Lord Walney, the right to protest & the Freeborn Englishman
The former Labour MP John Woodcock, now Lord Walney, has had an unedifying political career
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Woodcock,_Baron_Walney
While he sits in the Lords as a crossbencher his appointment was made by Boris Johnson.
He also acts as an unpaid advisor to the Government on political violence and disruption. He has no obvious qualification for such a role at all and the various edicts that appear from him seem to relate entirely to expositions of his own right-wing prejudices.
This of course is a guarantee that they are covered in and taken seriously by much of the media
A recent edict from Walney suggested that face coverings should be banned on demonstration. This is not law but it of course did not stop the Met Police from trying it on, on a recent Palestine demonstration. There are obvious issues with it- for example people may wear a face covering for health reasons. Perhaps Walney thinks such people should not be allowed on protests.
A further communique from His Lordship then appeared. He wants to ban protests outside of Parliament and Town Halls. Lobbying MPs and Councillors has been part of a British political tradition for a very long time. No matter. They are on Walney’s banning list.
Walney’s latest proposed ban is on MPs talking to campaigns he doesnt like such as Just Stop Oil and Palestine Solidarity.
Walney’s time as a Labour MP does not seem to have included familiarity with the labour movement and its history.
The Freeborn Englishman was a term used in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when many fewer people had the vote and they were nearly all men.
It was designed to summarise an informal compact between the Government and the people as to what democratic rights they had, and rights that the Government was bound to stick to.
E P Thompson in the Making of the English Working Class writes extensively on the matter but also provides a summary:
Freedom from arbitrary arrest, trial by jury, equality before the law, liberty of thought, speech and conscience, the vicarious participation in liberty afforded by the right of parliamentary opposition and by elections and election tumults..the right to parade, huzza and jeer on the hustings..
Judging by the activities of Lord Walney these are democratic rights that need to be defended yet again.
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