Sunday, 5 September 2021

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Will Silence the Voice of Dissent Just When We Need It Most

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] https://norscarf.wordpress.com/2021/06/27/jonathan-gullis-mp-stokes-man-of-the-people-or-loud-mouthed-racist/

[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

[5] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-crime-sentencing-and-courts-bill-2021-factsheets/police-crime-sentencing-and-courts-bill-2021-overarching-factsheet

[6] https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Libertys-Briefing-on-the-Police-Crime-Sentencing-and-Courts-Bill-HoC-2nd-reading-March-2021-1.pdf

[7] https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/uk-policing-bill-will-normalise-dangerous-over-policing-peaceful-protesthttps://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/uk-policing-bill-will-normalise-dangerous-over-policing-peaceful-protest

[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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