Anger as police say they will ‘facilitate’ unlawful protests by green extremists
POLICE plan to ‘facilitate’ protest during the Cop26 summit – even when it is ‘unlawful’.
Assistant chief constable Bernie Higgins said officers’ approach would be ‘fair, friendly and accommodating’.
Demonstrators are expected to cause disruption, including possible road blockages, while the climate conference goes on.
Police chiefs insist they want to accommodate peaceful protesters as part of Operation Urram, the Gaelic word for respect.
Last night, Scottish Tory community safety spokesman Russell Findlay said: ‘Law-abiding Scots will be concerned to hear that law-breaking will be potentially facilitated by the police during Cop26.
‘It is important that Police Scotland, and their colleagues from 43 other UK forces, have the operational independence to ensure public safety for this unprecedented event, but that should not come at the cost of enabling protesters to break the law.’
Speaking at a recent online event hosted by the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), Mr Higgins said: ‘Our policing plan is about facilitating peaceful protest, even on occasions when it might be unlawful; we might have to deal with the unlawful aspects of it further down the line.’
He and his second-in-command Chief Superintendent Mark Harmander’ greaves have met online with four prominent members of protest group Extinction Rebellion.
Mr Higgins said: ‘We explained what our policing philosophy is; we explained that we will facilitate peaceful protest, we will facilitate unlawful protest, to a point.’
But he confirmed that if a protest started to endanger others or impinge on the ability of the conference to operate, the police might then have to increase their reaction to it.
He said it would be a ‘graduated response’ and ‘our fundamental approach is facilitation, it’s engagement, it’s fair and friendly and it’s a no-surprise approach’.
This week the Mail revealed that some protesters who cause trouble could go free with warnings because of a shortage of police cells to keep them in.
At a separate SPA meeting last month, Mr Higgins – the ‘gold com
for the Cop26 policing operation – said any demonstrations which would endanger road users and protesters themselves would see people arrested.
He referenced the Kingston Bridge as a potential site for the attention of protesters.
The bridge is part of the M8, which goes through the centre of Glasgow and passes close to the Scottish Event Campus, the summit’s main venue. Mr Higgins said: ‘If we see similar events to what we’ve seen on the M25, where protesters effectively shut off one of the main circular routes in and out of London, that firstly is dangerous – it’s dangerous to other road users, it’s dangerous to people that might be vulnerable in vehicles – and it also has a massive impact on business-as-usual across the London conurbation.
‘If we had a situation where, for example, a group of individuals lay across the Kingston Bridge and effectively brought to a halt one of the main thoroughfares in Scotland that has something like 70,000 vehicles going over it a day, that’s something that’s a real danger to the individuals that are doing it, it’s a real danger to the road users that are traversing the bridge.
‘We would take pretty prompt action there.’
Mr Higgins went on to say that if protesters were to have a ‘mass lie-in’ in Glasgow’s George Square, ‘they can lie there as long as they want’. He added that ‘unless there’s a real threat to life, police would give protesters a certain amount of time to leave.
The senior officer said police would first allow a blockade, before asking protesters to leave, then giving them a time limit.
Arrests follow after the time limit expires.
Police Scotland has refused to reveal which protest groups, or how many, are expected at Cop26.
In June, senior officers warned that anarchists could use children as a ‘human shield’ at the climate change summit.
Officers said they had been in touch with their counterparts in the US – where pro-Trump rioters caused havoc on Capitol Hill in Washington in January.
Police in the US reported some of those attacking officers by lobbing projectiles stood behind children or others, making it more difficult to stop them.
At the time, Mr Higgins said: ‘Some of the anarchists there were sitting behind peaceful protesters and throwing concrete and other things at the police lines.
‘The impossible position they were in was to get to the really violent people they would have to crash through the peaceful protesters.’
‘We would take prompt action’