Rather than useless laws on protest we need a return to civility

A few days ago there was a back-up of sewage in Four Millbank, the broadcasters’ HQ at Westminster. 

The stench drove us out of our studio. At short notice we decamped to Abingdon Green for a live programme. It was a humdrum sort of day with nothing special on the political agenda. Yet within minutes of going on air we were mobbed by protesters determined to disrupt us. Steve Bray, the top-hatted anti Brexit protester, and a companion positioned themselves and their large slogan covered signs in the main shot behind the interviewees. They then moved off claiming their rights to protest were being cancelled and that consequently they had no alternative but to shout deafeningly loud in an attempt to make our activities impossible. The “Jesus Loves You” Scotsman missed his chance by turning up just as we were finishing.

The laws governing protest and the right to protest are much in play at the moment. An attempted clamp down is almost certain, whether or not it is effective or necessary.

Lord Walney, still better known as the former ex-Labour MP John Woodcock ennobled by Boris Johnson, has been tasked with an independent review into “political violence and disruption” with special reference to “far right, far left and other extreme single issue political groups”. The “other” category is likely to include Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter and, after this week in Bristol, Kill The Bill. 

The omnibus Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill currently going through parliament includes increased powers for the police against non-violent protests which disrupt the public and parliament and against unauthorised encampments. 

Following the ill-judged attempt by the Metropolitan Police to break up the vigil for Sarah Everard on Clapham Comment, the government is also under pressure to reinstate an exception for peaceful protest into its Lockdown law prohibition of public gatherings. 

The regular protesters who turn up on the Green have become familiar faces over the years. There’s the artist who produces scatological cartoons as large oil paintings, the man with a sandwich board which used to say he solved the Northern Irish peace process, updated now, I think, to climate change; the Roman soldier, the allegedly defrocked Irish priest who capers to amplified jigs in a very mini kilt and there was the late anti-war protester Brian Haw, who replaced the Countryside Alliance pig camping on Parliament Square. And not forgetting my old friend Stuart Holmes, a rough sleeper I first met in the Thatcher era. He was campaigning for smoking bans then with a twenty-foot long banner attached to a bicycle. Having won that one, he now has a dog, also called Stuart, and has moved on to “No Nukes”. 

These people are perennial eccentrics, amounting to mostly harmless nuisances if you keep on the right side of them. Loud music can be a problem and I’m glad Stuart has given up singing to a one-note guitar but it’s usually easy to work around them. It’s not the end of the world if they drift occasionally into the far distance on camera.  The causes they are championing mutate slowly and seldom bear directly on the political issue of the moment under discussion on the airwaves.

In the past five years or so since the Brexit Referendum and Trump a new type of protester has emerged to deliberately harass journalists and politicians in the streets and squares around Westminster. Some try to disrupt broadcasting which they inevitably dub as “fake news”. Some, including Bray and many of the Brexit protesters, are making a living from their activities, either paid directly by associated campaign organisations or through crowdfunding. 

A line is crossed, however, when protesters try to stop other people going about their lives. A protest march, however extreme the views of the marchers, is fine if it is not directly intimidating others. Roads may be closed briefly until it passes. Extinction Rebellion (ER) was different. They should not have blocked main streets or prevented others going to work, however virtuous they consider their cause to be. They are not like the Suffragettes who exposed themselves to danger and mistreatment rather than the general public. There was still a Derby winner in 2013, even though Emily Davidson was trampled by the horses. 

ER’s self-aggrandizing comparisons with the Suffragettes are despicable. The same goes for those who want to exercise their free speech by drowning out the free speech of others. The people, usually men, who turn up with bull horns to drown out presenters at work with aggressive and unimaginative cries such as “F*** Kay Burley” or “F*** Murdoch”.

During the Brexit years, some female MPs were jostled and abused by protesters outside parliament. The new Speaker of the Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle now opposes the “tent cities” which spring up on the Green on health and safety grounds. The next time there is intense interest in events at Westminster, domestic and international television and radio reporters may be unable to cover the news for their audiences of millions at times of intense political interest. 

For all the talk of new tougher measures the irony is that there are already perfectly adequate laws and bylaws in place to deal with the problems caused by protests around Westminster and more widely. But there is a reluctance by the police and the authorities to enforce them.

For example the area around Parliament, including Abingdon Green, is already “a controlled area” where the unauthorized use of loudspeakers and loud hailers is prohibited, as is the erection of tents and sleeping facilities. The laws on public nuisance and trespass extend similar sanctions to protests elsewhere. There is no need for a new offence of “too loud” protest.

Any new laws are unlikely to be enforced although they will surely put the police in the middle more often. The police are reluctant to intervene because of public opinion. They fear a backlash against them for being too harsh on groups who are likely to have at least some minority support. The Met’s experience on Clapham Common and what is likely to be a career-shortening intervention by the Commissioner will only increase their reluctance. 

The only certain way to end abusive behaviour towards other people by protesters would be a return to civility and tolerance in our social relations. That seems to be a fond hope in this internet age. We must keep on hoping and trying though. Rather than making useless laws that means, alas, putting up with this s*** inside and outside for a while longer.