The Feedback Loop That Stifles Protest
The coronation had the opportunity to be a wonderful weekend that celebrated the best of British culture. On the one hand you had the pomp and ceremony of the coronation itself and on the other hand you had anti-monarchist protests showing democracy in action.
If all of this has been handled well (or even acceptably) then it would have been a proud moment. Instead it is the Metropolitan Police who are once again making headlines because of the heavy-handed way that they dealt with protesters.
This erosion of the right to protest comes from concerted efforts by the government to stifle democracy via legislation like the Public Order Act 2023 that received Royal Assent just days before the coronation. However it is also important to be aware that these anti-protest efforts also take a more insidious form as well.
It all began two weeks ago when The Mail on Sunday ran a story that claimed protesters were planning to use rape alarms to spook horses during the coronation.
That sounds like scary stuff but it is important to looks a little deeper. The only actual sources for this exclusive story are supposed “security sources” and there is no other evidence of such a ‘plot’ really existing whatsoever.
In reality the Mail is just engaging in client journalism here. The ‘source’ is most likely someone within government who wants to influence police tactics and shut down legitimate protest on the day. In return the Mail then gets access for other stories and exclusives to throw on their front page to sell newspapers.
It worked. This is exactly what happened. Several people were arrested for possessing rape alarms in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Were these people anti-monarchists preparing to disrupt the coronation?
No.
As the journalist, Mic Wright, reported:
“The Met arrested members of the City of Westminster’s Night Safety team. They are volunteers. They were pulled last night at 2am and have been held for 14 hours. One of them came out of the station in tears. Police didn’t apologise.”
It is some sort of sick irony that in the wake of Wayne Couzens and the Casey Review, members of the Territorial Support Group arrested volunteers who were trying to help women by handing out rape alarms to them.
The Met Police responded to this by lying. They quote tweeted Wright and said:
“We received intelligence that indicated people were planning to use rape alarms to disrupt the Coronation procession - with concern from the military that this would scare their horses and cause significant risk to the safety of the public and their riders.”
Twitter now allows people to provide context for certain controversial tweets like this and here is the information provided alongside the above statement:
“Police and military horses are trained to remain calm around loud noises and in crowds. The three people arrested were actually part of Westminster Council's night life safety team.
https://www.bhs.org.uk/media/qb4dgvrf/noise-1218.pdf
https://www.forces.net/services/army/eleven-things-know-about-household-cavalry-horses-parade
For the real kicker to all this, would you like to guess which national newspaper the head of media for the Metropolitan Police used to work for?
That’s right, The Daily Mail.
And thus the feedback loop is complete: the tabloid press runs a scare story on behalf of the government, the police react to the scare story by clamping down in a draconian fashion, and then finally they lie about what they have done by using a former tabloid journalist as a spin doctor.
It is an unseen malevolence that lies at the heart of what should be democratic institutions.
There is no new episode of the podcast this week because we are up to date with the latest cases from the Supreme Court.
In the meantime, if you are a student preparing for exams, be sure to check out my video lectures on YouTube and Gumroad.
Make a difference today,
Marcus