Image Credit: Creative Commons.
On Sunday 11th September, two police officers arrested Mr Symon Hill, 45, outside Carfax Tower after he shouted “Who elected him?” and “a head of state has been imposed on us without consent” during the proclamation of King Charles III. It is even more concerning that the police officers who arrested him, according to his account of the events, were unsure on what grounds they were detaining him. This included placing him in handcuffs, usually reserved for those deemed dangerous, or prone to flight or violence. Thames Valley Police later clarified in a statement that “the man was arrested on suspicion of a public order offence” and the arrest was made under Section 5 of the Public Order Act. However, this act can only apply to “disorderly behaviour” which would cause “harassment, alarm or distress”.
This is not an isolated incident: a 22 year old woman was arrested in Edinburgh for holding a sign that read “fuck imperialism, abolish monarchy”, and Police Scotland have confirmed a further arrest of a 22-year-old man along the Royal Mile after he heckled Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, during the royal procession.
This behaviour by police around the country is highly concerning, and perhaps even unlawful. The right to protest, freedom of speech, and the right to public assembly are some of our country’s most fundamental values.. It is clear from the multiple people shouting at Mr. Hill that he should “shut up” that the majority of the crowd at the Carfax Tower were pro-monarchy, but it is equally clear from those shouting at the police officers to let him go that most people there thought the police’s response was disproportionate.
This is because this is not an issue about the monarchy, imperialism, or Prince Andrew’s relations with underage girls. It doesn’t really matter what he said, which issue he protested, or what the occasion was, because freedom of expression isn’t on a case-by-case basis. The reason a monarchist crowd could tell him to shut up and feel that his arrest was unnecessary is because fervently opposing his views whilst also opposing the arrest of those with a differing opinion are not mutually exclusive.
Were this at any other public event, or about any other issue, it would be universally condemned. If the police were to arrest climate change activists for chanting slogans, or drag people from floats at a Pride Parade, there would be a mass outcry. The monarchy cannot be a ‘special’ issue. It is an issue which divides opinion just like any other, and it should be treated as such. To decide that there are some issues which you cannot oppose is undemocratic.
This has certainly come about because of the monarchy’s almost sacrosanct position in British society, and that must change.
Whatever your views on the monarchy, the royal family cannot be artificially protected from criticism using the police as a brute-force apparatus for removing those who dare to offer an alternative view. I am in favour of the continued existence of the monarchy, and I think Mr. Hill’s shouting was disrespectfully timed and that his points were wrong. That, however, is irrelevant. I am still concerned because, while I hold the establishment view on this issue, what if the police were to deem another issue un-protestable?
Moreover, the legal grounds on which this arrest was made seem questionable. Did his three-word protest really cause “harassment, alarm or distress”? To who? There were no royals present, and most likely no one even remotely connected with the late Queen. Who, therefore, was he harassing? The royal family in London? It is difficult to believe that anyone was really alarmed or distressed by his actions. Indeed the most you can seriously accuse him of is momentary annoyance to the people who were trying to listen to the official proclamation. It is also highly concerning that even these dubious legal grounds were only clarified after the fact by Thames Valley Police, and that the actual officers arresting him allegedly had no idea on what grounds they were arresting him. The actions of those two police officers were fundamentally unlawful, disproportionate, and highly authoritarian.
In a climate where the recent Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act has allowed police the right to stop and search even with no grounds for suspicion; impose start and end times on public protests; give a sentence of up to 10 years in prison for damaging statues; and fine protesters £2500 if they refuse to stop demonstrations that cause ‘serious annoyance’ or create a ‘public nuisance’, such aggressive actions by the police can only be taken as part of a wider governmental crackdown on the right of public assembly. And in the immediate aftermath of the shocking death of Chris Kaba, the unarmed black man who was recently shot dead by the Met Police, the police should be thinking very carefully about taking reckless and disproportionate actions.
Such scenes as three security guards and two policemen dragging Mr. Hill from a crowd into the back of a police van where he was handcuffed and arrested on distinctly dubious legal grounds sounds more Russian or North Korean than British. It is undemocratic and unnecessarily authoritarian. Moreover, it is unbelievably counterproductive. Mr. Hill would have moved on of his own accord—he was walking home from church and hadn’t even headed out with the intention to make a disturbance. This story wouldn’t have even made the local news, let alone the national papers. The police’s actions have caused vastly more controversy and disturbance than any minor protest outside the Carfax Tower ever could.
However, it must be said that in many ways these incidents are not quite as serious as they seem to be. Concerning, sure, but not disastrous. Firstly, in a week where there have been hundreds of public proclamations, parades, and memorials to the late Queen, there have only been three major incidents of police overreach. I find it very difficult to believe that throughout all these Royal Processions and pieces of pageantry there have only been three people who have said something critical about the monarchy. There is, in my mind, approximately zero chance that, in a crowd of thousands, only one person heckled Prince Andrew. This means there must have been plenty of other times when people protested or shouted at the proclamation and… nothing happened. As it should. Doubtless, people would have told them to shut up and go away, or perhaps something stronger, and either they did or they didn’t—as is their right. Protest occurred as it should—without police intervention.
This indicates that the three incidents were not actually symptomatic of mass police overreach, or a widespread order to crack down on dissent, and instead were just mistakes by individual officers who were overly enthusiastic and overstepped the mark. And the evidence backs this view up. Thames Valley Police confirmed that Symon Hill was very quickly de-arrested once the mistake of the two police officers at the scene was realized. The Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Met Police said “the public absolutely have a right of protest and we have been making this clear to all officers involved”. The likely explanation is that such an instruction was not transmitted clearly enough in Oxford and Edinburgh.
This, of course, does not excuse the fact that these incidents did happen, and the right to protest was suppressed in these cases. It is true that this is the fault of individual officers, not the police as a whole, but that only indicates a further problem—that there are officers in the police who seriously think that they can and should arrest someone for a three-word protest, and who are far too keen to use and abuse their authority. And we have seen all too well that such abuses of power can have tragic consequences when officers have firearms, as in the case of Chris Kaba.
This is not the end of freedom in our country, but nor is it something to be taken lightly. A sequence of events that we usually see on the news happening outside the Kremlin or in the squares of Pyongyang happened along Cornmarket Street. We must always be vigilant to protect the freedom to protest in this country, regardless of the issue being protested and our own views on it, and especially in the current political climate where the police may be acting disproportionately and the government only extends their authority.