Green View

As a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority for the last nine years, and a protester for more than 40 years, I have been a critical friend of the police, defending them when I see the coverage is unfair, but making it clear when I think they have got it wrong, on many occasions. On 1 April, they got it disastrously wrong. At the G20 demo they took away the liberty, the civil liberties and the human rights of hundreds of people who were protesting peacefully, who had every right to protest and who needed the police’s support. What the police did to the fluffy, happy, musical, picnicking Climate Camp part of the protest was violent and unprovoked. Who gave the order to go in and hit and kick and trample people who had their hands raised in the air? Who amongst those police thought it was the right thing to do? As more footage and more complaints come to light, I am starting to doubt that the police can clean up this mess inside themselves and make middle Britain believe in them again. Most of us think that the majority of police officers probably behaved well, in the face of the violent minority who joined the demo of innocent, peace loving protesters, but they are let down by those officers who behaved badly. In order to challenge a culture of policing which sees hiding your numbers or hitting passive people with the edge of your shield as acceptable, the police are, at the very least, going to have to overhaul their public order tactics and their training. It has been said that this is a pivotal point for the police and they probably won’t be able to ever police in the same way again - let’s make that true so that we get a police force that isn’t trying to repress free speech or take away tourists’ cameras, and instead is actually upholding the law, including the right to peaceful protest.

POLICE

The recent policing of protests and use of terrorism powers have called into question just how measured the UK government’s use of the police force is. But it doesn’t have to be this way, says Matt Follett: the Green Party has policies that will return the police to the purpose for which they were intended Given the media controversy over the policing of the G20 protests one would be forgiven for thinking that policing has changed little since the bad old days of the 1980s. In terms of what criminologists call ‘public order policing’ of protests one would probably be right. It seems increasingly clear that whatever improvements have been made over the last 20 years in terms of ‘community policing’ (and there is certainly evidence that improvements have occurred), there is some way to go before citizens who engage in political activism can feel 100% certain that they will be treated fairly by our boys in blue. Sir Robert Peel established the first real police force in the UK in 1829. His basic tenets of policing remain as relevant today as they ever did (see box, right). From these we can see a) that recent events did not subscribe to this approach, and b) the Green Party stance is very near to these original principles. Currently Green Party policy on policing does not necessarily go into great detail, but the principles are clear. The one I wish to focus on is the following: