There can be few people, especially in London, or trying to drive around the M25, who are not asking this question just now. Protesters, the latest being Just Stop Oil, make such obstruction a specialty. The police are cowardly in enforcing the law. In mid-October, two activists hanged themselves from the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, shutting down the Dartford Crossing, possibly the busiest point on the country’s busiest motorway. It took Essex Police two days to remove and arrest them. In September, another blockage at junction three of the M25 kept 18,000 drivers stuck for hours, some blocked for hospital treatment or school journeys. Similar questions arise regarding punitive damages. Protesters have begun sticking artworks in public collections and spray-painting public buildings. In the past month, 8,000 front-line police shifts have been diverted from normal duties to deal with such protests, but “deal” is the wrong word. The police are there in force, but violence is not what they use. Mostly, they just stand around. As someone who lives in the country but comes to London quite often, I see frequent, less dramatic examples in both places. Local trail hunts are often interrupted by intimidating gangs of animal rights extremists who commit a variety of offenses including filming children and mass violations. Quite often, the police show up and get stuck, but never – and I’ve seen such scenes more than 100 times – have I seen a police arrest. In one case (at which I was not present) there were arrests after the “anti” fractured a man’s skull. The case was dropped because the perpetrators, being covered up, were unidentified. Similar police inaction is common when travelers illegally occupy and often defile private or public land. Today’s most famous example of police caution, of course, is the thousands of migrants who land on the South Coast. Again, the police arrive merely to monitor mass lawlessness, not to prevent it. In London, my work takes me to Westminster. Hardly a day goes by there without protests causing inconvenience to pedestrians, residents or office workers. These range from causing delay in walking down a street, through loudspeaker noise making it difficult to work, to break-ins, completely blocking roads and clashes with irate members of the public. Across from Downing Street, a permanent encampment is allowed, and crowds at the security gates are often allowed to shout so loudly that they disrupt normal life (and, indeed, with Prime Ministers choosing to announce their resignation there – almost weekly these days). It disturbs me: I’m old enough to remember when pedestrians could walk through Downing Street unchallenged. It was considered a proud aspect of our parliamentary democracy that the Prime Minister lived in a simple street and that we could walk down it. This freedom has long succumbed to the threats of terrorists and mobs. I’ve never seen a proper comprehensive analysis of these problems before, so this week’s brief ( The ‘Just Stop Oil’ Protests ) from think-tank Policy Exchange is timely. Gathers all the elements. The first explains who the protesters are. The organizations involved have different names – Extinction Rebellion, Insulate Britain, Animal Rebellion, Just Stop Oil – but the same people. They are extreme, calling for revolution and apocalyptic, declaring “this civilization is over” and flirting with the idea of suicide as a response to “climate distress”. Policy Exchange reveals that some protesters had to sign a statement in which they “formally commit to take part in action that will lead to my arrest”, for which they will undergo “a day of anti-violence training”. “Non-violence” seems to be narrowly defined: things like smashing bottles in supermarkets, smashing the windows of public buildings or spray-painting buildings are “peaceful”. These are not normal concerned citizens: they are fanatics, led by seasoned rioters like the ubiquitous Roger Hallam, who want to break the law and then exploit all its ambiguities in court. The reason why the Highway Act does not apply lies in the interpretation of other laws. Since Britain introduced the Human Rights Act 2000, our indigenous legislation has been countered by what is imprecisely called the “right to protest”, which appears in the European Convention on Human Rights. In a 2021 case known as Ziegler, our Supreme Court held that this right sometimes provides a “legal justification” for blocking a highway and that juries should weigh whether a conviction for blocking was “necessary in a democratic society”. This introduces politics into the law and makes every case questionable, as does the protesters’ ridiculous defense of their “honesty”. Their honesty does not lessen their annoyance to others. Most of the biggest extremists are honest. This unsatisfactory Ziegler decision is typical of the implications of the European Convention on Human Rights and should be changed by legislation. It goes a long way in explaining the powerlessness of the police in these situations. It is difficult for them to be confident if a protester they arrest is charged. If he can convince a jury that he is sincere and that his conviction is not “necessary for a democratic society,” he can walk away. How can jurors sort this out? They are there to determine the facts, not to maintain the balance of the constitution. Therefore, the police are worried that doing their job by quickly clearing the highway could get them into trouble. With this doubt in mind, professional theologians are having a field day setting guidelines. The Policy Exchange report publishes the College of Policing’s ‘Five Step Appeal’ model to guide officers dealing with protesters. It starts with “simple objection – ask the person to comply with your request” and rises through “reasoned objection”, “personal appeal” and “final appeal” to “action” – by which time it is usually too late to do much difference. Added to this is the well-known police addiction to monopoly. Just Stop Oil protesters love to stick to objects in museums. All the major museums have security and conservation experts who know how to get trespassers off the hook very quickly, yet the police forbid it and insist on sending in their own firecracker squad, which takes years. A bill on Public Order passes in the Parliament. It has no useful provisions for any of the above. One amendment seeks to create 150-metre “buffer zones” around abortion clinics to prevent anti-abortionists from approaching pregnant women. The penalty would be six months in prison. This would seem like a classic example of the wrong way to go. Public order law should not choose which cause it approves. We could end up in a situation where a woman who prays for a pregnant woman a hundred meters away goes to jail, while maniacs who block the road for days in the interests of the revolution cannot be convicted. The law should not encourage one protester and prohibit another. As with so much rights-based legislation, the current state of our law privileges tiresome activists over people’s liberties in general. In doing so, it undermines the consensual model of policing and leads us to take the law into our own hands.
