Brighton & Hove Say ‘Kill the Police Bill’

The Third Demonstration in Brighton in as many weeks sends a loud message to Boris Johnson, Keir Starmer and their Police State Strategy

About 1,500 demonstrators gathered at The Level in Brighton to protest for the third week in succession at the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill which will make it a crime to hold a march which is in any way effective.  If it annoys anyone, which is usually the purpose of the protest then the Police can ban it.

The voice of Sir Keir Starmer, the so-called Leader of the Labour Party has been conspicuous by its absence, which is not surprising since Labour was previously due to abstain on the bill in order to prove how loyal Her Majesty’s Opposition was.  Although Labour is now formally opposed to the Bill the previous illiberal record of Blair and New Labour demonstrates that Labour under Starmer, if it did get into government would not repeal the Act.

The march went from the Level, via the Police Station in John Street, down to the sea front roundabout by the sea life centre where people sat down in the road. It then proceeded via West Street to the Clocktower.  At this point people sat down again blocking all roads in the centre of Brighton.

Speeches were given by innumerable people from the Clocktower. Clearly the Police had been under strict orders not to provoke a confrontation because instead of sending the riot cops in the Police held back. The contrast with the thugs of the Metropolitan Police who attacked demonstrators today and the liars of Bristol Police whose ‘broken bones’ were show to be a tissue of lies. I have to confess that I was extremely surprised at the softly softly tactics of the Police but welcome the decision to allow the demonstrators to control the streets.

This gives the lie to those in the BBC and other media whose message was that the Metropolitan Police had ‘no alternative’ or ‘faced difficult decisions’ when they decided to violently attack a women’s vigil at Clapham Common.

As we know the Police have never faced any such dilemma when refusing to intervene to prevent the country establishment from holding fox hunts despite hunting wild animals being prohibited by law.

The reception from motorists, despite being held up, demonstrated that this law has no support in the country. It is an undemocratic piece of legislation designed to preempt protests to come when COVID ends and the government imposes an austerity programme which will make David Cameron blush.

If there is one criticism it is that too many of the speeches were centred on individual’s identities.  It felt at times as if is was personal politics run riot. There was very little emphasis on state racism and even less on the fact that racism here was born of the British Empire.

I left at 4 pm and it would appear that after I left the demonstration resumed to the Level via the Police Station.

For a running report from the local paper go to here