This weekend we saw a timorous Metropolitan Police yet again cowed into inaction by Far-Left protestors who were successful in closing down the British Museum to new visitors on Sunday afternoon.
The newly-minted collaboration of Palestinian and environmental activists, the ‘Energy Embargo for Palestine’, rapidly took to social media to crow about their victory over the visiting public. It is the second time in a matter of weeks that protestors have successfully targeted the British Museum.
Thirty million people from around the world visit London every year – six million of them passing through the halls of the British Museum. For many of those visiting London, it is a once in a lifetime experience. Central to that experience is the opportunity to visit London’s museums. They are amongst our most valuable institutions and in most cases, whether you are prince or pauper, admission is completely free.
The British Museum is one of only a very select number of the world’s ‘Great Universal Museums’, along with the Met in New York and the Louvre in Paris. It is possible in a single day at the British Museum to explore Greek sculpture alongside its Egyptian precursors; or to take a short walk down the corridor to examine artifacts from the Silk Road in the 7th century and then the Celts in 150 BC.
Reportedly, families from as far afield as India were prevented from visiting the Museum due to the activists’ disruption. Footage from the protest show the footpaths in front of the Museum were practically impassable while the noisy protestors shouted and chanted – including through megaphones. Meanwhile a small handful of the Met’s 32,000 police officers stood by to watch the disruption unfold.
When Policy Exchange asked the British Museum, they said “The Met were on the ground and advised us to close our entrances to new visitors while the protest was happening.”
When we asked the Metropolitan Police for their version of events, they said “This incident was predominately dealt with by security at the museum” and that they “believe it was the museum’s decision to close”.
Within the cracks between their statements, it would appear the British Museum chose to close the museum to new visitors on the advice of the Metropolitan Police. The exhibiting of the collection to the public is central to the duties of the Museum’s Trustees under the British Museum Act 1963 and yet this weekend’s events prevented that from happening. What contact has there been between the Museum’s Trustees and the Metropolitan Police to ensure this cannot happen again?
No doubt if pressed the Met would yet again solemnly intone their respect for people’s ‘right to protest’.
This weekend represents merely the latest episode in the police’s failure to deal with disruptive protestors. Since October we have seen the surrender of the Capital’s streets to a rolling campaign of mass marches. Then repeated efforts to intimidate Parliamentarians in Westminster and in their constituencies. Now, it is seemingly the humble tourist that is to be targeted.
Legislation provides the police with extensive powers to deal with disruptive protests. It is a criminal offence to obstruct the highway or to interfere with the use of the key national infrastructure, including the road transport infrastructure.
The police can apply to prohibit trespassory assemblies under S14A of the Public Order Act 1986 or can impose a ‘Dispersal Order’ under Part 3 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 1986 if reasonable grounds exist to prevent members of the public being ‘harassed, alarmed or distressed’ or to prevent crime or disorder.
Why are the police so unwilling to act by using the powers provided to them by Parliament? What are they afraid of?
As the Pro-Palestinian and environmental activists continue to escalate their campaigns of disruption, we find police forces, prosecutors and the courts engaging in a ‘balancing of rights’ exercise to adjudge whose rights, and which, are to be prioritised.
On one side are the rights of protestors to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly – neither of which are absolute but are subject to limitations ‘as necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security and public safety’.
On the other side the right of the ordinary person – including the tourist, researcher or school group visiting a museum – to be able to go about their daily lives.
It is the police who are the first in authority to make such judgements. On too many occasions, the outcome appears that the rights of protestors are prioritised above everyone else. Certainly, this weekend’s events at the British Museum show that the rights of the ordinary person are to be subordinated in favour of the noisy activist.
If the ordinary member of the public is ever to be prioritised over the mob the police need to be willing to confront these groups – and if necessary to do so physically. That would be a significant departure from the status quo – and comes with risks. But unless we are willing to see our streets and institutions continually given over to a form of anarchy the groups involved give us little choice.
The Home Secretary should make clear to the Commissioner of the Met that the repeated closure of our historic institutions cannot continue. The Home Office should commission an independent review of British policing’s public order tactics – with the involvement of law enforcement expertise from outside the Met and even beyond the UK.
It has been a historic cornerstone of British policing that police forces are ‘operationally independent’ from government. It is a modern tragedy however that when it comes to protest the police too often take the wrong decision.
The choices made by the police are leaving the ordinary person unable to go about their daily lives without becoming the victim of a disruptive and intimidatory mob. If the police cannot be trusted to get these calls right the time will have come for an elected government to step in and redraw the line about the decisions the police alone can be trusted to make.
David Spencer is the Head of Crime and Justice for Policy Exchange and a former Detective Chief Inspector with the Metropolitan Police.
