Behaviours designed to intimidate and silence alternative opinions should not allowed to become commonplace under the guise of protest – no matter if it is 20 people or 20,000, MPs have stated as the Home Affairs Committee has published a report on the policing of protest.
The report considers policing of the coronation of King Charles III in May 2023, when some republican campaigners ‘were arrested and not allowed to protest,
due to the suspicion that they had “lock-on devices”’, the committee reported. Also, three people from Westminster Night Stars were arrested during the early
hours on the eve of the coronation, ‘on suspicion of conspiracy to commit public nuisance, due to the police receiving intelligence that people were planning to use rape alarms to disrupt the procession’; although the ‘Night Stars’ are ‘a team of volunteers helping to ensure the safety of people on a night out’.
The MPs noted that protests around the coronation ‘represented the first time that new powers under the Public Order Act 2023 had been used’. The report concluded that the balance of rights – the right to protest, and not to be disrupted by protest – was ‘generally maintained’. While the MPs acknowledged that the 2023 Act (and others) arose from the Government’s wish to combat the likes of Just Stop Oil, ‘using disruptive tactics as their primary method, their report went from the coronation on to ‘Israel-Gaza protests’ since October, whether public assemblies (such as sit-ins and vigils), and public processions (such as marches). The MPs also went over the protests in London on Remembrance Sunday, in November, when police made 126 arrests on the day. The report went on: “Some 100 of these arrests were of far right extremist counter-protesters, who caused severe disruption across central London, including near the Cenotaph in Whitehall and in Vauxhall along the Israel-Gaza protest march,” and then raised concerns about demonstrations outside politicians’ homes, due to ‘the level of criminality at these demonstrations and the impact it was having on the elected representatives, their families and their staff’.
The report stated that ‘no one should be intimidated when they are coming and going from their place of work’. MPs noted a review by Lord Walney, a crossbench peer formerly the Labour MP John Woodcock, who was appointed the independent adviser for political violence and disruption in 2020. The review ‘will look at whether powers for enhanced protection for public spaces could be extended to offices of elected representatives, is with the Home Office. We look forward to a much more urgent response from the Government’.
Senior police told the committee that ‘policing these protests has led to the greatest period of sustained pressure on the Met [Police force] since the Olympics in 2012’. On the wider implications for policing, the committee recalled that it had previously ‘considered whether the police had a workforce fit for the future, with the Met being the only force which failed to hit its recruitment target for new police officers via the Uplift programme’, a hiring policy of the Boris Johnson regime. The Met ‘already struggles to meet the regular demands of policing London’, the committee reported.
The MPs heard from Tell MAMA which runs the MAMA project, an independent service Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks; and the Community Security Trust; each have recorded sharp rises in hate crime incidents, against Muslims and Jews respectively. The MPs also heard from police that they ‘were responding to “an astonishing increase in online objectional material associated with’ the Israel-Hamas conflict. The committee besides hearing legal, campaign group, police and other witnesses, ‘visited the Metropolitan Police’s (the Met) Specialist Operations Room to see for ourselves how the police are monitoring such protests’.
The Labour chair of the committee, Dame Diana Johnson said: “There is a careful balance to be struck and the Government should look carefully at how recent new legislation on the policing of protests is operating in practice. It is deeply dispiriting to see the fight against hate crime get stuck in Home Office limbo. Commissioning work is pointless if the findings and recommendations aren’t fully embedded in the policy process. We need to see much more action from the Home Office, both in how it reacts to the constructive advice it receives and how it develops strategy. At a time when some communities in the UK feel highly vulnerable, and community cohesion is under strain, the hate crime strategy is several years out of date with little sign of action. This needs to change now.”
Comment
Commenting for the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, APCC Chair Donna Jones, Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire and Isle of Wight, said: “The response to large-scale protests places significant strain on policing resources, piling extra pressure on forces and their ability to deal with the other risks facing their communities. It also has wider consequences on officer welfare and wellbeing with rest days cancelled.
“We welcome the Committee’s calls for police forces to be given greater support to manage such events and prevent disorder and for potential new rules requiring organisers to give more notice to enable them to better prepare and develop contingency plans.
“There is always a balance to be struck between the right to peaceful protest and the right of the public to go about their lives safely and without fear. As PCCs, we would welcome a national workforce plan setting out how forces should respond to the acute demands posed by protests while ensuring resources are not diverted away from local communities that have their own crime challenges.”
