The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
currently making its way through parliament will change how policing in England
and Wales works and has the potential to damage our democracy [5].
Provisions made in the bill give the police greater
powers to impose conditions on peaceful demonstrations that are deemed to be
‘inconvenient’.
This has emboldened the police in some parts of
England to use their existing powers in ways that can be viewed as oppressive
and feeds an existing, though often unacknowledged culture of abuse and
intimidation in our political culture.
Activists from campaign groups in the Stoke-on-Trent
area have experienced this culture of intimidation and abuse at first hand. In
a blog article published in June this year local anti-racist group NORSCARF
described Stoke North MP Jonathan Gullis using his social media presence ‘to build a rhetoric of racism
and disdain towards just about any group of people or issue which doesn’t sit
well with his particular brand of Conservative Britain’ [1].
Members
of the ‘Stop the Stink’ campaign against air pollution from Walley’s Quarry in
Silverdale have expressed concern over being visited by officers from
Staffordshire Police who warned them they could be arrested if they blocked the
gates to the quarry as part of their protest.
Protester
Audrey Young told the Sentinel "I
had a visit from the police saying I would get arrested if I blocked the gates.
I can't block the gates - but Walley’s can gas my family."
Mavis Cooper, another Silverdale resident protesting
about the stink said about the tactics used by Staffordshire Police “It’s just
not on. They shouldn’t have gone round to people’s houses and called on them
when they’ve done nothing wrong”.
She added, “I don’t want to protest, but I’ve
got to live with that smell. It’s every day. I’m not very impressed. They’ve
got more important things to do.”
Staffordshire Police, also speaking to the
Sentinel, said officers had visited people previously involved in blocking
access to the quarry to advise them that blocking the public highway was an
offence that could lead to arrest.
They went on to say that “Staffordshire Police
takes its role in facilitating peaceful protests seriously and works hard to
find the right balance for all involved” [4]
In a
string of Facebook posts and videos Mr Gullis has made comments about
immigration, the Black Lives Matter movement and a ‘woke’ culture with which he
is almost comically at odds. NORSCARF describe these as being ‘clearly designed
to stir up division and hatred’.
They
go on to say that views in combination with his voting record in parliament,
which shows him consistently voting against measures to prevent climate change
and in favour of a stricter asylum system [2], show a ‘blatant pandering
towards right-wing and far-right ideals’.
A
video posted on Gullis’s Facebook site shows him making a speech supporting the
protest against the notorious ‘stink’ from Walley’s Quarry in Silverdale [3],
despite his having supported the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that
could see such protests ruled to be illegal.
Human
Rights charity Liberty have described the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts
Bill as containing a ‘concerted attack on the right to protest’, arrived at
through extending police powers that are already extensive and creating new
offences that target ‘the manner, the method, the location and even the volume
of demonstrations’.
This
will, they say, have a serious impact on minority and marginalized communities
and imperil ‘deeply cherished principles of freedom of assembly and expression’
and restrict dramatically the use of ‘vital tool and mechanism available to
citizens of democratic countries to stand up to the State and make their voices
heard’ [6].
Speaking
in relation to the ‘over policing’ of protests following the murder of Sarah
Everard on Clapham Common in March this year Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty
International UK said: “Temporary restrictions on our civil liberties during a
time of pandemic are one thing - but a law that permanently restricts the right
to peaceful protest is totally unacceptable”.
She
went on to say that the bill could make such scenes the ‘new normal’ when it
comes to how protests are policed, adding that "The Bill itself is so
broad in scope that it is a threat to everybody. Threatening the rights to
peaceful protest is only one alarming area of new policing powers, others
relate to stop and search or restricting the rights to roam will only further
entrench racism and discrimination within the criminal justice system” [7].
Oliver
Johnson, a member of the Staffordshire Kill the Bill Alliance described being
initially welcomed to speak at a ‘Stop the Stink’ protest outside
Newcastle-under-Lyme Civic Centre by Conservative MP for the area Aaron Bell
and members of the borough council.
However, “At the first mention of
"Kill the PCSC bill" Mr bell immediately began shaking his hands and
saying "No, not now". In my opinion Bell was protecting his hypocrisy”.
One local councillor, Oliver Johnson said called him "a
disgrace" and said it was "not the time", he went on to say he
feels there is more than a little disingenuous in the same councillor “now attacking
Bell over the PCSC bill”.
He adds that the KTB Alliance understand and respect the wish of
people living near to Walley’s Quarry not to have their campaign politicised,
saying “The solidarity shown by the community of
Silverdale really has inspired me and their right to peacefully protest should
be protected”.
He adds
that however, “what is happening at Whalley’s quarry now is a perfect example
of what could happen when the bill is passed. Big businesses using the police
to protect their nefarious interests”.
The Police,
Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is the latest stage in an assault on our
rights as citizens of a functioning democracy, rights that, as Kerry-Anne
Mendoza writes in her powerful critique of our current economic and social
situation ‘Austerity’ (2015) are, along with adequately funded public
services and a humane welfare system ‘incompatible with the neoliberal
political and economic paradigm’.
Mendoza
describes how over close to forty years beginning with the Public Order Act
(1986) and progressing through moral panics over anti-social behaviour and
manipulation of the threat posed by terrorism successive governments have
chipped away at our freedoms. This, through the Crime and Disorder Act (1998)
and other pieces of legislation a bewildering array of crimes and punishments
have been created, for the purpose of constraining the ability of the public to
hold those in power to account [8].
In each instance the method used had been the same, a moral panic
has been created around an issue such as anti-social behaviour or terrorism and
this has been used to justify an ever more draconian response. The Police,
Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, will, if passed into law, continue this
dispiriting race to illiberalism.
The media have largely ignored the threat it poses to civil
liberties and the official opposition have proved to be either impotent or
implicated in allowing it to pass unchecked into law, depending on your view of
their actions. That makes engaging in peaceful protest, either against the bill
itself or other issues on which it would silence we the people, even more
important.
As we emerge from restrictions on our behaviour brought in during
the pandemic the ability of the public to protest is under threat like never
before. Our leaders have shown themselves to be unwilling to relinquish their
enhanced powers to control our lives. At a time when it needs to be heard most,
they are using this bill to try and silence the voice of dissent once and for
all.
[2] https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/25898/jonathan_gullis/stoke-on-trent_north/votes
[3] https://www.facebook.com/799676273759668/videos/206492181454483
[4] https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/police-issue-arrest-warning-walleys-5831191
[8] Chapter 11 Civil liberties, human rights, and
democracy, in Mendoza K, (2015), Austerity: The Demolition of the Welfare
State and the Rise of the Zombie Economy, Oxford, New Internationalist,
pp:146-171
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