This article, which appeared in The Guardian, seems to suggest that SOCPA (mentioned in my first post) is going to be repealed by our Prime Minister. This is fantastic news for those campaigners who have spent many an hour chaallenging the law in creative ways."In August 2005 it became illegal to demonstrate in parliament and the surrounding environs without first gaining permission from the police, six days in advance. On June 24 2007 Maya Evans, the first person to be convicted of the criminal offence of "participating in an unauthorised demonstration" (for the heinous act of reading out the names of the Iraqi and British war dead at the Cenotaph), sent a text to friends and supporters: "Brown promises to allow peaceful protest around parliament". Less than two years after its arrival onto the statute books and the law looked like it is to be scrapped.
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (Socpa) was introduced by David Blunkett to get rid of Brian Haw, the peace campaigner from Parliament Square. As you might expect of a piece of legislation that was bought in specifically to target one man, the end results were spiteful and farcical in equal measure. The police decided that one person with a banner counted as a demonstration; in fact, one person with a badge was deemed to be a demonstration. A friend of mine was threatened with arrest while having a picnic on Parliament Square as she had the word "peace" iced onto her cakes, this was deemed to be an "unauthorised demonstration". I had to get permission from the police specifically to wear a red nose, on Red Nose Day in Parliament Square, just in case it was mistaken for an illegal protest that could have led to my arrest. The implementation of the law became so absurd that a group of breast-feeding mums had to apply for permission to gather in Parliament Square to feed their children, as this was seen as a political protest that had to be controlled by the law.
To many this law, which would have us get permission to wear a badge or a T-shirt within a 1km radius of parliament, became the epitome of New Labour's control-freak tendencies. Socpa typified the Kafkaesque reach of a government determined to make the citizen more accountable to the state than the state was accountable to the citizen.
Some opposed the law by refusing to cooperate with it, like Maya, and held demonstrations without permission, like the Sack Parliament demo, calling for MPs to resign. Other less brave souls, like myself, decided to take on the law by organising mass lone demonstrations, where individuals applied for lone protests but en mass, swamping the police with paperwork. Each month people would arrive demanding everything from "an end to aggression in Palestine" to "free chocolate for the unemployed".
In the process I became the Guinness World Record holder for "most political demonstrations in 24 hours" - I have a framed certificate - and in April this year we applied for 2,500 individual demonstrations around the Socpa zone in the space of a week, giving the police about three years' worth of work in seven days.That Brown wants to scrap this law is good news. Though, frankly, it was an obvious and easy choice for him. The law is unpopular and there are few who will defend it. The GLA voted to recommend its abolition. Lady Sue Miller was pushing a private members' bill in the Lords to repeal it. Police officers sent me private emails saying: "we don't need this [law] and it makes us look stupid." I have even been in discussion with some folk within parliament about how they might organise their own illegal protest and force the police to arrest the very people the law was introduced to protect.
By repealing an unpopular law Brown not only appears to be listening to the British people, but emphasises the differences between himself and Blair, a vital task if he is to win back Middle England's trust, fractured by Iraq, loans for peerages and Blair's liberty grabbing tendencies. It also gives him a bit more room to promote ID cards, while rebutting the charges of being illiberal.
However, the devil is in the detail and while his comments are welcome I suspect that Brown is likely to keep parts of Socpa that make protest on various military bases (like the US spy base at Menwith Hill or RAF Fairford) illegal. Under trespass laws Quakers and peaceniks protesting on these bases would break the law if they refused to leave the property, under Socpa they can be arrested just for being on the property. It also remains unclear if he will repeal the law directly or tinker with it.
But while we might have to wait to find out exactly what kind of victory we have won, it is none the less a victory. And it has been a victory for protesters, for people who read names out at the Cenotaph, for people who pitched tents in Parliament Square and for people who waved banners at the mass lone demonstrations. This is a victory for the people who stood with hand-scrawled signs demanding "End the war in Iraq!", for those who made banners demanding the government ban Robbie Williams and for demonstrators who stood with papier mache boots demanding "Bigger shoe sizes for women!", it is a peculiarly British victory."
Mark Thomas, The Guardian: June 26th.
