“Some right-wing MPs have also spoken out against the bill. What they don’t like is that it gives police greater powers to call off protests on the grounds that rallies may cause noise or disruption to their intended targets.
authoritarianism
“Obviously the next time people plan to protest outside BP or Exxon Mobil headquarters, the business will contact the police and ask for the protest to be banned. Agreeing to do this puts the police at risk because they will be”
A policing bill would ban protesters from blocking newspaper printing presses. It’s no coincidence that XR moved outside of the newspaper media owned by Rupert Murdoch, who has had a major influence on the prime minister and his government for decades, with the proposal to criminalize the protests. Does this indicate that the strategically targeted XR protests are having serious repercussions, are they angering them?
“Parts of the bill are designed to make protests impossible,” Renton responded. “In the House of Lords, for example, the government tried to amend legislation to make it illegal for protesters to be attached to ‘another person, object or land’.
Undoubtedly, this provision is meant to punish environmental protesters for locking onto a stationary object, making it harder for police to arrest them. That particular clause was rejected in the upper house, but the government is expected to try again to pass it.
“The pattern of all previous legislation has been that once the content of authoritarian bills became widely known, protesters would innovate — they would come up with new tactics to get around obvious bans. My hope is that whatever form of bill is passed, innovative The cycle will continue. But protests will be harder, at least for a while.”
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The almost all-encompassing feeling is that as the effects of climate collapse worsen, the need for action becomes clearer, and governments around the world are responding by becoming more authoritarian. But is this feeling really backed up by facts? Renton is an expert on authoritarian regimes past and present. What can he tell us?
“Over the past decade, some countries have elected leaders who have displayed clear authoritarian sensitivities — like Trump, Modi, Bolsonaro. Across Eastern Europe, we have seen relatively liberal societies mired in governance In the form of democracy, opposition parties have few rights and protests are criminalized.
“The UK government has been trying to expand its power by taking over public institutions and replacing its leaders with government loyalists.
We’ve seen this on the BBC, the Equality and Human Rights Commission and elsewhere. There is also a worrying trend of governments increasingly using ‘secondary legislation’ – the power to legislate without parliamentary scrutiny. “
Finally, then, how should we respond to the Police Bill? Will the right to protest alienate the public and drain a lot of resources from other campaigns? Do we have any choice?
Renton concluded: “If we don’t support the right to protest, we will lose them. There is nothing in principle to prevent Britain from being the new Poland or the new Hungary. What stops this threat is people using their rights – whether it be the new Poland or the new Hungary. Jurors who oppose political prosecutions are ordinary citizens who take to the streets.”
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Brendan Montague is the editor ecologist.
