These boots are made for walking. Braverman to ban ‘slow walking’ protests again
Just Stop Oil protesters carried out slow walking protests in various parts of London for the last 5 weeks.
Police already have the powers under Section 12 of the Public Order Act to move protesters off the road which the Met report they do with a delay of at most 20 minutes from the start of the protest.
Suella Braverman, who is on a mission to ban any kind of protest that comes to her attention decided to ban slow walking by adding a clause on to the current Public Order Bill. Unfortunately for her but fortunately for democracy this was defeated in the Lords.
The Times now reports (1st June) that Braverman plans to widen the banning criteria to include serious disruption to the community, a wider test, and to lower the bar for illegality to anything that causes more than minor disruption (undefined)
There will of course, Braverman style, be no need for democratic scrutiny or debate to planned tweaks to the 1986 Public Order Act but the serious disruption change will need to be voted on in Parliament before they head off for their summer holidays
Reality and Braverman belong in different solar systems but this is law as Culture War.
Firstly much of London already has, quite rightly, 20mph speed limit and getting anywhere that speed is imaginative on many roads. It’s doubtful that slow walking protests in roads really makes that much difference.
In the meantime while I don’t walk as quickly as I did I still get annoyed by people who meander on pavements, usually looking at their phone. Can’t Braverman pass a law to ban that?
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