From the Six Acts to the Rule of Six. The strange ruling class fixation with the number six
The recently introduced across the UK COVID-19 safety measure known as the ‘Rule of Six’ has attracted some criticism.
I’m far from being a COVID-19 denier particularly regularly exchanging thoughts with Michael Rosen on social media, who nearly died from it, including the period just before he went into hospital and now he is thankfully in a lengthy recovery phase. It can be an awful illness and safety measures are very important.
Even so it might be thought there is something arbitrary with the number six. Restrictions in other countries, for the same prudent reasons, sometimes have different numbers. Interestingly though six has begun to feature more for example in limits now in force on some kinds of gatherings in Madrid and NewYork
Not long after the ‘Rule of Six’ was introduced the Government started to reconsider whether it was in any case the right number. However Boris Johnson, currently, seems intent on keeping it.
It remains interesting and perhaps significant that it was the number chosen though.
There is some evidence that somewhere deep in the memory of the British ruling class lies an odd fascination with ‘six’. In the first decades of the nineteenth century when challenges to the State sometimes involved armed resistance it often seemed to be six people who ended up being hanged, although invariably far more were involved.
The concern is with civil liberties. Temporary restrictions however well justified tend to end up becoming more permanent. In fact the rubric around the Rule of Six specifically allows for protests and demonstrations to take place provided adequate safety precautions have taken place.
Reality of course can vary. The most recent Extinction Rebellion protests which took place just before the Rule of Six was introduced were nevertheless subject to all kinds of restrictions and bans by the police. The Metropolitan Police Federation tweeted that all demonstrations should be banned, although whether this is really related to COVID-19 or just their general position is unclear.
After the Cato St Conspiracy to kill the Cabinet which took place in February 1820 in fact five men were hung and then beheaded.
However that event was used to justify what became known as the Six Acts- that number again.
These attempted to crack down on civil liberties and democratic politics in ways that Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings can only dream of.
In fact Cato St, although an outcrop of an armed revolutionary tradition that did not fully decline in England until after 1848, presented no real threat to the State. Indeed there is some evidence that it was provoked by Government spies in part to justify repression.
One of the Six Acts, which were actually formally passed in December 1819, was the Seditious Meetings Act.
Under the Act all meetings of more than 50 people- in reality no more than 49 persons- were allowed. This included any meeting: “for the purpose…of deliberating upon any public grievance, or upon any matter or thing relating to any trade, manufacture, business, or profession, or upon any matter in church or state,”.
The only exception were meetings called by an ‘authorised official’. In addition a meeting of people in one specific area could be called provided permission was given by a Justice of the Peace. He of course required six days-notice. At such meetings no banners, flags or emblems of any sort were allowed.
While the Act was repealed in 1824 a related limit of no more than 49 delegates at any representative gathering remained in place through the Chartist period up to1848.
Indeed in order to try and avoid official interference in protest meetings, these were often held out of town in remote rural spots well away from the reach of the authorities.
Johnson does policy U-Turns every few days but the underlying British ruling class fixation with ‘six’ remains an interesting one. Perhaps not least because while we can see there is a past history in the 1980s when an earlier Tory Government introduced restrictions on the numbers who could stand directly on a picket line the number chosen was of course six..
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