Protest & the Police

Article 11 protects your right to protest by holding meetings and demonstrations with other people. You also have the right to form and be part of a trade union, a political party or any another association or voluntary group. You have freedom of assembly, expression & association. This does not protect intentionally violent protest. What you do must be neccessary & proportionate. The thing is, who decides what is or isn't? In a democracy, that would ultimately be the law.

Our police began as unpaid watchmen / constables. By the 1700's they were paid. All subjects of the crown were responsible for reporting crime & assisting in catching criminals. In 1829 Robert Peel introduced the Metropolitan Police Act. In 1835 royal boroughs were required to set up professional police services. Our police force can only operate by consent of the people, "based upon a consensus of support that follows from transparency about their powers, their integrity in exercising those powers and their accountability for doing so". 

The balance between the right to protest & the right of others to go about their lives without disruption, plus the police upholding the law, is a very difficult line to tread. For instance the policing of the Miners strike in the Battle of Orgreave is now widely held to have been completely unacceptable & brutal. But it was backed by the Thatcher government of the time. 

Currently the UK is experiencing a wave of protests against;-

• the Israeli government war against Gaza
• climate change
• stopping new unsustainable oil fields & mining         

The emergence of deliberately disruptive protest tactics has created additional challenges for the public & the police. When there are several protests at the same time & in the same place, additional police have to be brought in from elsewhere & the police have difficult prioritising decisions to make. It must affect the police ability to pursue other incidents & even criminality. The wo/manpower will only stretch so far. 

The public concern is for the disruption caused & the possible breakdown of law & order. On the other hand the protesters are members of the public themselves & believe that their cause is just & urgent & needs to be heard. Protest empowers communities to stand up to injustice & influence decision makers. Protesters just have to be very careful not to inconvenience the public to the extent that they alienate them.

Historically universal franchise, the bedrock of democracy, would probably not exist had it not been for the disruptive protests of women. Pride, Black Lives Matter & Apartheid, Peace Vigils & Fracking also spring to mind as injustices & causes that would probalbly not be allowed under the Public order Act 2023.

We need to be very careful not to give the police & Government so much power that public rights are so compromised that protest becomes a crime. Individuals need to be free to protest collectively without fear of a return to Peterloo.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre