Given the Met’s brutal treatment of peaceful women, the timing of Priti Patel’s bill to boost policing of protests couldn’t be worse
The Peterloo massacre in 1819, the abuses of the suffragettes in the early 20th century, the killing of Blair Peach in 1979, the recent “spy cops” scandal: there have been many dark moments in Britain’s history of policing and protest. To this long list we must now add the scandalous police response to a public vigil held on Clapham Common, south London, marking the disappearance and death of Sarah Everard. That this brutal reaction to the women who gathered to remember her was presided over by the first female Metropolitan police commissioner and the fourth female home secretary is a bitter feminist irony. It should be a reminder that we need to change how the system works, not just the faces that govern it.
The pandemic has created an opportunity to crack down on peaceful protests. Under current social-distancing laws, gatherings of more than two people are forbidden in most circumstances. But regardless of this legal framework, the Met is still obliged to follow the Human Rights Act, which stipulates that power should be exercised proportionately and only when necessary. The purpose of policing isn’t primarily enforcement, let alone brutality: it is to keep the peace. What happened on Saturday is now infamous, documented in widely shared images and videos of uniformed officers manhandling peaceful female protesters to the chants of “Shame on you”.
