Imperious Patel’s Pursuit Of Obedience To The State At The Expense Of Your Freedoms
You’re going to hear an awful lot about Priti Patel’s Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill over the coming days, so please do allow me to offer my tuppence worth. I will attempt to cut through the archaic terminology - it confuses and bores me as much as it confuses and bores you.
Let’s get Labour out of the way first. Keir Starmer will be telling his MPs to vote against the bill - an apparent U-turn - much to the disappointment of the Labour hard-right - for even he could not possibly put his name to one of the most draconian pieces of legislation we’ve ever seen.
Did it take the sight of Met Police officers trampling on the flowers of remembrance at Clapham Common to convince Starmer this bill cannot and must not be supported? Perhaps it was the disgraceful spectacle of witnessing women attending a vigil being dragged away, pushed around and pinned to the floor that convinced him?
To be fair, Starmer’s team claims that he always planned to vote against it. But they do have a tendency to claim all sorts of nonsense.
The Policing, Crime and Sentencing Bill was published last week. The 296 page bill was hurried together in a response to perma-smirk Priti Patel’s deep loathing of the Black Lives Matter protests.
One part of the bill will make it harder to prosecute police officers for dangerous driving, and another part of the bill lays the path for new regulations outlawing unauthorised encampments - which is a clear and obvious attack on the Traveller communities.
But the part that has caused the most obvious outrage is an attempt to curtail your right to protest.
This isn’t Myanmar, this is Britain, in 2021.
This act allows the police to impose restrictions on a protest if they think it could create “serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community”.
Patel’s bill is an extension to the 1986 Public Order Act - and this is where things get rather nasty.
The bill will allow the police to quash a protest if they think “the noise” generated from the demonstration is disrupting the “activities of an organisation” or has a “relevant impact on persons in the vicinity”. In other words, it only takes one call to the Met to tell them the noise is having a negative impact on their business and the police can wade in with their truncheons on display.
But it goes further than that.
Imagine you want to walk through the High Street, or what’s left of it, you are on your own, peacefully demonstrating against austerity, for example. Patel’s bill contains a specific section on “imposing conditions on one-person protests”.
So this draconian bill doesn’t just target large demonstrations. You could be one protestor, or you could be one of ten thousand protesters marching through the streets, it only needs to piss off one person and the police will have all of the powers needed to curtail your protest.
Let me give you another example.
Your employers want to reduce your pay, despite you taking on extra responsibilities, such as training new staff and regular unpaid overtime. You get the idea. So you reluctantly choose to go on strike.
Your picket line will be banned if it is deemed to have an undue “impact” on people.
I don’t think it’s particularly hard to see where this is going. The bill reaches so much further than trying to silence the voices of dissent.
Patel’s bill is despotic authoritarianism. It is being forced through in the pursuit of obedience to the state at the expense of your personal freedoms. This is a peremptory order from the Home Secretary - there is no right of appeal.
Imperious Patel is an anti-Democrat, and the gulf between her definition of “extremism” and reality is miles apart.
Demonstrating about the destruction of our planet? Extremist.
Protesting about the blatant discrimination faced by our Black brothers and sisters? Extremist.
Taking part in a peaceful candlelit vigil to commemorate a woman who had just been murdered - allegedly by a serving member of the Metropolitan police? Extremist.
Fox hunt passing through your village, you stand outside your house protesting their barbaric pursuit? Extremist.
Doing a sit down protest in Parliament Square, demonstrating the passing of the police, crime and sentencing bill? Extremist.
The ‘Honourable’ member for Tel Aviv East, Priti Patel, has a very different view of Britain to most of us.
In 2012 Patel co-authored a book, Britannia Unchained, which claimed that British workers were "among the worst idlers in the world". “Too many people in Britain prefer a lie-in to hard work,” argued the book, which also lists fellow hard-right headbangers Liz Truss and Dominic Raab as co-authors.
It wasn’t that long ago that Priti Patel, much like fellow ghoul, Michael Gove, was supporting the reintroduction of the death penalty.
‘Don’t you dare protest, you lazy Neo-Marxist sods, we will crush dissent, and if you even think about disrespecting a statue, a ten year sentence awaits - cut by half if you’re a danger to women’.
This shouldn’t be a left versus right argument, and it shouldn’t be a remain versus leave argument. It is a right versus wrong argument, no more, no less.
While Patel’s main target is the left, naturally, these draconian measures would even stop the hoards of angry white men, often follicly-challenged, from marching across Westminster Bridge with their banners aloft that read “Megern is a Commy Leftard” and “Down wiv immygrunts”.
While I fundamentally disagree with everything they stand for, if their protest doesn’t involve thuggery, hatred and criminality, they have as much right to protest as you and I.
When we say we will defend your right to protest, we mean it, because once they curtail that right you cease to be part of a democracy and you become a bystander in a totalitarian state. Are you willing to give a complete subservience to the state? Not me.
Priti Patel’s police, crime and sentencing bill is a racist and authoritarian piece of legislation, and it must be unequivocally fought until the bitter end.
Commissioner of the Metropolitan police service, Cressida Dick, fully supports the bill. The policy paper actually begins with quotes from Commissioner Dick herself.
We also know the Commissioner sent a letter to Priti Patel in December 2019 saying that the Extinction Rebellion protests provided a "much-needed opportunity” to give police greater powers to curb protests in the UK.
The fact she became “Dame” Cressida Dick towards the end of 2019 was entirely coincidental, obviously.
Patel, in my opinion, poses a serious threat to the wellbeing of every woman, man, and child in this country. I have seen what she did to benefit claimants, during her time working under perpetual sociopath, Iain Duncan Smith. I have seen what she thinks of refugees, so desperate for sanctuary they would risk their lives, and that of their families, crossing the English Channel in a rubber dinghy.
And I can see exactly what she thinks of anyone with the temerity to raise their voice above a level that will ultimately dissatisfy the state.
The calls for her removal must not falter. Priti Patel must go - shout it as loud as you can until you’re only left with the choice to whisper.
Complete state compliance is a non-starter. It is an extremist position. Some voices are destined to grow, others will fall by the wayside, but I say to the factions that vehemently oppose each other in ‘normal’ times: You will need to fight this one on the same page, comrades.
Take good care,
Rachael x
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