As quickly as they came the riots seem to have settled down as if for those few days the country hadn’t descended into utter, unfocused madness. What followed was a clear message, the brutal hammer of justice being smashed down on all those involved approved of by the general public even though the guaranteed custodial sentences were harsh, unprecedented and would cost the tax-payer millions.
I had witnessed with my own eyes the incidents that made up the Birmingham riots and was surprised at how passive the policing was. They drove away potential looters from the outlets of big business, brands such as Selfridges and hmv that reside in the Bull Ring, then stood idly by while the rioters destroyed small businesses. No arrests were attempted, instead just a request to disperse issued through a megaphone with no real conviction.
Some politicians publicly criticised this stance by the police yet it’s obvious that the police were acting on some higher authority, some national mandate to not be involved. Across Britain hardly any arrests were made at the riots themselves, the vast majority being made days after the incidents. During times of national crisis the police do not suddenly decide to bring in a new form of policing. They are uniformed pawns of the state apparatus, nothing more, nothing less. It seems them almost completely certain that they were advised to behave this way by those in governance.
I myself hate any form of political analysis that is akin to bloated conspiracy theories. It cheapens the reality of the situation that people need to accept in order to come to a potential resolution to any issue. Yet, it seems to me completely implausible that there was not an agenda. As a child I had the miners strike on my doorstep and saw Thatcher’s footsoldiers smash peaceful protesters with truncheons for the benefit of a triple-rate overtime. During the Poll Tax riots I watched mounted police trample women as if they were combatants in some civil war. During my anti-war marching days I saw the police physically restrain those holding banners or try to access areas that were closed off for some reason. Even as recently as the G20 I watched disgracefully dangerous “kettling” techniques and would see an entirely innocent old man murdered by those in uniform.
So why the sudden change in approach and an uncharacteristic move away from the police brutality that has seen three people murdered in the last week while being arrested? Politically it makes sense. After the riots started Clegg and Cameron were heavily criticised for staying out of the country and arriving to the crisis late. They were jeered when they did. Yet it was clear that the longer it went on the general public were keen to side with the politicians. The media made us hate the looters, depicting them entirely as feral looters, opportunist criminals with no agenda and no cause.
The depiction in itself was accurate as far as I could see. This truly was a riot without a cause as I reported. Yet, the media did ignore the fact that this behaviour was the harvested fruit of a previous government’s crop, the generation marginalised in the seventies and eighties by the Conservatives now becoming great grandparents, passing their disenfranchised views down to each new wave, becoming more directionless and without context each time. In short, if you create an underclass on the basis that “you are what you own” then don’t be surprised when they decide they are willing to burn their own community to the ground in order to obtain more status and wealth, even in the most minuscule sense of measurement.
In what is the most cynical move since the Patriot Act further enslaved the American people blinded by their grief surrounding 9/ 11 and the requirement for a renewed sense of national identity, we now have something akin to it. Our government has wasted no time in proposing new legislature that will further impede on our civil rights, something that has been continuously eroded throughout the New Labour era.
It is shameless and cynical but it is unlikely that anyone will oppose it. With the images of burning buildings and overturned cars fresh in the memory they are likely to seem all too reasonable. The legislature currently being pushed through parliament includes.
– To look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via social media when “we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality”
– Plans to look at whether wider powers of curfew and dispersal orders were needed
– New powers for police to order people to remove facemasks where criminality is suspected
– Courts could be given tougher sentencing powers
– Landlords could be given more power to evict criminals from social housing
– Plans to extend the system of gang injunctions across the country and build on anti-gang programmes, similar to those in the US
As with all legislature the definitions are key and it is not a comforting thought when you consider we already exist in a country where 180,000 people have been interfered with by police deliberately misinterpreting anti-terrorist laws since 2000 but only 255 have been detained. The number of people charged with anything is even smaller. This is also the same country that has councils using anti-terror laws to spy on children making noise or refuse collectors said not to be doing their job. If there’s one thing we do well in Britain it’s finding loopholes to abuse laws.
So, what can we expect with such broad definitions as “social media”, “facemasks”, “criminals” and “gangs”? Ultimately they can be applied to anything, a convincing piece of rhetoric in court all that would be required to set some hideous precedent that could have severe ramifications.
Not only that but can a government that is already keen to build its own legacy of removing people’s right to express themselves politically really be relied upon to not use these to prevent peaceful protests, the right to free assembly or to suppress political opponents? While it might well be greeted with cheers when these new laws are used to prevent an EDL march in your area, which next political group will be subject to that?
But the people don’t seem to care, the wave of apathy that greeted the sentencing of two young adults to four years in prison for “planning” riots that never happened indicative of how happy people are to surrender their freedoms just as long as their local shops can stay open. And when the charges become even more absurd (picture the headline “Man Arrested For Chanting “Let’s Go Fucking Mental” At Football Match) will any talk of how wrong they are be simply dismissed as more “PC Gone Mad” campaigning for the usual sources, such as The Daily Mail?
Already the legal battles are beginning and finding any sort of mainstream coverage will be problematic. The government’s lapdogs at the BBC would certainly rather regale us with tales of “Mad” Momar Gaddafi and how their revolution is right and just, rather than inform the populace about how the government plans to take away more rights relating to freedom of speech. The Home Office summit for a meeting with the heads of “social media” sites takes place tomorrow. The twelve representatives from the major social media sites have been allocated one hour to put forward their case to a group of senior police officers, ministers and government officials.
Expect a predictable outcome. What’s worse is you’ll probably approve.