Estonia is a thin end of the Starmer wedge for prison overcrowding

Posted on by Vaseline

The latest tactic of the Labour government is to send prisoners to Estonia in an attempt to reduce overcrowding.

As reported by Sky News, the government is considering having offenders serve their sentences in the Baltic state. Apparently it is one of many options being considered. The latest figures show that there are only 1,098 free prison places in England and Wales – which is apparently not enough. But if they are going to lock up peaceful protesters for no reason – what do they expect?

Since Labour came to power, Justice Minister Shabana Mahmood has warned that prison overcrowding could mean a breakdown in law and order unless something is done to relieve the pressure.

It was also reported in the Emphatic that ‘magistrates have been asked not to jail criminals for weeks’. Male prisons in England and Wales were almost empty last month, with just 83 spaces left.

Double Standards: Estonia vs. Rwanda

Recently, the infamous Rwanda policy of the Tory government, which would have sent asylum seekers to Rwanda, was scrapped by the new Labour government. Starmer said he would tackle the problem upstream by cracking down on people smuggling rings behind the border crossings:

However, anyone with half a brain knows that smuggling gangs are not the root cause of our asylum crisis. The UK has sponsored countless wars, destabilised countries around the world, fuelled the climate crisis and propped up our global capitalist system.

All this reinforces poverty and colonialism.

To make matters worse, the UK currently offers no safe asylum routes for the majority of people. This is despite being part of the Refugee Convention, which means it is obliged to do so. This means our government is forcing people seeking asylum into the hands of smugglers.

The smugglers are just a symptom – they make it less safe for migrants. They are not the root cause – and Starmer is delusional if he really believes that this is the case.

What this shows, however, is the complete double standard that Starmer is displaying. He kicked things off with the Rwanda plan, but now his government is busy sending prisoners to another foreign country. They are trying to put a sticking plaster on a gaping, open wound, and it will not solve the problem.

Root Causes

Starmer could now take the same approach to prison overcrowding. Address the root causes of violence and criminal behaviour. Tackling inequality, reducing poverty and helping victims of violent crime are all proven ways to prevent crime:

Labour also plans to continue the Tories’ appeal against the Supreme Court ruling that found the government’s anti-protest laws unlawful. This shows that Labour wants the state’s criminal justice system – the police and the courts – to continue to have access to these sweeping authoritarian laws that restrict people’s right to protest.

Who are the officers who have been meaning this so far? They are clearly climate protesters and pro-Palestine activists. So if the government is planning to send prisoners to Estonia, it could very likely be many of these protesters:

It is clear that we need to strike a balance. We need to go after violent criminals who pose a risk to society. But at the same time, we should not punish those who protest peacefully.

If we continue as we are now, the government will send disabled people to Vietnam – because we all know that disabled people are useless under capitalism. If we are not productive, they do not need us.

Main image via BBC NEWS/Youtube

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