The Guardian, policing of protests & Love Me I’m a Liberal’ syndrome
For those unfamiliar Love Me I’m a Liberal is a song by the late US singer Phil Ochs which suggests that beneath at least some who profess to support radical causes lies a view that they should be kept firmly within bounds
It was this thought that came to mind when reading a piece by Daniel Boffey, apparently the chief reporter, in the Guardian about ‘two tier policing’ (24th December). Two tier policing at least in current usage is part of the manufactured outrage narrative of the hard and far right.
Mr Boffey’s article shows no sign that he has ever been on a demonstration but that is not essential to write about them. People who organise protests and march on them can be spoken to. Except he hasn’t done that.
The core of the article is that a Freedom of Information request has found that out of 24 protests banned by the police in recent times 21 have been from the fascist right. To any anti-racist this is no great surprise. Such demonstrations are designed to intimidate and often end in drunken punch-ups.
Boffey takes the specific example of demonstrations held in London on 11th November 2023. The right-wing media & Tory MPs had rebranded the occasion as ‘Remembrance Weekend’. In fact it was a Saturday, Remembrance Sunday was the following day.
Suella Braverman tried to ban a Palestinian march on the Saturday. The Met police refused. Braverman then gave (at least) a nod and a wink to hard right types. They duly turned up at the Cenotaph, drunk, and started fighting with the police. The Palestinian march went nowhere near, was never designed to and passed off peacefully.
All this has passed Boffey by.
I’m not in favour of bans on demonstrations, which I accept is a minority view. If the far right want to protest then its better by far to oppose them peacefully by mass mobilisations. The August riots provide good examples. Of course it doesn’t always work.
The other reason for opposing bans, and here Boffey really should have talked to the organisers of Palestinian protests in central London (they are easy to find and speak to) is that it’s the left who are mostly the focus of them.
There have been numerous protests on Gaza in central London since October 2023, many involving hundreds of thousands of people. They have not been weekly (more manufactured outrage) because organising protests of that size takes time and logistical effort. Every one of them has been faced with any manner of restrictions and demands from the Met Police, despite the fact that every one has been peaceful with small numbers of arrests, commensurate with any large gathering.
Anyway the Guardian does have people who write well with understanding about protests so let’s hope we hear from them in 2025
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