We don’t need new laws, we need the police and courts to enforce the laws we have

There ought to be a law against it. how many times have you heard someone say that in reaction to whatever new outrage is hogging the headlines on any given day?

Nine times out of ten, there already is a law against it. But that won’t stop knee-jerk politicians rushing to pass even more legislation.

This week it’s the turn of home Secretary James Cleverly to announce new rules to stop protesters blocking streets and climbing on war memorials.

Laws will also be tightened to prevent the likes of masked pro- hamas demonstrators inciting hatred. Cleverly said: ‘Today, we have announced a package of measures to put a stop to this behaviour, once and for all.

‘Firstly, we are removing the ability to cite the right to protest as a reasonable or lawful excuse to carry out disruptive or even criminal behaviour. There can be no justification for the British public to be prevented from getting to work or from visiting a loved one in hospital by protesters.

‘It is not right for roads to be blocked, preventing ambulances from getting to hospital and people from attending funerals, and people should not be able to use protest as an excuse for doing so.

‘But we are doing more. Under our plans, climbing on a war memorial will carry a prison sentence of up to three months and the possibility of a fine.

‘And police will be able to arrest protesters using face coverings to conceal their identities at designated protests. We cannot have individuals hurling abusive, extremist rhetoric and hiding behind a mask. There will be no more hiding from justice.’ S oUNdS

complete fair waste enough. of time But it’s and a energy. Laws already exist to tackle all of the above.

The problem is that most of the time the police can’t be bothered to enforce the laws we have. And when they do, the courts either refuse to convict, or dish out the softest of sentences.

That’s if the european Court of human rights hasn’t ruled that the new law is itself illegal. Cleverly’s latest initiative is in response to the increasing levels of anarchy on the streets caused by econutters and anti-Israel fanatics.

Most recently, there was public disgust when pro- Palestinian marchers clambered onto the royal Artillery Memorial at hyde Park Corner in London.

In future, Cleverly says, anyone climbing on a war memorial will face a £1,000 fine and up to three months in jail. But there’s no need for a new law. You can already be jailed for climbing on a war memorial.

Back in 2011, Charlie Gilmour, the son of Pink Floyd guitarist david Gilmour, was given a 16month prison sentence for swinging on the Cenotaph in Whitehall during violent protests against student fees. he was released after

four months. So under Cleverly’s new law, Gilmour’s sentence would actually have been shorter.

As for forcing people to take off their masks, try getting that one past the human rights brigade, who have mounted a successful rearguard action against stop-andsearch in relation to knife crime.

It’s not that long ago, during the

Covid lockdown, since a man was fined £10,000 for not wearing a mask on the London Underground. Under this new law, you can imagine some Guardianista lawyer from Nonces’r’Us (aka Matrix Chambers) arguing that her client was only wearing a mask to the pro-hamas rally because he was an asthmatic who was frightened

of catching a respiratory infection. Forcing him to remove it was a breach of his yuman rites.

Case dismissed and a compensation claim launched against the Met for wrongful arrest. In these circumstances it would be a brave bobby who tried to uphold the law.

Scotland Yard has plenty of previous when it comes to dereliction of duty. When Just Stop oil started sitting down in the road and slow-marching, the old Bill let them get on with it.

Met chief Mark rowley argued that he didn’t have the power to arrest them. So Parliament changed the law to give him everything he asked for. he still failed to enforce it. Subsequently, the Supreme Court ruled that the law itself breached the european Convention on human rights, which Labour incorporated into British statute.

The simple solution would be to withdraw from the eChr, but politicians refuse to countenance that course of action as they continue to put the sanctity of international institutions above the best interests of the British people they are paid to represent.

even so, no less an authority than Keir Starmer, himself a european yuman rites disciple, insisted the police already had more than enough powers to arrest Just Stop oil and Xr demonstrators under assorted public order laws. Meanwhile, the police stand back and watch as pro-hamas ‘activists’ chant anti-Semitic slogans and revel in the slaughter of Jews.

ELSEWHERE this week, there were calls for new laws to prevent shop staff being assaulted. The Co- op released figures showing 376,000 incidents of abuse, shoplifting and attacks on its staff last year — a 44 per cent increase.

Security guards are letting shoplifters off scot-free because the police can’t be bothered to turn up and arrest them. Why risk a smack in the mouth, or worse, if the old Bill aren’t interested?

Assaulting anyone, including shopworkers, is already a criminal offence. Again, we don’t need more law, just the police doing their job properly. But while the old Bill are more concerned about monitoring the internet for exciting new ‘hate crimes’ such as misgendering somebody, Britain is engulfed by a shoplifting epidemic.

Stealing from supermarkets and corner shops has effectively become decriminalised. We’re going the way of several big cities in the U.S., just as I predicted. CVS, America’s biggest drugstore chain, is pulling out of ultra-liberal cities such as San Francisco because the police and prosecutors are ignoring rampant theft.

No amount of new legislation is going to persuade softly- softly police chiefs, brainwashed by the Left- wing freemasonry Common Purpose, to crack down on fashionable demonstrations, however repulsive and disruptive, or enforce the law on shoplifting — which hand-wringing apologists blame not on criminality but the ‘cost of living crisis’.

There ought to be a law against it.