Clamping down on the right to protest

These days, we don't go on many protests. That's down to a combination of advancing years and an aversion to police tactics that make any militant protest a fraught and increasingly dangerous activity for us. These days, we prefer practical community based activity such as this: Digging in at the plot 8.10.23 and more broadly, adopting this strategy: Quietly withdrawing consent 14.2.24. Obviously, as the shite increasingly starts to hit the fan, we may well attend future protests but, we'll be applying a degree of vigilance over the tactics of the police born from decades of bitter experience.

It's coming up to the third anniversary of the now infamous Kill The Bill protest that took place in Bristol on Sunday 21 March, 2021. This was to oppose the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill which subsequently passed into law. The protest effectively ended up as a police riot against protesters sitting down in the road outside New Bridewell Police Station. After just a few protesters had become a bit lairy, the cops decided that all of the protesters posed a threat to their well being and started to indiscriminately lay into them. It has been noted by some commentators that after the Colston statue ended up getting the mud pack treatment in the Floating Harbour on 7 June 2020, with the Avon and Somerset plod making the tactical decision to hold back from intervening, the Kill The Bill protest was seen as an opportunity to put themselves back into the driving seat again.

The cops violently reacting to the 'threat' of protesters sitting down in the road

To put it more bluntly, it could be seen as a form of payback for being humiliated over the Colston statue being 'relocated'. More broadly, it could be viewed in the context of a top down strategy to make attending large protests so fraught with the risk of arrest and injury, it will deter people from participating in them. The application of that strategy goes way beyond anyone actually attending a protest and now takes in anything posted on social media that the authorities don't like. As the shite is starting to hit the fan on multiple fronts, the authorities are starting to get nervous so understandably, from their point of view, they want to deter people from taking to the streets or even speaking out on social media.

When the cops want to make a point to protesters about who actually controls the streets, it's safe to say that they'll be careful about what protest they pick to choose to make their point with the use of violence and subsequent arrests. Although the Poll Tax riot in London that took place on Saturday 31 March 1990 is now receding into history, the experience of the battering the cops took that day doubtless informs current tactics. In other words, don't lay into crowds of pissed off working class people that include veterans of the Miners' Strike and the Wapping printers dispute without sufficient back up! I know I got flak from people for attending a number of the anti-lockdown/anti-vaccine mandate protests in 2021 but, the experience was very informative. Not least regarding the attitude of the cops who were wary about a large crowd of people, many of who were working class, who looked more than capable of handling themselves should they mistakenly try to wade in.

A scene from the now infamous Poll Tax Riot in London on 31 March 1990

With all due respect to the protesters who were sitting down in the road outside New Bridewell Police Station, they were making themselves an all too easy target for cops who a) had the go ahead from high up to make life uncomfortable for them and b) were seeking to re-establish their ownership of the streets after Colston. Sadly, lessons always seem to have to be learned the hard way. Namely, stay on your feet at all times, stay vigilant and be prepared to be mobile. Lessons I've learned from bitter experience over the decades...

A part of the strategy of 'punishing' those arrested was the use of the charge of riot which up until the Bristol Kill The Bill protest, had been used quite sparingly. These two pieces deal at some length as to why the charge of riot was used: Riot charges…why Bristol and Swansea?… and why now? - Roger Ball | Bristol Radical History Group | 6.3.24 and: ‘It was so wrong’: why were so many people imprisoned over one protest in Bristol? - Tom Wall | The Guardian | 5.3.24. There have been disturbances that have been way more serious than the Bristol Kill The Bill protest yet, according to available evidence, no riot charges were pressed:

The English ‘riots’ of August 2011 involved tens of thousands of people, with nearly a 100 urban disorders in London, Manchester, Salford, Liverpool, Nottingham and Bristol. In London, the epicentre of the violence, nearly 2,500 people were arrested but not a single person was charged with riot.[18] Four months earlier in Bristol, Stokes Croft saw two serious disorders lasting six hours or more over Easter week involving hundreds of protestors and public order trained police. Again, the sources suggest that not a single person was charged with ‘riot’. The Police Bill protest in Bristol and the Mayhill incident were less serious events than any of these listed here. The questions are therefore “Why Bristol? Why Swansea? … Why ‘riot’ charges… and why now?”

As mentioned earlier, the impetus for the seemingly sudden increase in the deployment of riot charges appears to have come right from the top. Along with the increasing criminalisation of protesters, a climate is being generated to instil a sense of hostility towards anyone taking to the streets to vent their feelings. This is all part of a strategy aimed at clamping down on protest of any sort, not just from the 'usual suspects' on the Left.

The question is this - why now? A ruling elite confident in itself does not develop a strategy and deploy tactics designed to stifle acts of protest to the point where people are actively deterred from taking to the streets. The normal strategy would be to ride it out, albeit with a few token arrests here and there just to keep up appearances. With the authorities cracking down on and delegitimising more and more types of protest, they're sending out a signal. It's not the one they think they're sending out though. The way we and many others see it is that the powers that be know things are going down the pan and they're getting increasingly nervous about the population becoming more restive.

At the moment, they're aiming their fire at what some would see as the 'usual suspects' on the Left. The way pro-Palestinian protesters are referred to as 'mobs' and the way they're being demonised suggests that they're among the first to feel the heat of this intensified clamp down on the right to protest. Sadly, there are some elements who tried to attach themselves to the currents of opposition to the lockdowns and vaccine mandates who are misguidedly cheering this on. If they think this clamp down is going to stop at the Left, they're very much mistaken.

During the lockdowns, there were a lot of people out on the street opposing them and the vaccine mandates that the authorities tried to implement. During the course of 2021, I went on a number of those protests. What struck me was the number of people going on them who had never attended a protest before in their lives. What also struck me was the way these protests seemed to not fall into any Left/Right category but went beyond that dichotomy. That was possibly one of the factors in the police not really knowing how to consistently deal with these protests. When people who previously have never been on a protest take to the streets, the authorities know that they're in trouble.

It continues... Farmers across the UK are starting to protest about a number of issues. So far, they have been peaceful and they haven't resorted to the disruptive tactics their counterparts in mainland Europe, particularly France, are engaging in. Nevertheless, the sight of farmers protesting is something the powers that be must be feeling pretty nervous about. Suffice to say that the games of divide and rule are afoot aimed at anyone suggesting that the wide range of people airing their grievances should consider making common cause with each other. Games of divide and rule that sadly, some on the Left seem only too happy to go along with.

The tactics of divide and rule are going to be deployed more and more to stop anyone taking a few steps back, joining the dots and concluding that we potentially have a pre-revolutionary situation on our hands. Sadly, there are people across the political spectrum and beyond it who will fall for these tactics, cheering on the clamp downs on the right to protest of those they consider to be their enemies, not realising that it may very well be their turn next. This may well be a futile plea and I'm probably banging my head against the wall with this but...people need to take a step back and ask if they're getting played by the divide and rule merchants while the rights of all of us to take to the streets in protest at what's being done to us continue to be eroded away.