This was drawn to my attention today by Alex Andreou and I copy this from his blog:
I was interested to see the following announcement in today's London Evening Standard:
It caught my eye, buried even though it was in the Jobs section. What byelaws, specific to Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square, could our dear Mayor be drafting in such a hurry? So, I had a look. You can find the full text of the byelaws here.
I found that, buried among various rules making it a criminal offence to feed birds or fly kites (yes, you read that right), it contained some astonishing and highly undemocratic rules effectively stifling peaceful protest. No doubt Boris Johnson is thinking of the upcoming Olympics and what an embarrassment it would be to have poor people protesting near tourists. The byelaws make it an offence, inter alia, to
- erect or keep erected any tent or similar structure
- display any sign
- make or give any speech or public address
and astonishingly even
- fail to comply with a reasonable direction given by an authorised person to leave the square.
It is my belief that this is an outrageous and unprecedented attack on our freedom as citizens. The notice explains that any objection to the confirmation of the Byelaws may be made by letter addressed to Carl Schnackenberg, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2-4 Cockspur Street, London SW1Y 5DH, or by email to: Carl.Schnackenberg@Culture.gsi.gov.uk.
I have written. Will you spare five minutes to make your sentiments known?
Amazing.
Big Brother is in town.
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Like Alex Andreou you could not be bothered to follow links and read documents before posting.
The page linked to states that there was a “consultation exercise in relation to the proposal to make the Byelaws which ran from 9 December 2011 to 22 January 2012.” If you had clicked on the link to the consultation exercise you would have found copies of the existing byelaws and a document summarising the proposed changes. If you had looked at these documents then you would have comprehended that every single rule you complain about is in the current (2000) byelaws.
Oh that makes them OK does it?
I don’t think so
So I’ll still object – and have
You, I presume, are happy to live in a Soviet style police state
I’m not
Yes. Bill has been bleating in every possible forum “there’s nothing to see here – move along please”. I disagree with his interpretation. Moving things like this from the £200 fine to the £5,000 fine bracket is not nothing. Applying a very broad definition of who is “an authorised person” who can tell you to move along refusal of which is an offence is not nothing. Trying to reinstate SOCPA rules actually repealed by PRSRA via the back door, is not nothing. The fact is, whether these rules existed or not nominally since the dawn of time, there is now an appetite to enforce them. If the SoS does not confirm them they do not come into effect. So, keep objecting.
“Oh that makes them OK does it?” Whether they are ‘OK’ is purely a matter of opinion, but what is a matter of fact is that if the SoS refuses to confirm the new byelaws all the supposedly new offences referred to in the original post remain offences under the existing byelaws.
The fine set, by s385 Greater London Authority Act 1999, for breaching these byelaws remains, level 1 on the standard scale. It is ‘trading offences’ that remain at level 3 on the standard scale.
Far from suggesting that there is nothing to see, I have been encouraging people, particularly Mr Andreou, to actually read all the documentation and relevant statutes.
And as he says, you’re the party guilty of misreading them
Who remembers Arthur Dent in The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?
I think it is in chapter one that Arthur is told, following extensive consultation on Betelgeuse, the Earth has been selected by Vogons to make way for an inter-galactic hyperspatial express route, and is about to be destroyed.
Extensive consultation doesn’t make it right!
Richard,
Thank you for raising a vital issue. It is agonising to watch the shredding of democracy. Even scarier is some information, which is a bit long for this little comment box, and bears close reading, but is incredibly relevant, since we’re not talking about a mere byelaw, but an Act of Parliament, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. Credit for the information below goes to Sally Adirondack, who does “training and consultancy on governance and law for the voluntary sector.” She sent this in her regular legal update to which one can subscribe free:
DEMONSTRATIONS NEAR PARLIAMENT: DESIGNATED AREA OUT, CONTROLLED AREA IN
Added 29/1/12. This information updates s.47.7.6 in The Russell-Cooke Voluntary Sector Legal Handbook (VSLH3).
From 30 March 2012, part 3 (ss.141-149) of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 repeals ss.132-136 and 138 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCPA). From that date the “designated area” (approximately one kilometre in each direction from the Houses of Parliament) is no longer in effect, it is no longer unlawful to hold a demonstration within that area without giving written notification to the Metropolitan Police commissioner at least six clear days before the event, and the police no longer have the right granted by SOCPA to impose conditions not only on number of participants, location and duration, but also on noise, size of banners, and any other conditions they considered necessary.
SOCPA s.137, banning the use of loudspeakers in the designated area, is repealed from 19 December 2011.
But the rules have not disappeared; they have been replaced by other rules. The Public Order Act 1986 s.14 will once again apply to public assemblies in the vicinity of Parliament. This allows police to impose conditions on any public assembly of two more persons if there is evidence that public disorder or intimidation may occur.
The 2011 legislation defines the central gardens and walkways of Parliament Square and the pavements immediately surrounding the central garden as a controlled area, and makes it a crime to engage in a prohibited activity within the controlled area if a police or local authority officer has given an order not to do so. Prohibited activities include operating amplified noise equipment such as a loudspeaker or loudhailer unless authorisation has been granted by the Greater London Authority or Westminster Council; erecting a tent or other sleeping structure, or sleeping in one; placing or keeping a sleeping bag, mattress or similar equipment in the area in order to sleep there; or using any sleeping equipment to sleep overnight in the area.
Directions to cease doing a prohibited activity or not to start to do one can last up to 90 days. A police officer or local authority officer can also seize any property which might be used to commit one of these offences.
The SOCPA rules did not apply to processions near Parliament, for which the Public Order Act 1986 ss.11-13 requires six days’ notice needs to be given anyway (except in exceptional circumstances), and for which there are different rules on the conditions that can be imposed.
The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 is at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2011/13/contents. The explanatory notes, available from that page, provide a good summary of the legislation. Liberty (the National Council for Civil Liberties) has a basic summary at tinyurl.com/875m8su.
Commencement order no.2, bringing this part of the Act into effect is at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2011/2834/contents/made
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 and the Public Order Act 1986 can be accessed at http://www.legislation.gov.uk.
Richard, I’ve just bought your book and am finding it riveting.
In Friendship,
Lin Patterson
Lin
Thanks for this
Richard
Oops, she’s not Sally, but Sandy Adirondack.
I can’t say this comes as any kind of surprise; I seem to recall that the Chinese authorities were busy clearing the streets of Bejing of beggars and sellers of trinkets before their Olympics to prevent the image of a prosperous rising superpower being sullied by the sight of those who weren’t winners in the new China.
Obviously, it’s no different here. Nasty, messy, inconvenient reality and democracy can’t be allowed to sully the image of London 2012 can they? It’s one of the reasons why the whole Olympics shebang leaves me cold. We have huge economic and environmental problems to sort out, grotesque income inequality, but hey, forget all that, London 2012 is here!
What’s the long term benefit to Greece of the 2004 Athens Olympics? Errrrrrrrrrrr……..
I too am sick of this London 2012 nonsense. Remember that Athens had the Olympics and then consider what happened to the Greek economy. There have already been predictions of ordinary tourists staying away from London in view of the exorbitant prices being asked for hotel rooms. As for the transport system, well I hope that has been improved since I last used the Docklands railway.
All I predict for London is economic meltdown – I won’t be going near for the duration of the Olympics in which I have noi interest at all