The Guardian view on the police bill: a fight for the right to protest
An already illiberal police and crime bill threatens to become even more so, if 18 pages of amendments added to it by the government in the House of Lords last month are accepted. A new criminal offence of obstructing major transport works, the expansion of stop and search powers and a new power for police to ban named people from demonstrations are clearly intended to strangle off what ministers are worried could be a new line in disruptive climate protests, after two months of roadblocks organised by the direct-action group Insulate Britain – and a decision by the supreme court earlier this year reaffirming the right of protesters to cause disruption.
Emboldened by the angry response to Insulate Britain from some members of the public, and criticism from paramedics about delays to ambulances, the home secretary, Priti Patel, and her colleagues have calculated that they can risk bypassing the scrutiny by MPs that is an essential part of our parliamentary process. In January, the Lords will have the opportunity to prove them wrong by rejecting these tackedon, kneejerk measures.
The police, crime, sentencing and courts bill was bad enough before, as was vividly illustrated by criticism of it from David Blunkett and Theresa May – neither of whom remotely resembles the stereotype of the out-of-touchwith-public-opinion, human-rights-obsessed liberal that some on the right love to hate. The bill, wrote Lord Blunkett earlier this year, would make Britain “more like Putin’s Russia”. More than 600,000 people signed a petition objecting to it.
There are several grounds for this. One is new laws against stopping on private and public land without authorisation, with penalties including the confiscation of vehicles. This would have the effect of criminalising the way of life of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people. Such extreme restrictions placed on nomadic lifestyles are wrong, and risk stoking prejudice against communities and individuals who already face serious disadvantages. The current backdrop of severe social housing shortages and widespread homelessness makes such a clampdown particularly ill-judged and repressive.
The Alliance for Youth Justice is concerned about the disproportionate impact that strengthened police powers would have on black and minority ethnic young people. Plans to increase the custodial sentences of older teenagers would undermine their rights as children – part of a disturbing pattern from a government that has recently denied entitlements to 16- and 17-year-olds in the care system. What makes the whole package all the more unpalatable is the double standard with which the governing party approaches the subject of individual freedoms, and the role of government in balancing these with the wider public interest. It is hard not to wonder if the recent outrage on the Tory right over Covid passes, and even mask-wearing, is at some level intended to distract and mislead people.
Ms Patel’s zeal for increasing police powers, and her own, is nothing new: it is the dominant theme of her cabinet career. There is a reasonable discussion to be had about the cost of policing occupation-style protests. Longer sentences for some violent crimes will be supported by many voters. But the explicitly anti-protest measures contained in the new amendments, combined with other legislation such as the power to remove citizenship in the nationality and borders bill, and attacks on the Human Rights Act, signal an alarming lurch away from liberal democratic norms and towards an authoritarian form of government.
Britain has a long and proud tradition of political protest, which is as important to democracy as a free press and elections. The latest amendments to the police bill mark a concerted attempt to roll back these rights. Labour should oppose them loudly and clearly. So should the House of Lords, when it gets the chance next month.