The Cides believe that the Police, Crime and sentencing Bill will give the police an unwarranted and dangerous level of control. Through the government’s push for more control and power, the police are being utilised to silence dissenting voices and criminalise non-criminal acts. Protests are democratic and are a human right. The consequences of preventing them could result in a dictatorship and tyrannical governance.

Anyone who has ever been to, or witnessed a protest, in the UK knows that the police are not there acting as neutral facilitators of democratic rights. Nonetheless, the already illiberal police powers were further extended under the cover of COVID and the strict lockdown laws. The government’s pursuit of power and control resulted in increasing attempts to suppress, and censor dissenting voices and deter protests by using aggressive tactics and arrests of protesters who were simply exercising their rights.

Protesters Have Rights

However, under cover of COVID the police have violated our rights set out in the European Court of Human Rights –( ECHR) Articles 9, 10 and 11 which protect the right to manifest a religion or belief, to freedom of expression and to freedom of assembly and association respectively. Together, these Articles form the basis of an individual’s right to participate in peaceful protest. In particular, the ECHR Article 11 protects the right to protest in a peaceful way including static protests, marches, parades and processions, demonstrations and rallies.

The Secret Police Guidance

The government have a history of attempting to erode those rights, for instance, in the 1980s the Thatcher government sanctioned a secret police guidance document "Public Order Manual of Tactical Operations and Related Matters" which violated those rights by giving the police extended powers to suppress protests (source). Military style strategies were introduced along with aggressive tactics, from the use of batons to horse charges to kettling (a police tactic for controlling large crowds during demonstrations or protests. It involves the formation of large cordons of police officers who then move to contain a crowd within a limited area). Their new powers also allowed them to direct the media to stop filming at particular times only to start rolling again when the protesters reacted to the police brutality, therefore making it appear that the protesters instigated the violence. The particular guidance ceased being used in 2004 when it was superseded by new guidance, yet according to the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA in a Freedom of Information request (FOI) there are still elements that are in use during public order situations. The details of those elements were considered exempt from public disclosure) under section 31 (Law enforcement).

COVID Regulations and Extension of Powers

Observation alone tells us that over the forty years since Thatcher’s secret guidance, whether it was against racism, unfair job losses, draconian laws, or for environmental protection have been at times subject to brutal tactics. In other words, the aforementioned strategies that came into force in the 1890s have still been in force. These days we do not have to rely on media-biased reports, now we have been able to see first-hand accounts from actual protesters to see that many elements still remained. Under the guise of COVID and protecting our health, the power afforded the police were extended to tyrannical levels, and clearly only protect the government narrative.

Police Behaving Badly

Not only were the police actions violating human rights, that were put in place to protect us from authoritarian governance, but they also provoked violence, oftentimes also arresting peaceful protesters. The “boiling point” was reached with the shocking police behaviour towards grieving women at a vigil for Sarah Everard , who was murdered by an off-duty police officer, according to Big Brother Watch a civil liberties and privacy campaigning organisation.

The police were involved in other scandals along with the murder of Sarah Everard , including the strip-search of the 15-year-old Child Q : and officers being caught exchanging grossly offensive messages. This has resulted in the UK’s largest police force, the Metropolitan Police Service (the Met) being placed into “special measures”, meaning that they must report to inspectors regularly in an advanced stage of monitoring.

Despite this the Prime Minister Boris Johnson urges public to trust the police and home secretary Priti Patel herself says that they are “failing to get the basics right”(source). Yet still forced the extended measures of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 which went live on 28th April 2022, effectively criminalising protests.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

In a decidedly undemocratic and authoritarian move the government has given the police authority to restrict protests that they deem disruptive, or even just noisy, which is pretty much all effective protests (source).

The Bill Also

Seeks to target politically active citizens who organise protests and the people who attend protests/demonstrations
Aims to criminalise the tactics that are used to make protests and campaigning successful
Not only violates fundamental Human Rights, but also serves to create an undemocratic police state
Threatens our country's democratic process

Major changes to the way that protest is policed in England and Wales. Including new criminal offences related to disruptive protest, including:

Locking-on - being equipped to “lock-on” - obstructing major transport works, and interfering with key national infrastructure. Locking on was the expression coined when a protestor would chain themself to a tree for example to stop it from being cut down. XR developed it to chaining to barriers and vehicles. Back in 1914, The suffragettes chained themselves to the gates of Buckingham and also in the public gallery at Westminster. Now, the 'crime' of locking on can include one person attaching themselves to another. So technically, if a couple walks down a street arm in arm they are, at the discretion of the police, arrestable. Combine this with the act of sneezing in public being an arrestable offence under the Covid rules, it illustrates how ridiculously draconian police powers have got.
Extending police stop and search powers -The Bill would provide the police with new powers to stop and search people for items related to specified protest-related offences, essentially stopping the protest before it started.
Serious Disruption Preventative Court Order – a SDPCO, a particularly disturbing element of the new Bill. These orders can either be made following a protester’s conviction or on application to a Magistrates’ Court from a Chief Constable of a local police force.

A SDPCO can be issued without a conviction of an offence and will be used to find and target individuals the police perceive to be key organisers of protests and can result in a protester having to wear an electronic ankle tag. Worryingly, all actions will be under the police constable's discretion and If a constable has reasonable grounds to believe that an individual or offender, as the legislation puts it, has failed without reasonable excuse to comply with conditions of a caution he can arrest them without a warrant (source).

It’s a Red-Light Situation

We are already experiencing a government deployment of top-down imposition of policies, we have already been sliding into authoritarianism, under the cover of COVID and for ‘our own benefit’. The authoritarian nature of the governance has perhaps now been normalised, like the frog in boiling water, but it is important to realise that no good can come of a legislation that rids us of our human rights and together with the extended powers given to police in the new bill, a dangerous situation will be created.

he right to protest is after all the essence of a democracy, a chance to collectively use our voices to oppose policies that are harmful to society, but in a partisan power grab, utilising the police force, the government will ensure through the Police Bill that no matter how harmful to society their future laws are, we will not be able to use our voices to oppose them.

This is tyranny and we must not continue to normalise it.

Research by Patricia Harrity

The Police Bill – a Step Further Towards Tyranny