The State & Protests
Britain has been at least until recently a liberal democracy.
A lesson was learnt after a rally for the vote at Peterloo in Manchester in August 1819 was banned. The resulting dispersal of the crowd by troops on horseback was known as the Peterloo Massacre.
There has been a tension ever since between protest and the dislike of protest by the Government. 27th October for example is the 55th anniversary of the Grosvenor Square protest against the Vietnam War. That led to the formation of the Special Demonstration Squad (aka Spy Cops)
The current Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been attempting to ban all protest for a while. The slow walking of Just Stop Oil has mostly been made illegal. All kinds of other restrictions on protest now exist- such as making too much noise.
In some cases, protests against the Monarchy, arrests take place but prosecutions rarely follow. The aim is to disrupt and deter.
Macron this week has banned protests on Palestine. France has been a more authoritarian State than Britain, hence also the reaction in terms of more riots and ad hoc protests. Britain under Braverman is heading the same way.
William Cobbett’s Free Born Englishman in the 1820s who prized civil liberties and hated authoritarian intrusion by the State was sometimes sympathetic to the Tories. Not one suspects in the 2020s
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