Authoritarian police moves are shocking
I AM BAFFLED by the Budget. When, only 15 months ago, Labour proposed to reverse Conservative cuts in Corporation Tax (the tax paid by companies on their profits) since 2010 in order to fund improvements in state schools and the NHS, while still leaving the tax rate well below the level it was under Margaret Thatcher, the Conservatives went berserk.
Labour’s plan to raise Corporation Tax and improve public services, Boris Johnson claimed, was something that only a bunch of economically-illiterate Marxist extremists would propose. Labour’s plan to raise the tax, they said, showed that it had no idea how a capitalist economy worked and proved that Labour would ruin the country.
Yet now Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson are raising Corporation Tax – the very same policy which they denounced barely more than a year ago. They cannot blame Covid, because previously they claimed that raising this tax would actually reduce revenue by frightening companies away, so if they still believed that claim, then however bad the Government’s financial problems due to Covid, raising Corporation Tax would make them worse.
Instead, the Chancellor admitted in his Budget speech that a decade of Tory reductions in this tax has failed to increase investment.
Once again, just as happened in the U-turn over free school meals, the U-turn over the autumn lockdown which Boris described as ‘ridiculous’ but then implemented, the U-turn over the Christmas break when the time suddenly went from five days to one and the forthcoming U-turn over giving NHS staff only a 1% pay rise, in matters of where Labour leads in making sensible decisions and policies, the Conservatives eventually follow.
JOHNSON’S Government is rushing the Policing Bill through the Commons. It contains some of the most draconian crackdowns on the right of peaceful protest any of us have seen in our lifetime, or ever enacted in any properly democratic regime.
On top of powers to prevent ‘nuisance and annoyance’ or make a noise, it gives powers to ministers to amend and define key terms by statutory instruments – without scrutiny.
It undermines common law principles which allow judgments to take into account the grounds of protest. Trivial offences are included in those having a sentence of up to ten years in prison.
Professional criminals get less. Historic civil disobedience campaigns against nuclear weapons, apartheid, fracking, or environmental campaigns of all kinds, even by a solitary person, can be banned and criminalised.
The truth is that many of these campaigns, – with hindsight – have the future on their side. The ‘inconvenience’ they cause, in the big scheme of things, is minor.
Demonstrations, civil disobedience, occur when people are not being listened too. Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter, anti-government demonstrations of any kind, are to be silenced.
Ideas and values that do not fit the government’s view are to be suppressed. Governments can ignore protest, as they ignored the one million march against the war in Iraq.
This law is about power, and greed for vindictive power, designed to paint loyal citizens as the enemy. No government of any colour can be trusted with the powers this government wants to acquire for itself. It boasts its disrespect for law and constitutional convention, when ministers and a prime minister repeatedly and routinely mislead parliament without apology.
The ministerial code (the PM is judge and jury) is flouted, the Nolan principles utterly discarded. Ministers who break laws on publishing procurement contracts, or who bully senior civil servants to resign, and cost us hundreds of thousands of pounds as a pay-off, keep their jobs. Neither Hancock nor Patel admit responsibility.
These are not small things. In Germany the suspicion of corrupt procurement practice has led to the disgrace of two members of the CDU/CSU governing party and punishment in elections.
Meanwhile Britain has a reputation for untrustworthiness as we provocatively break international law yet again.
The attitude of Patel to our people is demonstrated in the mismanagement of the vigil in Clapham Common. Senior police officers understand the psychology of groups, the psychology of their own officers and ways of managing crisis situations.
The use of such large numbers of police, and the kind of force applied, must have been authorised at the highest level. The unwillingness or incapacity to manage a relatively small number of women speakers more constructively, more respectfully, with less violence is the responsibility and choice of Priti Patel.
The context – where our mothers, sisters, partners, daughters, are crying out against abuse of all kinds – is appalling.
Patel’s determination to pick a fight and ‘win’ and through kettling people close together actually encourages viral spread, is truly shocking.
We are policed by consent. Many call for Cressida Dick’s resignation. She will not go, she has to protect Patel. I hope our MPs will quietly advise Johnson that Patel must go. I hope they have enough respect for our ‘ancient liberties’ to force their government to rethink this Bill, and seek a consensual alternative.