This week, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill finally reached Royal Assent, after bouncing back and forth between the Commons and the Lords for quite a while. This Bill is quite possibly the most dangerous Bill that has passed in the UK in my life time, as it effectively criminalises protest - or at any rate, any form of protest that is likely to be at all effective, at the cost of up to ten years in jail. Marches that have been pre-arranged with the police at certain times and don't make too much noise are still allowed, but I think we're deluding ourselves quite a lot if we think that kind of action would ever be remotely effective in achieving a goal. (Just as a side-note, another thing that happened this week was Nadine Dorries reaffirming her intention to sell Channel 4. That followed a massive consultation in which 98% of respondents said that they didn't think Channel 4's management needed any shake-up, and Nadine Dorries has effectively said that these responses do not matter. I just thought I would bring that up, if we think the Government ever listens to concerned citizens just telling them what they think, rather than taking any kind of action to make it so.)
The Bill also contains quite a lot of other concerning things, such as 'increased powers for police to respond to unauthorised encampments', which essentially turns trespass from a civil into a criminal matter, and disproportionately targets Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people (already some of the most vulnerable communities to invisible racism in the world). When I was at sixth form, I worked on a play about the evictions of the travelling communities residing at Dale Farm in Essex, an extremely hot topic back in 2011 - as a performer, I often feel quite emotionally close to the issues that I'm tackling in my theatre work, and ever since I've felt quite angry on behalf of traveller communities and held a deep-ridden desire to change things.
You'd think that I'd be quite demotivated by this Bill having gone through (there was admittedly a small part of me that thought it may not, although I think that was always the idealistic side of me). But I am not demotivated, I am inspired. I think the thing inspiring me is that the more draconian legislation goes through (I haven't even started on accelerating the privatisation of the NHS or being able to strip British-born people of their citizenship), the more determined I am to fight. And I think this could be true of all of us. In addition to just being greedy and cruel, I think there is method in the Government's madness; a determination not just to remove all of our rights, but also to make us feel depressed and disincentivised, to make us feel that we've lost.
We have not lost. We've never truly lost until after we've gone extinct. These pieces of legislation are disturbing and frightening, but they aren't the only ones, particularly if you extend your outlook beyond just the UK and into other parts of the world. Throughout history, and even today, people have risked their lives and their freedoms to fight for things that we now take for granted and couldn't imagine living without (things that even now, world powers would take away in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it). Why do you think they want to stop people protesting? They want to stop it because they know that we actually have more power than we think we do, and particularly recently with environmental groups such as Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil, more people are starting to talk about the causes. The Government would quite like to stamp this out, and it will not work. Banning protest just makes people more angry, and more inclined to go even further in trying to achieve their goals.
It is my view that the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is unenforceable, for a few reasons:
1) Because the number of people at a protest generally tends exceed the number who can be realistically arrested or charged;
2) Because defence in criminal cases regarding protest is slightly different to defence in criminal cases generally - the burden of proof on the defendant is not so much that their criminal acts did not happen or that it was not they who committed them, but that they were committed in order to prevent a much greater wrong being committed;
3) Because as citizens, we are becoming more concerned, and juries are starting to reflect this - this is demonstrated in outcomes in cases such as that of the Colston Four, which I wrote about at the time.
It's all very well to impose Government restrictions on protests, but that is not how protesting works, and never has been. Protesting is something that is done when Government or corporate policies specifically infringe on someone's rights, safety or livelihood, and more importantly is a human right. It's ineffective for it to be condoned by the Government every time, because the whole purpose of it is specifically to defy world powers. For this reason, this Bill will be ineffective, as the decision to take to the streets is not something that happens when we feel like a fun afternoon. It's something we do when we're unhappy about something, and it is an intelligent person who is unhappy in today's circumstances.
I've not been an especially good activist in the last couple of years. I haven't updated this blog as often as I probably should have, and I've been to very few marches and rallies. I can't really say why that is other than that I've allowed life to get in the way too much (which is actually healthy if it's in moderation - no one can be an activist 100% of the time). But currently I'm re-evaluating my place on this earth and my reason for being here, and quite a lot of this has spurred me on, made me think that actually we can make a success of this. No mountain is insurmountable; throughout history grassroots activists have made huge social and political differences to their way of life, and we will continue to do so for as long as the human race exists. And there isn't just one way of doing it either - some people chain themselves to railings, some people become lawyers and try to achieve progress through the legal channels, some people go on hunger strikes... there isn't a right or a wrong way a lot of the time, it's just what works for you and what you feel most comfortable with. But whatever way it is, we should be going out there and claiming that better world that could exist for us as long as we demand it hard enough.
Let's do it.
