The police have raised the prospect that they could take to the streets in protest at coalition funding cuts, as evidence emerged that as many as 20,000 police service jobs will go over the next four years.
Paul McKeever, the Police Federation chairman, told MPs today that he could not rule out a repeat of the police protest marches three years ago when 20,000 angry officers brought Westminster and Whitehall to a standstill over a failure to backdate their pay.
The potential impact of police funding cuts was spelled out by two chief constables who warned they could lead to police station closures, a fundamental reconfiguration of frontline services and an end to "discretionary activities" currently undertaken by beat patrol and school-based officers.
McKeever told the Commons home affairs committee that the scale of police funding cuts could see the police take to the streets again: "We don't rule anything out at all," he said. "Certainly there are no plans in the short term. There are a number of reviews going on. We're taking an active part in those before we decide whether we're going to go. It might happen."
His warning came as research by the shadow home secretary, Ed Balls, disclosed that just over a third of police forces have already announced that they are to shed 14,500 jobs, including 6,250 police officers, over the next four years. Most of the job losses declared so far are in the large city forces that can be expected to bear the brunt of the cuts. The Met has so far only said that it will lose 1,000 jobs over the next 12 months, with the implication that many more will go during the four-year public spending squeeze.
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