Green Assembly Member Jenny Jones joins the Mayor of London in criticising the Met’s change in protest policy calling it “a cost-cutting move that has backfired”. The new policy says the Met will not provide stewarding or traffic management services to enable demonstrations to happen.
London’s deputy Mayor for policing admitted at this morning’s Police and Crime Committee that neither he, nor the Mayor, had been consulted about the Met Police’s Pay to Protest policy. The Met Police had held an internal review and decided that they would not provide either stewarding or traffic management services to enable demonstrations to happen, as they did not regard these as a statutory responsibility. A letter from Westminster Council states that they would normally require a request from one of their statutory partners (rather than the protest organisers) to go ahead with a traffic management order.
Jenny Jones was recently arrested at an Occupy protest whilst supporting a friend.
The Met Police will help groups during a ‘transitional period’, such as the Campaign Against Climate Change who will now be going ahead with their protest on the 7th March in central London.
Members of the London Assembly’s Police and Crime Committee raised other examples of events being hindered by a lack of police co-operation, such as the cancellation of local festivals, scouts parades and Remembrance Day parades.
Jenny Jones said:
“The Met Police have got themselves into a mess on this. It’s obvious they didn’t discuss the decision with the Mayor, who clearly disagrees with them, and they certainly didn’t think through the impact on the part of their job that means they must facilitate the democratic process. It’s a cost-cutting move that has backfired.”
“The Mayor is saying that the Met Police have a duty to facilitate peaceful public protest and to support other community events, but the police themselves are withdrawing their co-operation and leaving others to pick up the costs. I have no problem with well resourced organisations providing their own stewarding on a semi voluntary basis, but if ordinary people, or community groups, are being asked to jump through bureaucratic hoops such as drawing up traffic plans, or to pay several thousand pounds for professionals to direct traffic, then that is a barrier to peaceful assembly.”
