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UK Cops 'Ashamed and Sick' of Enforcing Ban on Anti-Genocide Group Palestine Action
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2025
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This isn't like working in fast food, where you can just find another job right away. You're talking about abandoning a career the officer has spent years building.
Principles aren't principles if you only follow them when they're easy.
Principles can be in conflict though. The promise to provide stability for your family, for example, is often more urgent than more lofty political principles. In this situation, looking actively for another job whilst continuing to perform the tasks you disagree with at a level of bare minimum compliance might be an ethically acceptable compromise.
You dont have a line you wouldnt cross at work? Arresting someone carries a risk of harm, would you harm someone else daily whilst looking for new work?
There are tons of lines I wouldn't cross at work, but those lines would be different in another job. If arresting people is generally part of your job description, then I would expect you to have different red lines.
It is a fine principle to uphold the law. In this particular case it is the law that's an ass, not the enforcement.
Easy to say but my job is shit and what real choice do I have? Sure I can look for something else but there isn't much out there.
Does your job involve destroying other people lives as a jackboot for capital?
Are you a cop? If so then you don't need me to tell you about all of the private security gigs that are going because you 100% already knew about them.
Easy for us to say.
I'm not claiming to be the moral arbiters of the nation though, am I. They are, that's the job they chose to do, it's not my fault they suddenly don't like it. Same for the military in the US wandering aboud LA, and DC.
Demanding they quit because of this has definite "I live with my parents" vibes though. I doubt that person has a mortgage.
This is bullshit. I'd rather sell my house and move to a poorer area and find a job where I don't hurt people for half the pay, then to hurt people as a police office or in the military. I would expect a wife and children to be pretty understanding of that. And yes I have a mortgage, and no I'm not rich.
Again, they were aware that was always a possibility when they took the job. If you have a job that involves following orders so there is always the possibility that you will be given orders you don't agree with, you should think about that before signing up.
Seems a bit daft. The answer then is to have either no police, or to have police who will mindlessly follow any order?
No police would be great, but in the absence of that ideal, I'd rather have people in the role who question the morality of what they're doing. Compare this response with ICE in the US who kidnap people off the streets and send them to concentration camps and don't complain that they disagree with what they are doing
Yeah cuffing pensioners is a real skill that must be honed with years of hard work & training
https://www.joiningthepolice.co.uk/training-progression/training
18-22 weeks of classroom based training, then three months supervision on the job. Then they will be getting promoted as they get more experienced.
It's a lot to just walk away from.