecution), stand accused of the killing and abuse of non-combatants.  Regardless of whether such things happen in a war zone or not, they might well constitute war crimes, depending upon on the circumstances , and those involved have to be held accountable.  The same applies in police killings.  Strangely enough, we can't just take peoples' word that their actions were justified, otherwise every criminal prosecution would inevitably end in an acquittal.  Except, the right-wing press seem to be saying, these chaps are soldiers and policemen, for God's sake!  British soldiers and coppers at that: if we can't accept that they are beyond reproach, then who can we trust?

It's all part of the right's quest for exceptionalism.  While they like to pay lip service to the idea of political and criminal accountability, in truth, they think that it should only apply to 'other' people: the poor, non-whites, the left, immigrants and so on.  'Their' people should be excepted from the rules because, well, they are just of a 'better' type, or they represent a revered conservative institution, particularly things like the military and the police, that can be used as tools of repression against those great unwashed masses.  It's not even the big stuff that they feel that they should be excepted from in terms of accountability.  There's a whole stratum of white collar crime they quite clearly feel shouldn't be treated as crimes - fiddling the expense account isn't embezzlement, just a perk or breaking the speed limit isn't a crime if you are a middle class BMW driver as, obviously, you are far too superior a driver to cause an accident.  This view extends to stuff like tax evasion, which isn't a crime as long as the wealthy are doing it, but benefits fraud most definitely is, as it is only committed by nasty poor people.  Not that this call for exceptionalism is confined to the UK, it's a phenomenon you'll find, in one form or another, across the globe.  In recent times it has been fuelled by the rise of the super-rich, who definitely don't see why they, or their corporations, should be constrained by the puny laws of mere mortals.  Indeed, as right-wing politicians have, increasingly, cosied up to the billionaires in order to get their financial backing, the situation has become worse as it is clear that the price for their endorsements is a loosening of regulations and weakening of enforcement of relevant rules and laws.  All of which brings us back to the UK's right-wing press and their outraged cries for exceptionalism for soldiers and policemen accused of murder, corruption and abuse of power - their strategy is clear, if you can set a precedent for excepting one group from certain laws, hen you can free other groups and entities from those pesky chains of accountability.  Future Tory or Reform UK governments, for instance...