Are Extinction Rebellion to blame for cuts to right to protest?

Currently the boys, girls and they in blue can place restrictions if they believe protests may result in ‘serious public disorder, damage to property or disruption to the life of the community’. The new proposals would impose start and finish times on protests and set noise limits. These rules will even apply to demos undertaken by one person, which sadly is a little too late to save the populace from the self-styled, self-publicising ‘Stop Brexit guy’ Steve Bray. The proposals also make an offence of ‘intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance’, although ‘nuisance’ is open to interpretation. It will likely signal the death knell for groups such as Fathers for Justice who have a penchant for occupying motorway bridges dressed as Judge Dredd. Grinning millennials will also come unstuck and be barred from supergluing themselves to inanimate objects (for reasons which often remain unclear).

Now, we adults are allowed, from time to time, to have nice things, such as the right to protest. The only problem is, when we get the nice things, we want a bigger, better, nicer things because Johnny over the road’s thing is nicer. So, we immediately look to bend and stretch the rules to breaking point to improve this niceness. The right to protest should remain sacrosanct, yet many of our compatriots have blown this ‘right’ with their inconsiderate and dangerous actions.

Extinction Rebellion in 2019 is cited as the catalyst of the bill after it commenced a mission to get the point across by a series of actions which, in effect, were designed to slow people down and cripple the industry on which society is built. ‘The protest’ has always been a curious fish but has taken a sinister turn in recent years after disputes have turned sour due to such groups and equally, the prevalence of the modern-day flying pickets.

I am just old enough to remember out of focus film from the 1980s with the miners striking as entire pit towns were desecrated by the Thatcher Government. Communities were, and still are, reeling from the effects of the closures, and the bitterness is still raw as to the loss of their jobs, family traditions, and the death of their villages, whilst still openly harbouring disdain toward the ‘scabs’ who crossed the picket lines all those years ago. The miners also then supported the nurses strike, catching the law off guard when, undermanned and expecting a group of civilised carers, they were met with bussed-in, hard-as-nails northern miners with a cross to bear.

And that seems to be what is happening here. The vigil at Clapham Common a few weeks since was a peaceful affair, attended by Kate Middleton, which was later hijacked by those in Westminster who had no sympathy for the family and the ongoing, and real, plight of women in the modern age. Instead they used it as a vehicle in which to hurl bricks at coppers and, on one occasion, attempt to set alight a riot van full of officers whose only wish was to get home that night unscathed.

It’s as if the Government was waiting for, and expecting, trouble and used the Sarah Everard vigil as the final reasoning to push through the bill. The rhetoric is that it was a ‘marred by violence’ yet initially it was not, with arrests only made, early doors, due to social distancing guideline breaches.

Home Secretary Priti Patel

Yes, the methodology of protest currently demands resolution, but smashing a nut with the sledgehammer of the bill is not the way to go about it. It has been open season for protesters in recent years with their arguments being side-lined due to the violence and damage inflicted against the person, businesses, property and even monuments. Yet it seems the masses are being punished for the actions of the few who seem to be up for a ruck as opposed to having their voices heard. The protest is one of the last bastions where you can openly vent spleen. Sporting events don’t allow folk in, but when they did, banned insults being hurled toward opposing teams. Twitter even barred the President of the United States and Facebook bans any dissenting voices, leaving folk with scant platform to publicly proclaim their fury.

It is a conundrum: on the one hand many believe the police have ‘gone soft’ by taking the knee and driving around in rainbow-coloured panda cars as they attempt to appease all, but please few. On the other we watch the ‘Detectives’ to see the extreme violence they must face daily, all the while containing their tempers as some herbert thrusts a mobile phone in their faces. Some while ago I joked at work that one day, we would have a meeting about meetings. It seems that a similar impasse has now been met as, without changes in the detail to this bill, there will be protests against protests and kill the bill will be a mantra we all chant as our voices are silenced thanks to those who make it all about them and not about us.

• Brett Ellis is a teacher