Egg throwing: a great British tradition of protest from the London crowd of the 1790s to King Charles
Egging has a long tradition in political protest
A person who pleaded not guilty to throwing an egg at King Charles in York (it missed) has been found guilty of threatening behaviour with the judge describing the egg throwing as ‘unlawful violence’. It’s a reminder that judges cannot be counted to up historic democratic methods of registering a protest, albeit the reasons for the protest on this occasion were not particularly progressive. Again that is also a feature of history
E.P Thompson in the Making of the English Working Class records that when a perjurer was placed in the pillory in the 1790s the London crowd pelted him with eggs. Yet when a political radical suffered the same fate a few days later the crowd brought him glasses of wine to drink.
In more recent times egg throwing has been officially recognised as a legitimate protest. An anti-fascist arrested for throwing an egg at a National Front march in Wood Green in 1977, known as the ‘Battle of Wood Green’, was acquitted as the judge noted that it was indeed a traditional form of political protest.
John Prescott, who also egged on the campaign trail, didn’t agree (he whacked the egg thrower) but ultimately a point is made and no harm is done beyond making the person egged look silly and a dry cleaning bill.
Of course in the age of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary egg throwers are invariably arrested. She has no interest in or regard for the traditions of democratic protest and under her most recent Public Order legislation even loitering in the egg aisle of a supermarket would probably be an arrestable offence.
That said there is a wider politics here too. There is currently a shortage of eggs (even in Wetherspoons) due to avian flu and because supermarkets will not pay a market price to egg producers. Capitalism gets everywhere even to the politics of protest
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