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The Government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill passed its second reading in the Commons on Tuesday evening and is now due to receive amendments and further debate. But having passed its first parliamentary hurdle it is likely to succeed. This Bill is one of this Government’s flagship pieces of legislation, a comprehensive reform of multiple aspects of the justice system, and among those reforms are increased restrictions on the right to protest.
This Bill is problematic for two reasons: firstly, it fundamentally challenges the efficacy of protest by making disruption, which is at the heart of protest movements, illegal and secondly, it uses vague legal language which will dramatically increase police power when dealing with protesters.
The Bill empowers the police to end any stationary protest which ‘causes significant nuisance’, causes serious annoyance’ or is deemed seriously ‘disruptive’. It places restrictions on the level of noise a protest can cause and it shifts the burden of knowledge to the protestors, with the police being permitted to fine protestors for breaking laws they did not know existed.
This Bill rests on the assumption that protests need not be disruptive in order to be effective. When charged with allegations that the Government is violating the right to protest, Home Office Minister Victoria Atkins responded by drawing a distinction between peaceful vigils and ‘very, very disruptive protests’. What seems truly at issue here are violent protests which border on riots, but instead of targeting those specifically this Bill attempts to curtail all disruptive social movements arguing that they should be restricted and that this does not infringe upon the public’s right to protest.
But noise, disruption and nuisance are entirely part of genuine protests; a real component of what gives them leverage. The most effective way to guarantee that the public discusses a movement and that the media covers the demands is to cause disruption. Extinction Rebellion was effective precisely because it was disruptive. For almost a week they dominated news headlines, gaining their cause a national profile.
Furthermore, there is a long history of disruption being an effective catalyst for social change. When the Suffragists demonstrated in favour of women’s right to vote, or when the American civil rights movement sought to fundamentally change the fabric of their country, they both utilised disruption as a tool to promote change. In a 1977 paper Piven and Cloward concluded that when economic power is lacking, social movements must rely on disruption in order to promote change, and in fact this reliance on disruption is justified by its effectiveness, providing support for my argument that disruption is often an essential component for achieving reform.
Defenders of the Government’s stance might argue that the level of disruption the capital experienced over the summer is never justified, for instance the Sun described the Extinction Rebellion protesters as a ‘mob’, focusing on Londoners who faced lengthened commutes owing to the protests. However, this argument comes from a subjective judgement of the worthiness of the cause. Those who deny the severity of environmental change may indeed view Extinction Rebellion’s protests as unjustified. But would the same cries be heard if protests erupted for the rights of women, or racial injustices? We cannot defend legislation that affects all protest movements by arguing that the causes we do not agree with should not have the right to disrupt our lives. These new restrictions will apply universally, and they will come to impede social change we do believe in if nothing is done.
Alternatively, it could be argued that disruption actually turns the public away from social movements, frustrating rather than informing them. Even if this is true, polling following the Extinction Rebellion disruption showed that the number of people rating climate as an issue they were concerned about was at its highest since 2008. While they may have frustrated the public, they succeeded in promoting discourse around their issue, which is the overarching goal of protest movements.
But, this legislation also goes much further than just limiting disruption. It empowers the police to prohibit protests which cause ‘serious annoyance or nuisance’. Importantly, serious nuisance and annoyance are not well-defined legal terms, broad in nature and could apply to almost any protest. Additionally, the legislation’s enforcement is defined in terms of annoyance to members of the public, but this is relative. The level of annoyance you experience from a protest depends entirely on your perspective, and from whose perspective are police to interpret the law, the environmental protestor or the morning commuter?
Now the Bill is in the process of being passed, it may seem futile to continue to argue against it, but the fact remains that it will fundamentally change the way social movements occur in Britain. As a nation that has always prided ourselves on our respect for individual liberty, it would be a great shame to turn our back on that tradition. Frankly this Bill has little place in a modern democracy, especially one as proud of its liberal heritage as Britain.
Frankie is currently undertaking work experience at Bright Blue. Views expressed in this article are those of the author, not necessarily those of Bright Blue. [Image: Vladimir Morozov]
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We all know that the United Kingdom is a competitive international economy. This fact sometimes risks being taken for granted. London is the world’s financial capital, our professional services industry is globally first class, and our labour market, Covid-19 notwithstanding, is one of the most flexible in the OECD.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic has also thrown into stark relief the ways in which our economic structures can be improved, and one area where we can make a real and immediate impact as we recover is infrastructure investment.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) reported in 2018 that the UK came 26th in the world for the quality of its roads, 22nd for the efficiency of its train services, 40th in terms of mobile subscriptions, and 51st in terms of transmission and distribution losses in the electricity supply. Our road connectivity index came only 29th.
A recent Policy Exchange report noted that, according to the IMF, our capital stock as a percentage of GDP is lower than the US or France, and comparable to Germany, which has famously low government investment in infrastructure.
Conversely, the WEF also found that we were the eighth most competitive economy in the world.
The disparity between our infrastructure rankings and our competitiveness makes one thing clear: the UK is competitive, but we are hindered, not helped, by the quality of our public infrastructure.
That’s why, with interest rates at record lows, and with plenty of spare capacity, the British state has the means to make strategic investments in infrastructure now, to generate a long-term increase in output, reduce disparities between the regions, and power local economies from Caithness to Cornwall. The Prime Minister has been clear that this is his foremost priority, and it is very much welcome, especially in the East Midlands where historically we have been overlooked.
Infrastructure needs to be strategic because the benefits are long-term and have a dynamic impact on the economy. That is why I am very pleased that the Government has already adopted changes to the Green Book, raised initially in a Centre for Policy Studies report in June, that will shift focus from the use of a benefit cost ratio (BCR) to considerable weight being placed on an actual strategic case. This could have a real impact on projects in leftbehind parts of the UK.
Take the part of the A1 that serves my constituency of Rutland and Melton. The East Midlands already has one of the lowest per capita spending on capital in the country, to the tune of £169 per head lower than average, according to a recent Policy Exchange report. For years, local authorities and Local Enterprise Partnerships have raised concerns about significant congestion, and a very high rate of accidents, on the stretch of the A1 between Blyth and Peterborough. There is a lane closure more than once a week, and full closure once every two weeks. The BCR is 0.47 (or 47p for every £1 invested) which is normally too low. However, this is also because the very congestion on the A1 has made local authorities hesitant to plan for any development on or near the road, out of serious concerns for usability.
The strategic case to upgrade the A1 is robust: it will reduce congestion and hours lost, allow the high percentage of HGVs on the stretch of road better access, and allow local authorities across the East Midlands to more strategically use available land. This is a key road for the UK, especially post-Brexit, but until now the BCR made this impossible. These are precisely the kind of long-term projects that we need to commit to now to generate growth in our regions. Changes in the Green Book are a brilliant first step, but they need to be coupled with immediate investment to power the recovery.
I welcome the Government’s £100 billion in capital spending, and I agree with Sajid Javid’s After the Virus report that the 3% average investment ceiling should be relaxed. Policy Exchange has recently noted that 5G broadband and green investment are two major areas for further investment, because they can bring immediate impacts, and support rural communities.
I fully embrace the Government’s commitment to green investment, but I know some constituents are worried that, while the shift will happen, it will leave rural areas behind.
That’s why the Government needs to expand the Rapid Charging Fund to ensure all hard-to-reach rural areas are supported. At the same time, we can expand the 5G voucher scheme, working directly with local authorities, to boost productivities in our towns and villages. The 2019 Conservative manifesto commits to ensure every person is within 30 miles of a charge point, and gigabit-capable broadband in the home is a game changer for rural areas. Let’s make sure we hit them!
There are more ways we can boost our recovery by levelling up across the UK, and indeed it’s a sign that much more work needs to be done for the UK to reach its potential in every region. We are on the right track and the Government is listening fully to those who have too often been forgotten in investment decisions. By powering up through shovel-ready projects now, and making long-term, strategic investments in our regions – like the East Midlands – we can build a more prosperous Britain for all, and seize prosperity out of the jaws of the pandemic.
The Prime Minister has a bold and empowering vision of a country where we have levelled up and built back cleaner and better after the pandemic. He has my full support in this commitment which will transform our country and set the agenda for generations to come.
Alicia Kearns MP is the Member of Parliament for Rutland and Melton. This article first appeared in our Centre Write magazine The Great Levelling?. Views expressed in this article are those of the author, not necessarily those of Bright Blue. [Images: UK Parliament and Bob McCaffrey]
