Politics: a loss of consent
By Richard North - March 22, 2021
There is much hyperventilation over the most recent of the riots in Bristol, with Avon and Somerset Police Federation chairman Andy Roebuck bleating: “This is the worst violence in Bristol for many, many years”.
“It’s really unprecedented violence”, he says. “Between four and six or possibly more officers are seriously injured and some have broken bones. No-one had any indication it would erupt this way”.
Clearly, though, Mr Roebuck has a very short memory. This level of rioting in Bristol is very far from “unprecedented” and anyone with a feel for the city and its communities could easily have predicted that a protest against the Police and Crime Bill could end up in chaos.
For the precedent, you don’t have to go back very far. On the night of 21/22 April 2011, a riot broke out in the Stokes Croft district of Bristol, centred on the main A38 Cheltenham Road, to the North of the City, which ended up in a Tesco Express store being trashed and much violence occasioned to a police Land Rover, thoughtlessly abandoned by Wiltshire Police.
Interestingly, the vehicle was towing a large trailer containing riot gear which was pressed into service by the crowd, while the trailer was upturned and used as part of an impromptu street barrier aimed at keeping the police at bay.
Before that, of course, there had been the infamous St Paul’s Riots, on 2 April 1980 when police raided the Black and White Café on Grosvenor Road in the heart of the area, leading to headlines declaring: “Never Again!“.
In 2011, I wrote about the riot extensively in detail, remarking that it had been “very poorly reported in much of the national and local media – and indeed by the alternative media”.
Mind you, it took me the best part of a week to piece together my account, working from a range of sources, including YouTube videos, Twitter, and multiple witness accounts, painstakingly cross-referring the different – and often conflicting – accounts with the photographic and video evidence, to build a coherent narrative.
Then as now – and especially back in 1980 – there were accusations of police aggression and provocation, with the Stokes Croft riot said to be triggered by a police “raid” on a squat across the road from the Tesco that was eventually trashed.
Whether lessons were learned, one cannot say but one cannot escape the irony of the photograph (above) used by the BBC with the caption: “UK Home Secretary Priti Patel says: ‘Thuggery and disorder by a minority will never be tolerated'”.
This is a picture of a policeman armed with a truncheon apparently threatening to strike an unarmed protestor while another uniformed officer directs a jet of pepper spray in his general direction. One seriously wonders, though, whether Patel will take action against the “thuggery and disorder” perpetrated by this very visible minority.
The police, of course, have been extremely prominent over the last year, as the government’s “shock troops” enforcing the Covid lockdown measures. and it is fair to say that, so far, they have not had a “good epidemic”. Hardly a week goes by without a video being posted on Twitter showing a jobsworth in uniform, apparently overstepping the mark, most often displaying a quite inappropriate level of violence.
The action taken by the police against women holding a vigil at Clapham Common, therefore, came as little surprise. This is the sort of violence with which we are all too familiar, dispensed by thugs in uniform who often look more like paramilitary occupation forces than the old-fashioned English “bobby”.
There is a sense, though, that the police can’t win, whatever they do. Criticised for their heavy-handed actions at the Clapham Common event, they have come under a barrage of criticism after last Saturday’s anti-lockdown protest when, for the main part, the police took a passive stance, not attempting to break up the crowds.
Extensively recorded on YouTube , it is fair to say that the event was largely peaceful, although on the occasions that the police did react, it was not a pretty sight, especially when they picked on random individuals and overpowered them.
What does come over increasingly though, is the antipathy between the police and the public. The police often present themselves as insolent, intolerant and prone to provoke violence, instead of seeking to calm tense situations. There are signs that the Peelian compact is breaking down.
Certainly, this has not happened suddenly. Years of incompetence and indifference over tackling crime has soured community relations, while the enthusiasm of forces for enforcing non-existent “hate crime” has not gone without notice.
When the Met police remarkably, “took the knee” at the height of the BLM demonstrations, and as they have used public money to endorse minority “rights”, a chasm between the forces of “law and order” and the public they supposedly serve has grown.
Whether or not the Johnson administration is wise at this time to introduce a new Police and Crime Bill is debatable, but it is certainly providing a focus for discontent. One wonders whether the slogan “kill the Bill”, always applies to the government’s measures, or the yellow-clad enforcers.
What the government and police both need to recognise is that, in this country, we have a tradition of policing by consent. Although, distressingly, I have heard constables refer to us mere mortals as “civilians”, the essence of policing is the implementation of the Peelian principles. Police officers are citizens in uniform, exercising their powers to police their fellow citizens with the implicit consent of those fellow citizens.
The moment the police stand apart and see us as “civilians”, they lose that consent and become an occupying force, exercising power on behalf of their political masters.
This is a dangerous line to take. When the chips are down, there are more of us than there are of them and policing without consent becomes a nasty business. Hong Kong comes to mind, and to see public order deteriorate to a similar extent is by no means fanciful.
Most probably, the flashpoint, if it comes, will be any attempt by the government to extend lockdown measures and restrictions past June, as is being suggested. Then, it will not be the “Lefty rent-a-mob” which takes to the streets, but ordinary people in largely spontaneous marches, without the pre-prepared banners and slogans.
All it takes is for the police to mishandle the situation once again, as they are so prone to do these days, and a simple protest could turn into a bloodbath. No amount of new law, or protestations of outrage by our dismal politicians, will make any difference. You can piss people off only for so long before they bite back.
As it was, the march last Saturday had been declared illegal by the police, putting it on the same basis as the Bristol riot of yesterday. But if the authorities are not prepared to distinguish between peaceful protest and riotous behaviour, then they will be reminded of another dynamic encapsulated in the saying: “might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb”.
A government which, with the aid of its paramilitary storm-troopers, lumps protest and rioting together, criminalising peaceful protest, will find that it gets less of the former and more of the latter. And then, they might learn anew the limits of power.