Boris Johnson condemns Bristol ‘Kill the Bill’ protest on visit to BAE weapons factory
Hypocrisy is nothing new for Boris Johnson but his condemnation of Sunday’s ‘Kill the Bill’ protest in Bristol while touring a BAE systems factory in Lancashire does warrant note (not the media did note it obviously).
The Bristol protest appears to have been peaceful enough until police deployed batons, pepper spray, dogs and horses. By contrast the protesters seem to have let off some fireworks. If one delved deep enough into reports it might be suggested that the protest probably could and should have been policed without the need for force. However it seems that officers who knew how to do that weren’t around and it was left to officers who did not have experience of demonstrations.
None of that perhaps rather mundane detail stopped a condemnatory pile on by the ‘great and the good’ of course.
Even so for Boris Johnson to do so from a BAE factory, a company that is in the process of signing a deal to sell fighter jets to human rights abusing Saudi Arabia, seems to relate to a different kind and scale of violence altogether.
BAE employs thousands of skilled workers in Lancashire btw. Hopefully eventually they can turn those skills more specifically to the UK’s own defence efforts rather than the Saudis and more particularly to more peaceful projects altogether.
The Prime Minister said: “I think that all that kind of thing is unacceptable.
“And I think that people obviously have a right to protest in this country, but they should protest peacefully and legally.”
(Daily Mirror 22nd March)
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