The demonstrators camped in Parliament Square were last night removed by bailiffs. Their continued presence has been highly controversial. On the one hand, the one situation worse than having people demonstrate outside Parliament is not having people demonstrate outside Parliament. On the other hand, no right is absolute unto itself and these protestors were not only causing environmental damage and constituting a health hazard but also denying the opportunity for other groups to utilise the Square to make their protest.
There is a notable difference between people who feel they can appropriate a public square on a continuing basis – and do with it as they wish and deny space to others – and those who come, protest peacefully, make their case and move on, leaving the space available for others. As I write, there is a demonstration taking place in front of the George V statute by Falun Gong. It is a peaceful and, indeed, silent demonstration. The way they are conducting themselves is much more productive than engaging in behaviour that serves only to alienate parliamentarians. With the protest camp in Parliament Square the story became their behaviour and not what they stood for.
I totally agree. I have little sympathy for the ‘protesters’. I think reluctantly I prefer the old pre-97 rules on protects around parliament.
I don’t generally like banning things but I really wish something could be done to stop the use of megaphones at protests. You have a right to protest, you don’t have the right to half-deafen innocent passers-by/workers who are forced to listen to megaphone screamed slogans for hours/days/weeks at a time in some cases.
One finds a slight but greatly-significant error in the presentation of this topic, namely the wrongful use of a sly ‘ad hominem’ piece of Self-Righteousness, that some distressed but peaceably pro-testing British minority was “engaging in behaviour that only alienates parliamentarians”.
Parliamentarians, and-or the lord acting as their spokesperson here, need to first consider what bigger and more lasting ‘behaviour’ or ‘conduct’ has caused this minority to fail to make a competitively-successful demonstration in favour of some Vital Human Need that has evidently been Neglected by the Parliamentarians and Others in the great-overall-monarchical-Establishment, Civil-Service and Private-Individual-Capitalists’-Sector.
What Nation-State Conduct and Behaviour has suppressed this minority to the extent that they need to stand up in public for their vital needs, hows and affordable-costs, and for friendly win-win-win problem-solving thereto ?
Lord Norton’s statement fails, because:
1. Parliamentarians as a Class, along with the Monarchical-Establishment, Civil-Service, and ‘Private’ Individual-Capitalists-Sector classes, has long been constitutionally-self-alienating from the Needs, Hows and Affordable-Costs of The People i.e. of the British Nation.
By their self-interested bias over the centuries, Parliamentarians have alienated themselves from The People.
(see the JSDM comment in the accompanying Lord Norton Post: “Abstaining…”).
2. The noble lord’s expertise clearly does not extend as far as distinguishing between “conduct” and “behaviour”.
Mandatory constraints upon my citizenship-participation do not allow me to presume any further at present; such as to advise the noble lord that “conduct” is something one chooses and effectively has total-control over;
Nor to quote from professional and educational sources should I advise that “behaviour” is something beyond one’s control, stemming largely from what has been constituted within the very marrow of one’s bones.
————————-
I can only applaud any-one who attempts a peaceful-protest, namely who stands up for a real Need, How and Affordable-Cost that is being denied and suppressed by the British Nation-State, and I can only wish both sides cooperatively- adequate preparation in future, to ensure that all future Protests will be successfully hygienic, non-damaging to the environment, and assertively-self-contained.
PS: There is a very clear and win-win-win definition of “assertiveness”;
but certain of the going competitive Nation-State constraints preclude my revealing here what that is.
========= ==============
(JSDM1737T20072010).
Parliament sq is so desperately busy in any case the last thing people need is demos there.
I was rather glad Lord Tom King did not injure himself, when he walked straight in front of fast moving traffic when I was there a few months ago, him without so much as a glance in either direction.
Easy to do when you have been deep in thought, and that the constabulary outside are sometimes able to pre empt, by their…. thought.
I was once nearly totally dead and squashed meat on the edge of Whitehall at the lights when I did an uncontrolled bike slide in rain in front of an accelerating bus.
Fortunately a totally anonymous and thoroughly observant car driver, allowed me to straighten up from his bonnet which most certainly saved my life.
He did not stop, but he knew what he had done.
Traffic safety and pedestrian safety still needs much further thought, outside St. Stephen’s entrance.
Dear Lord Norton,
When I walked through Parliament Square earlier today it seemed as if the tents had not been removed from the Square but simply from the grass and re-erected on the pavement. Do you know if they are going to be moved from there or are they allowed to stay on the pavement?
Wannabeexpat.
These comments feel like a rather staid approach to protest. Lord Norton raises a valid point; the right of other protesters to use the Square, and perhaps the peace camp could have been asked to move to one side so as to free up some space. With regard to the money, I feel that’s just part of the ‘running cost’ of democracy, and I really doubt Westminster Council can’t afford it.
The other complaints just seem to be centrist grumbling about raucous protest.
I`m going for a win-win-win-win-win situation here and staying out of this one.
Suprised the travelling community haven`t cottoned on yet and parked up a few caravans. Just think you could get Parliament re-tarmaced at a good discount price, cash of course. 😉
The thing I find most ironic about “Democracy Village” is the name. It’s a handful of people protesting continuously and demanding something that may not be representative of the people and thus not democratic.
As Lord Norton points out, this prevents democracy by preventing other demonstrations.
Either way, it’s nice to see people who care that much about an issue, but equally it’s sad to see people jumping on the band wagon for a free ride at the expense of others.
Goodness, how frightful this post is. One would expect a little bit of snobbishness from a Lord, but, really.
As much as anything else, I find it appallingly illiberal and undemocratic that Government should feel it has the obligation to regulate how people peacefully protest against its actions. Surely that misses the point of the protest altogether.
Or, perhaps, it is that the ConDems haven’t missed the point but simply didn’t feel that their privilege should be impinged upon by being lectured by a bunch of dirty poor people. Perhaps since their policies are designed to exacerbate the problems of such people while blaming all the ills of society on them, this was a pre-emptive strike?
And Johann Hari says much the same as me, but in more depth.
The shameful silencing of protest outside the British Parliament
A government that cannot tolerate dissent is a dangerous thing indeed.
McDuff: No right is absolute unto itself and once the effects of criminal damage are undone, and the Square restored to a tolerable condition, other groups wishing to protest will be able to use it. I agree with what the other readers have written.
I should add that it was not a case of a Government tolerating dissent. Leaving aside the fact that it was not the Government that was involved, I am not sure what ‘dissent’ was involved.
Lord Norton:
You don’t think that the effects of removing one set of protestors might have a chilling effect on other people wishing to protest? Why on Earth should we believe that the next lot of unfortunately unbeautiful people to pitch up there will not be removed in precisely the same way, now that the precedent has been set?
Also, I don’t exactly see what is quite so intolerable about “damaging” a dull patch of grass in the middle of a busy roundabout. One would have thought the principle of the thing would overrule horticulture in this instance, at least. “Criminal damage” sounds very much like “what we managed to make stick”.
As far as it not being the present government that people were protesting, that’s really only a conceit of the Whitehall Bubble. Continuity across the benches is far greater than dissent in the grand scheme of things. It doesn’t matter which party or coalition happens to be in charge, if the policies remain in place, the policies should be protested. Are you suggesting that the protestors in Parliament Square should have left once Brown was out of office, perhaps given Cameron six months or so to see if he’d withdraw troops from Afghanistan?
Active participation, including protest, is a far more important part of being a democrat than voting every few years, especially in a fatally flawed democracy like ours. It’s telling that the Tories have put so much time into removing these protestors. After all, they could have simply ignored them, like Labour did. One step further, in the wrong direction. Very sad, but not unexpected.
Free Campsite.
Near to all facilities, very central to the vibrant city of London.
I really don`t know any free campsites other than that one and it deserved to be free because it was such a state.
Would you like it on your front lawn or the roundabout at the top of your road. You may, most people wouldn`t.
Protest by all means, write, email, march etc., but creating a campsite on a roundabout where you lounge around all day erm…how is that protesting ? The best coverage the protest got was when they were rightly shifted.
Just think of the security issues surrounding it, you and I pay for those. Think of the tourists and how they feel at our Government having such an eyesore on it`s doorstep.
Whose minds were protesters altering after that long in place ? Were the Lords and MP`s impressed ? The workers of the area ? Yes they heard what the protesters had to say but being there repeating it day after day does what ?
Squatting is not to my mind a legitimate way to protest. Westminster Council and the Mayor had them removed, not the Lords.
And for someone who promotes equality by God sir you give none to football supporters in your blog do you, but of course us George cross flying footie supporters are all cretins who shouldn`t be able to vote.
McDuff: That hasn’t apparently been a chilling effect on those removed, let alone on anyone else. Other protestors continue to protest and, for those wanting to protest in some numbers, now have the space to do so. I also query how one is defining protest. Also, I was not suggesting it was a particular government against whom they were protesting – as I indicate, I’m not sure what they were protesting – but rather that it was not the government taking action against them.
Of course they were involved.
There are easy ways round it anyway. As soon as the haracades protecting parliament from visible signs that things aren’t right, the protestors will be back.
Or are you saying that the government should only approve the sort of protests it likes?
e.g. Just like having a Jewish orchestra in a concentration camp for the Red Cross when the visit, it will only be approved protesters who can make their protest outside parliament.
Those disadvantaged veterans and company were standing up for their Needs, Hows and Affordable-Costs to be recognised and met.
It was a pro-testation not a dissention.
If there is a strong case of “Dissent” here it must be against the Establishment, The Parliaments, the Judiciary, the Civil-Service and the Public, for denying the pro-testers’ Needs, Hows and Affordable-Costs, and for failing to work and legislate win-win-win in those matters.
The protesters in their original (and continuing) citizenship-state are behaving with best-possible civil-responsibility.
The causative Perpetrators (in a People-oriented sense also,’traitors’)are as named above: The Monarchy, Parliaments, Judiciary, Civil-Service and The People (who are complicit with the former four powers).
Clearly other submissions than these, including McDuff’s, are being ignored, destroyed; and that only deepens the case against the aforesaid Monarchy, Parliaments, Judiciary, Civil-Service and People.
=============
(JSDM1117Th22July10).
Chris Cole: with deep respect for your cogent parts, you have ‘opened your mouth here and put your foot in it”:
your implied major Premiss being that
(‘)For any need, how, and affordable-cost to be ‘democratic’ it must be a need-equally-in-common-to-all-and-every-one-of The People (and be pencil-cross voted for by the said People once evry five years) (‘).
Wow! I can imagine such an enthymemous hole-ridden logic-bucket being ‘debated’ by for example The Youth Parliament !
————-
jsdm1139Th22July10)
One super-rich Pocket is responsible for the poor conduct of both the Ruling-Group (Monarchy, Parliaments, Judiciary, Civil-Service and People) and of the ‘behaviour’ of those disadvantaged veterans and their dependents who were standing up in a Proper Public Place for their Needs, Hows and Affordable-Costs to be recognised and permitted to be met.
It was a pro-test rather than a dissent.
If there is a strong case of “Dissent” here it must be against the Establishment, The Parliaments, the Judiciary, the Civil-Service, and the Public, for denying the pro-testers’ Needs, Hows and Affordable-Costs, and for failing to work and legislate win-win-win in those matters.
The protesters in their original (and continuing) citizenship-state are both de facto and by moral-reasoning behaving with best-possible civil-responsibility.
The causative Perpetrators (in a People-oriented sense also, ’traitors’) are as named above: The Monarchy, Parliaments, Judiciary, Civil-Service and The People (who are complicit with the former four powers). To these above five most culpable perpetrators should be added. overarched or underpinned, The Private Financial Sector Individual-Capitalist Cartels within whose Pockets all of the above bad-governance-perpetrators are confined.
Clearly other straight-thinking, constructively-intended, and right-spirited submissions than these, including McDuff’s, are being ignored and effectively destroyed;
and that only deepens and widens the wastage-&-neglect-case against the aforesaid Monarchy, Parliaments, Judiciary, Civil-Service and Complicit-People.
=============
(JSDM1347Th22July10).
JSDM,
I suspect your points would be better received if you took a more conservative approach to punctuation and grammar. As it is, while I suspect there is a nugget of a point in there, it’s quite hard to excavate it.
It’s also somewhat overstating the case to suggest that anybody is “destroying” comments here.
Guess we’ll have to leave the suspected nugget-of-a-point to sleep in there, perhaps until the new big-society conservative education programme produces sufficient brains and brawn to excavate it. McDuff.
———-
Maybe it’s not too late for me to investigate the ‘more conservative approach to punctuation and grammar’ that you suggest. Thank you.
————–
I might suggest that in a fatally flawed democracy like ‘yours’ (for me, and for a large number of historians and political-scientists, Britain has never yet achieved a Democracy at all) it is not ‘anybody’ who “destroys” many more than one citizen’s concerns and constructive submissions (qua “suppressing”,”ignoring” or in bureaucratic-slang “round-binning” or “cylinder-filing” them) but The Monarchy, Parliaments, Judiciary, Civil-Service, and Complicit-People-Numbers thereto.
Are you able to count which of your submissions are carried-forward, or even noted ? and on the other hand which have been “round-binned” or allowed to slip through the cracks in the Table or between the gaps in the Floorboards ?
“Being called ‘leader’ will never make anyone so”.
Similarly being called a “democracy” will never make it so.
I thought your own writing contained that spirit.
Suddenly I am not at all sure where your heart or spiritual-allegiance might be lying.
Nonetheless, I see some point in trusting that at least one good-soul will be on watch for posts on this e-site, and I feel reasonably sure that some fair-minded person or other will be holding anything worthy, good or honest-to-God, from any submission, in what I believe is recognised widely as ‘a Spiritual-Trust’ or to more modern minds in an ‘Earth-citizens-community-heart’.
===========
(JSDM2347Th220710)
Well I think most of you are totally wrong headed about this ugly encampment on Parliament Square. First of all, no-one could tell what tbey were protesting about, I for one never figured it out. Secondly, every visitor to Parliament mentioned this gaggle of unwashed as evidence of police incompetence to take action where there was obvious need to allow other groups to make their peaceful protests near Parliament who were prevented from doing so by these folk. Third, while the right to protest about something is fine, this isn’t a right to despoil any open space which is normally used for the enjoyment of visitors and local workers in Westminster. Meanwhile the figures of Churchill, Jan Smuts, Mandela, all fine sculptures, were more or less unreachable while this threatening group were there and the smell of the detritus and worse from the makeshift camp were offensive to the vast majority. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom to make a horrible mess that you and I have to pay for to clear up out of out taxes. And who do you think was paying for them to sit there? You and me of course. Come on, let’s be a bit sensible about a camp which no normal person would allow on his own back doorstep and which served no cause to any good effect.
Any of you who think they know what they were protesting about can add a note here….
From the TV news footage those protesters looked both neglected and abused.
They were reportedly standing up for certain essential humnan Needs, Hows and Affordable-Costs that you Parliamentarians along with the Monarchy, the Civil-Service, the Education sector, the Individual-Capitalist ‘Private’-Sector, the Church, many NGOs, and the British People in general had been doing-them-out-of.
Many a mickle (towards their Needs) would therefore have saved the “muckle” (that you’re now so self-righteously marching-against).
So in short they were demonstrating that You had not only failed to legislate their real Needs but had failed to provide safe and effective problem-solving avenues for such a circumstance;
and they were no doubt appropriately incensed at the diversion of Taxes away from their Needs and into the already overflowing pockets of the spendthrift luxurious rich, into which latter category today practically every level of the middle class as well as all of the upper and monarchical classes vary arguably falls.
I do not exclude any person, neglected and dirty nor spoiled and filthy-rich, from the central tenet of Life itself:
If you are not managing healthily, sustainworthily, and citizenlike-co-constructively on £200 per week then you are not only personally in-efficient at civilisedand natural-lifesupportive living but no longer justified in counting every penny of your surplus income-and-expenditure aove that £200 sufficient human-living as being “private”.
———-
If you doubt the serious factuality of this Matter, then be proactive and participatorily-cooperative in publishing the contrasts and comparisons between every level of income and expenditure in the United Kingdom; and especially in this protestation-matter between your own class’s budget and that of that protesting sub-class.
This “right-ful representation and legislated-meeting of every citizen’s Needs, Hows, and Affordable-Costs” real-life and governance matter is already at an advanced stage of conflict: so the appropriate methodologies and ‘Foul-Play’ rules need to be applied:
“Every-One Can Win” by Helena Cornelius & Shoshana Faire;
“Six Thinking Hats” by Edward de Bono;
“Mindset” by Caroline Dweck.
Getting prematurely red-hatted, hot under the collar and ready to “call out the Riot-Squad” before you have checked completion of the other five modes of Thinking is not only un-parliamentarian it is un-citizenlike and un-adultlike.
———–
The motto ‘Be Prepared’ might do well here also, as a new generic tenet of citizenship for one and all, wouldn’t it ?
===========
(JSDM2345Sn01Aug2010)
Baroness Murphy
Did you ask them?
Also, it is sort of ironic for a member of Parliament to complain that the demonstrators never made any difference, don’t you think? I suspect that if they’d had the power to make the decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan themselves (oh, by the way, this is what they were after) they wouldn’t have been camping outside demonstrating in the hopes of influencing government policy.
You not listening to demonstrators is not, really, their fault, is it? Especially if the judgements of politicians seem rather more aesthetically based than policy based.
McDuff, Of course I didn’t ask them, any more than you would have deliberately gone out of your way to suss out what they could have easily drawn to our attention in other ways. So it was withdrawal from Afghanistan? Are you sure? I never saw anyone talking about that. But my not listening to these particular demonstrators is indeed their fault, it demonstrates their lack of skill and understanding about how to engage politicians. Now if they’d marched down the road with placards and presented a petition to parliament in the time honoured fashion, I would at least have seen them and understood. There are many legitimate ways to campaign for a withdrawal from Afghanistan, not least through MPs but offending people isn’t likely to gain much sympathy for their cause.