This campaign has emboldened ultraright outfits like the National Democrats, who have been active in promoting the violent street mobilizations targeting alleged former sex offenders in several cities. Although most of the big-business media and leading capitalist politicians have taken their distance from the News of the World campaign, it is the capitalist rulers' attacks on the rights of working people that give a green light to reactionary forces to take things a few steps further.

The last Tory and current Labour governments are responsible for the Sex Offenders Act of 1997 and subsequent strengthening of its provisions, which provide for a national register of sex offenders in the hands of the cops. This gives the police another weapon to use against working people in the name of protecting children. Current proposals to toughen legal penalties, possibly further mandatory life sentences, indefinite electronic tagging, and long-term supervision of convicted offenders, if approved, would set a precedent for taking such repressive measures against others.

The capitalists' "anti-child abuse" campaign has nothing to do with protecting children. For them, children have no value except as future workers to be exploited for a few decades and then to be tossed on the scrap heap when they reach a certain age. In fact, there is no "children's issue" that is separate from the interests of the working class. It's the billionaire class and their dog-eat-dog system that are the biggest threat to our class, including children--from their assault on fundamental social rights to the violence they unleash through the cops and fascist-minded gangs, and the wars they drag working people into. It will take a powerful working-class movement to take on the profit system and lead a revolutionary transformation of society to one under workers and farmers rule, where human solidarity can prevail.