An already illiberal police and crime bill threatens to become even more so, if 18 pages of amendments added to it by the government in the House of Lords last month are accepted. A new criminal offence of obstructing major transport works, the expansion of stop and search powers and a new power for police to ban named people from demonstrations are clearly intended to strangle off what ministers are worried could be a new line in disruptive climate protests, after two months of roadblocks organised by the direct-action group Insulate Britain – and a decision by the supreme court earlier this year reaffirming the right of protesters to cause disruption.
Emboldened by the angry response to Insulate Britain from some members of the public, and criticism from paramedics about delays to ambulances, the home secretary, Priti Patel, and her colleagues have calculated that they can risk bypassing the scrutiny by MPs that is an essential part of our parliamentary process. In January, the Lords will have the opportunity to prove them wrong by rejecting these tacked-on, kneejerk measures.
The police, crime, sentencing and courts bill was bad enough before, as was vividly illustrated by criticism of it from David Blunkett and Theresa May – neither of whom remotely resembles the stereotype of the out-of-touch-with-public-opinion, human-rights-obsessed liberal that some on the right love to hate. The bill, wrote Lord Blunkett earlier this year, would make Britain “more like Putin’s Russia”. More than 600,000 people signed a petition objecting to it. » | Editorial | Sunday, December 19, 2021
