Friends urged to ‘cause a fuss’ on policing bill
'We are seeing the seeds of discontent among MPs and Peers – now we just need to nurture them.'
Friends have been urged to ‘make a fuss’ as the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill reaches the final parliamentary stages.
Grace da Costa, public affairs and media manager for Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), called on Friends to ‘stay hopeful on the Policing Bill no matter the odds, and take action now for all those who will be affected by it in the future’.
The bill went to its third stage on 8 December. ‘This week Lords are discussing “trespass” but it’s not until 17 January that they are due to discuss “protest” and then it will go back to Commons probably late January and early February,’ Grace da Costa told the Friend. ‘It’s been going through the Lords for some months, but this is the bit where they can actually make amendments. Then it will go back to the Commons to see if they agree with the changes.’
BYM has urged Quakers to write to their MPs about the bill and share social media posts by @BritishQuakers, @GypsyTravellers and @LibertyHQ about the right to protest and to live a nomadic way of life, and sign the Friends of the Earth petition.
Writing on the Quakers in Britain website, Grace da Costa said: ‘If we can cause enough of a fuss about these issues in public, in the media and in parliament, the government might change its mind. We are seeing the seeds of discontent among MPs and Peers – now we just need to nurture them. It worked with the Overseas Operations Bill, and it can work with the Policing Bill’.
The blog highlights around fifteen pages of new amendments to the bill, published in November that campaigners say are particularly draconian and may have been released later to avoid scrutiny. These include: new Serious Disruption Prevention Orders (SDPOs) aimed at preventing people from taking part in protests; massive expansion of stop-and-search powers for protests; and making locking-on a criminal offence.
According to the blog, BYM opposes almost everything in the bill but, as the government has a huge majority in the House of Commons and a strong position in the House of Lords, ‘we have to focus on where we can really make a difference’.
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