New Protest Laws and Two Years of London Protests

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 is now law, bringing in new police powers summarised by Liberty as including:

Creating a ‘buffer zone’ around Parliament.

Giving police power to impose noise-based restrictions on protest.

Criminalising one-person protests.

Giving police power to impose restrictions on public assemblies.

Creating the offence of wilful obstruction of the highway.

Powers to criminalise trespass.

 No sooner has it passed than it was announced in the Queens Speech this week that one of the Government's key forthcoming priorities is to pass yet more laws against protests. 

None of this is really about police 'needing' new powers  - they have for instance had the power to arrest people for obstructing the roads for decades. As with the inhumane plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, this is a theatre of performative cruelty which aims to appease and politically mobilise that section of the population that seethes and resents those seen as 'other' and bringers of social, demographic or political change. But the Government is clearly trying to create a hostile environment for protestors after several waves of inspiring demonstrations over the past couple of years.

Here's a selection from the movements since 2020, as seen from London.

Black Lives Matter 

The police murder of George Floyd in  Minneapolis on May 25th 2020 sparked a global wave of  Black Lives Matters protests. One of the biggest in London took place on 7 June 2020 with at least 50,000 people starting out from near the American Embassy - crowd seen here heading on to Vauxhall Bridge.

Sarah Everard Protests

The murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police office in March 2021 saw the heavy handed policing of a vigil at Clapham Common (near where Sarah was kidnapped) and many local protests against rape and sexual violence, including walk outs from some schools. Picture below is of school students in Trafalgar Square in April 2021.

Kill the Bill protests

What was originally known as the Policing Bill met with a movement of opposition including riots in Bristol in April 2021 (for which 12 people are currently in prison) and protests in many other places. Pictures below are from London demo from Hyde Park, April 2021.

Kill the Bill posters (these were flyposted around Brockley, South London):

Priti Patel, useless criminal (from Brick Lane, April 2021)

Kill the Bill protest squat of former Camberwell police station, Summer 2021

Trans Rights

Small demonstration in Trafalgar Square against conversion therapy, September 2021

Refugees

'Refugees Welcome' rally in October 2021  against Government's anti-refugee bill (more photos and report here).

Extinction Rebellion

Climate emergency protests from Extinction Rebellion and related groups are an explicit target of new police powers. Why can't the Government just be left in peace to do nothing about climate change?

31 August 2021 - Extinction Rebellion blocking approach to the north end of Tower Bridge:

Police surrounding sound system

April 2022 - Extinction Rebellion week of action including here on 16 April a march from Hyde Park up Edgware Road.

Samba band leaving Hyde Park

'Nationality and Borders Bill is Racist' - yes it is, and i'ts now law

The new laws are designed to make protests more difficult but they will not drive us off the streets!

Always Remember: the AIDS Memorial Quilt in Hyde Park (1994)

TV Programme 'Grayson Arts Club' (March 2022) featured long term HIV survivor Jonathan Blake making a new panel for the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt.

The original quilt from the 1990s consists of '48 twelve foot by twelve foot panels, each comprising up to 8 smaller panels' each of which 'commemorates someone who died of AIDS and has been lovingly made by their friends, lovers or family' with nearly 400 people remembered (UK AIDS Memorial Quilt). It was inspired by the US AIDS quilt started in 1987 in San Francisco.

In June 1994 the UK quilt was displayed in London's Hyde Park, laid out on the grass alongside sections of the US quilt in the very moving 'Quilts of Love' exhibition. Here's a few photos I took a the time. As always wish I'd taken more and had a better camera!

This section of the quilt was made by women prisoners at FCI Dublin, a prison in California.

'Remembering those who died without dignity and respect. Silence = death'

'Although our bodies are confined in prison, our hearts are free to be with our loved ones who died from AIDS'. Not sure what prison this came from, but if highlights that the prison system in many countries was a frontline in the HIV struggle due to the criminalisation/incarceration of intravenous drug users who were at high risk of HIV.  Many people died from AIDS while locked up instead of being cared for in the community.

'Cumann Haemfile na hÉireann' - Irish haemophiliacs, a reminder of those who were infected by HIV through contaminated blood products.

Jasmine, 24 April 1992 to 26 December 1992: at this time babies were still being infected through 'vertical transmission' (i.e. acquiring HIV from HIV+ mothers) before new drug treatments largely prevented this 

Panel for Joe, Chain Reaction (1980s fetish club held at Market Tavern in Vauxhall); and from Act Up Ireland  - 'don't let our epitaph read we died because of complacency and denial'

There's a great recent article by Clifford McManus in History Workshop on the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt: '40 years on from the first HIV related deaths, and despite amazing advances in the prevention, treatment and support of people living with HIV, stigma still exists. The AIDS Memorial Quilt continues as a living piece of community art through which stigma and attitudes to HIV can be challenged. Every time it is displayed in a public place it tells the stories of real lives lost. It draws the memory of a person, and all those who have died of AIDS and AIDS related illnesses, out of the shadow of stigma into the light of celebration'.

Also a good article by Dominic McGovern at Vice

Hyde Park, 1994