Proposed new law on protest doesn’t understand the purpose of protest
The veteran right-wing LBC commentator Nick Ferrari has written in the Telegraph (where else?) that he wants new laws to crack down on protest groups like Extinction Rebellion.
Ferrari defends a general right to protest but what he means of course is any protest that sticks within narrow Parliamentary confines and if it is noticed at all takes a while to make any difference. Think of a protest march that delivers a petition for example
Of course the repertoire of protest (Charles Tilly) extends from an indoor protest meeting, to petitions, marches, strikes, riots and revolts. At this end of the protest spectrum it is unlikely that the existing order will simply stand by. The point is that there must be, and in fact there is a well-known framework, where its clear to all what will be tolerated even if it is a nuisance and where it wont be.
Of course inevitably the boundaries are not that clear and protests will often push at them (Ive done it myself over the years when organising protest). But that and the inconvenience it may cause is all part, no doubt to some an annoying part, of how protest takes place.
Ferrari seems to have in mind protests by Extinction Rebellion. He allows they raise important issues but claims some associated with them are ‘extremists’. That’s true of the Government too of course and the police have circulated a list of domestic extremists which might have been titled protest groups who we find annoying.
I’m not an unequivocal fan of some of the tactics used by XR, particularly the civil disobedience arrest axis, also used by the Committee of 100 in the early 1960s, because its very individualistic and I prefer protest to be collective.
However those disagreements are for the movement.
In reality XR stage what might be called ‘stunts’ to get publicity and protests which occupy spaces and roads for a limited time.
Its not really clear why a democratic society cant manage to cope with that without the need for any extra laws…
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