Here’s what you need to know about Starmer’s illiberal protest restrictions: They would have killed Labor at birth | George Monbiot
IImagine the emergence of a movement in this country that seeks to overthrow the existing authority. Imagine it starting with a series of rebellions, perhaps in Scotland and South Wales, that lead to workplace closures, confrontations with police and soldiers (sometimes peacefully, sometimes with improvised weapons), roadblocks and blockades of places where fellow protesters are imprisoned and government officials meet.
Imagine this movement continuing to smash or disable machines across the country. Imagine it organizes a general strike, canceling much of the UK’s economic activity for three months. Imagine that they continue to protest in the same places and by the same means, gradually eroding state resistance.
There is no doubt that Keir Starmer’s Labor government will do everything in its power to not only stop these individual actions but to ban the movement. What do I describe? The emergence and development of the Labor Party.
The Labor Party emerged from a long wave of workers’ protests against capital, demanding workers’ rights and sweeping democratic reforms. These protests and their organizers became known as the labor movement. Her early actions included The Radical War in Scotland, Merthyr And Newport uprising in south wales, Swing riots In England and General strike of 1842. Such protests did not mean there was no such movement. Such a movement did not mean that there was no such party.
And yet, somehow, the party that emerged from the protest, in relation to our rights to free speech and democratic challenge, has formed the most liberal government the UK has had since the Second World War. This Labor government would have banned the labor movement.
For more than 40 years, starting with the Public Order Act 1986, our rights to associate and challenge authority have been severely curtailed. This was followed by action Trade Union Law of 1992Criminal Justice Act 1994, Terrorism Act 2000, the Police and Serious Organized Crime Act 2005the The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and Public Order Law 2023. Between them, they pretty much have it An effective protest bound and gagged.
Any government that fails to challenge and reverse this trend, even if it does nothing to add to this dismal legacy, is aligning itself with illiberal trends. Far from doing so, Starmer has already gone further than the Conservatives dared, by designating the civil disobedience group Palestine Action as a terrorist organization and banning it. It also (yet with remarkably little resistance) I inserted a sentence In the Crime and Policing Bill which allows police to stop demonstrations “near a place of worship”. Since our towns and cities are full of religious buildings, this means almost any urban area.
But her latest proposal is even worse. Interior Minister Shabana Mahmoud announced that the police They should be able to stop the protests Which has a “cumulative effect”, by being repeated in the same place. It will also consider “powers to completely ban protests”.
Mahmoud has sought to justify these measures by claiming that frequent protests can make religious groups, especially the Jewish community, feel unsafe. It is worth noting that the Conservative Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, forced a very similar measure through Parliament in 2023 (which was later overturned by the courts) using a very different argument: that recurring environmental protests were causing disruption to businesses and travellers. Illiberal people seek to stop the protest. They will seize any argument that justifies this desire.
It is essential that Jews in Britain are strongly protected against anti-Semitic hatred and anti-Semitic attacks. We must always be vigilant against anyone who uses the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza as an excuse for anti-Semitism. This hate crime must be prosecuted wherever it occurs. But linking this disgusting crime to an act of protest against genocide, however peaceful and respectful, as the government has explicitly done, raises two grim thoughts.
The first is that it is using the horrific terrorism that occurred in Manchester last week as a good moment to suppress dissent. The second is that it treats protests against the actions of the Israeli government as protests against the Jewish community in Britain. Otherwise, it is difficult to understand why Mahmoud and the Prime Minister had only to invite One thing to cancel The day after is to respect the grief of British Jews: not football matches, concerts and car boot sales and Protests, but only the silent and peaceful protest of Palestine in London. The Jewish people in this country have repeatedly warned against such mixtures, which in themselves could constitute anti-Semitism.
Mahmoud’s proposals, as well as being highly illiberal in themselves, add a new floor to the tower of authoritarian measures under which we live. We are experiencing the “cumulative effect” of a long series of anti-protest laws. Labor launches a coordinated attack on the very thing it created.
After promoting the newsletter
But it’s not like the 1830s, is it? Thanks to the protests of the past, we overthrew the old, corrupt elites and achieved democracy. Well, I hope one day our grandchildren will look back at our system and wonder how it could have become a democracy, and why we tolerated it for so long.
Do majoritarian elections achieve a supermajority of 34% of the vote? One second’s involvement in decision-making every five years? Presumed consent between them? Do governments claim to represent us, but instead answer to press and corporate barons? Is politics for sale to the highest bidder, through political donations and paid lobbying? this Is it democracy? this Is it a system that does not require challenge?
Those who opposed the labor movement two centuries ago also believed that their political system could not be improved. In 1830, when only a small minority were allowed to vote and entire cities were not represented, the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, He told Parliament And that neither he nor the Leader of the Opposition could see any way “by which the state of representation could be improved.” The current regime deserves to have “the country’s full and complete confidence.”
Our political ancestors knew that to be effective you have to keep coming back. You have to get where it matters. You have to make yourself a nuisance. You must be loud, obstructive and annoying. All these rights have been revoked one by one. Now the last remaining trait of effective opposition – persistence – is also to be banned. Protest is permissible, as long as it is invisible, fleeting, and unhelpful. But the moment protest ceases to be effective is the moment democracy dies.