5 minute read
Craig’s Thoughts
World Shut Your Mouth
By Craig Hanlon-Smith @craigscontinuum
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) Much of the Brexit referendum, although not all, took several swipes at the immigration debate. This has continued apace since with mythological front-page stories about the so-called dinghy invasions and how our shores need to be protected from those landing on our Kent beaches. There are locals standing along the coast with binoculars as a 21st Century Dad’s Army although without any hint of humour.
Meanwhile, our apparent immigration restricting government has legally sanctioned mass immigration for Hong Kong residents fleeing an increasingly oppressive China, as it moves in to fully embrace the former city state as another province. The UK government has offered an open door on account of new security laws in Hong Kong and the disappearance of democracy at the hand of the Chinese state. But this piece is not about immigration. I wonder how many of those Hong Kong residents seeking refuge in a newly welcoming United Kingdom are aware of our recent policing bill which passed its first reading in the House of Commons recently. A bill which will allow a more interventionalist approach to the policing of protests, if they are granted permits to take place at all. The new bill makes special provision for the damage and defacing of property and the felling of statues, but also allows protests to be prevented by the police. Damage and public nuisance laws already exist, if the application of the law has not previously been enacted, that is a matter for the law enforcement agencies to reflect upon their own tactics. These laws already exist. So what is the point? These developments were considered necessary by the Home Office following the protests and marches of Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter. The police described existing laws as tying their hands, particularly in relation to the climate change protests of Extinction Rebellion, which brought roads and public transport systems to a standstill. There was significant outcry at the Metropolitan Police’s handling of the events at Clapham Common a couple of weeks ago following the murder of Sarah Everard, a murder it would appear at the hands of a police officer. The new policing bill would provide unquestionable legitimacy in law for the police to respond to all such events in this way in the future. In short, outcry all you want, it is now in the law for us to behave in a reactive and brutish manner.
New laws will allow the police to set noise limits, to provide prescriptive start and finish times and apply such rules to sole person demonstrations. The new bill establishes into criminal law restrictions protestors ought to have known about while clarity from police officers present at the event is not required. The new bill includes the new and vague offence of intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance but perhaps more worryingly grants the Home Secretary powers to amend the legislation without bringing the matter back to the elected Parliament.
Let us unpick this. First we should acknowledge that all you screamers who have been letting rip your excitement at the relaunch of Pride events this summer (premature if you ask me, but your health is your concern) would not be able to do so without the right to protest. The Pride Movement as we know it today began on June 28, 1969 when a black drag queen threw a brick through the window of a bar in New York City. Criminal damage because the queers fought back, they’d had enough. This was followed by years of angry, noisy protest marches in major cities around the world, including here in the UK. Protests which grew in size, grew in noise and morphed into Pride celebrations we take an automatic cultural advantage of and political disinterest in today. We have sanitised our contemporary Western events into glorified pop concerts with little heart and absolutely no soul. This was not always what we were. Pride today was a protest yesterday. This new legislation would not have provided the opportunity for such development; your precious Pride would not even be on the radar.
We live in a time when our farming and fishing communities, not to mention all businesses in Northern Ireland, are just learning the limitations and challenges of our departing the EU and the agreements the government has signed up to as part of the exit ‘deal’. If dissatisfied, where is their democratic right to protest? Where is their voice? I am neither soliciting for nor suggesting the right to violent protest either with bricks through windows or the toppling of statues into rivers. The latter in the new bill will get you a prison sentence of up to 10 years when sentencing for rape starts at five. How is that not totally messed up? The government is rushing through this legislation during a global pandemic and while we are still living in lockdown with a roadmap out of it at least another three months ahead. This is not an accident, it is a deliberate strategy. While we live under consistently shifting restrictions, the ideas suggested in this bill do not appear so ghastly and so the masses stay quiet. After all the law is there to protect us, right? Only two Conservative party voices dissented during the debate on this bill, one of them former Prime Minister and former Home Secretary Theresa May who raised concerns about the powers it grants the current and all future people in the latter role. Theresa May. She who was responsible for the ‘send them back’ trucks driving around our towns while David Cameron was PM, not to mention that, although Amber Rudd took the fall for the Windrush scandal, it was of Theresa May’s making. If Mrs May thinks this legislation is open to the abuse of power it is time to listen. She later voted for the bill to pass. It will be forever disappointing to me that when Britney and Kylie came to Brighton Pride, neither one of them made reference to our fight, our struggle or even that without us, no one would know who they are. It took a drag queen to stand on that stage and throw a verbal brick into the audience by calling out our ever-increasingly Conservative political direction. Under this new legislation she may never be given the opportunity again, because Pride – the ‘cuddling up to Kylie’ business that it now is – will look after itself rather than encourage that kind of political debate or torch lighting. And all those middle-class Brighton kids with your green hair and rainbow glittered faces stomping through town holding your ‘close the prisons’ paraphernalia above your privileged ignorant heads during the Black Lives Matter protests, I hope you enjoyed the ride because it looks as though that was your first and last time. Where are your voices now. And to those members of the LGBTQ+ communities who proudly voted Conservative, shame upon you all.
