Being arrested for a crime I might commit in the future, that I wasn’t intending to commit, sounds like something you might read in a novel by George Orwell. I didn’t expect that to happen to me in the UK in 2023, but that is precisely what happened.
I am a documentary filmmaker making a series of films about democratic backsliding and the climate crisis. I have found that the best way to get under the skin of this is to spend time with activists who are on the frontline confronting these issues. That is how I found myself getting out of bed at 3 a.m. on the morning of the King’s Coronation. I met with a group of Just Stop Oil activists who were planning a peaceful protest at the time the procession was due to pass along The Mall.
In recent years, the UK government has been clamping down on the right to protest. Initially it was with the introduction of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2002, which was primarily a response to Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion. It was under that law that two protestors were recently given the longest ever sentences for peaceful climate protest in UK history. Three years in jail for a peaceful protest is clearly disproportionate by most people’s standards. Maybe not in Russia or China perhaps.
This year, the UK government went further and pushed through the new Public Order Act and reintroduced measures that had previously been rejected by the House of Lords. Those measures had been rejected because of the threat they posed to our civil liberties. The government used secondary legislation as a sly way to push it through despite some of the amendments having previously been voted out by The Lords. The bill received royal assent and became an Act of Parliament on 2 May 2023. It was rushed through so it could come into law just days before The Coronation.
The Coronation was to be the biggest live facial recognition operation in British history. A fact in itself that gives me the dystopian chills. As I followed the Just Stop Oil activists down to The Mall I wondered if they would get picked out by facial recognition, but they found a spot alongside the royal fans and settled in for the long wait. I found out later that one of the activists never got to join the group because they were in fact searched after being identified through live facial recognition. May I remind you at this point, that these activists were only intending to assert their right to peaceful protest by wearing Just Stop Oil T-shirts and waving a flag while standing in the crowd. When you are stopped and searched and detained for wearing a t-shirt it is hard not to start to draw parallels with the situation in Hong Kong today.
It was clear it was going to be a long wait before the procession so I sat down under a tree, laid my camera in my lap and started to snooze. The group I was following were also acting peacefully, their T-shirts hidden from view under zipper tops. Ninety minutes before the procession was to pass by, a large number of police swooped in and started making arrests. I jumped up from under my tree and switched on my camera to record what was happening. A free and independent press plays an important role in a democracy because it holds power to account, and as such it is accepted that the press can film in situations of public interest such as this. There is even a clause in The Public Order Act protecting the press from arrest in exactly this situation. A clause that had been introduced precisely because of a previous example of police overreach.
“Protection Of Journalists. This measure establishes a safeguard for journalists by specifying that the police cannot use their powers solely to prevent a person from reporting on or observing protests.”
Public Order Act 2023 Factsheet as published on the The UK’s government website.
A minute later I felt my arm being grabbed by a police officer. I was getting arrested too. I was arrested for “breach of the peace” when moments before I had been peacefully dozing under a tree. The arresting officer insisted I turn my camera off, my phone was taken away, and before I knew it, my hands were behind my back in handcuffs. Handcuffs I discovered are not designed to be comfortable.
I was lined up along The Mall with the other detainees. Alice Chambers, the royal super fan who was arrested that day too, was in the line up next to me. She was mute, a rabbit in headlights, utterly confused as to why she had been arrested. I was searched and despite not finding any evidence that I was about to breach the peace, and only finding evidence that I was there in my capacity as a journalist, I was not released. Instead I was ceremonially marched along The Mall and up the steps to the police vans past a jeering crowd. What that jeering crowd did not realise is that they were applauding the loss of their right to peaceful protest and the censoring of the independent press. What I would like to have been able to say to that red faced man whose jeering head popped out of that crowd at me was, “wait until you need to protest for a cause that is dear to your heart and you might just find you no longer can”.
As if it was some form of justification for the police overreach Sir Mark Rowley, the head of the Met Police, later referenced this cheering crowd in an Evening Standard article.
“Officers have told me how the celebrating crowds applauded and cheered as they made 17 arrests in The Mall area close to the processional route.”
Sir Mark Rowley, Head of The Metropolitan Police, 9 May 2023
Policing and lawmaking driven by the court of public opinion is a dangerous mix.
I remained cuffed in the police van for some hours. I experienced what it feels like to completely lose all your agency. I knew my partner would be worried I had disappeared but I couldn’t call him to let him know I was ok. I couldn’t even scratch my own nose. I pointed out to the officers in the van that there was a clause in the public order act about journalists’ rights but my words were ignored.
I was taken to the same police station as the Republic anti-monarchy protestors. Their arrests exposed yet another dangerous aspect of this poorly defined act of law. If you are in possession of an item that could be deemed to be a lock-on device you can be arrested preemptively for suspicion to cause a public nuisance. How do you define what a lock-on device is? On Coronation Day it appears that the luggage straps used to secure their placards were lock-on devices and sufficient grounds for them to be arrested and detained. What made these arrests even more extraordinary was that Republic had been in conversation with the police protest liaison officers in the months prior. Their protest had been organised with the full cooperation and agreement of The Met Police. Beware next time you go out with your bike lock fully intending to use it to protect your bike from getting stolen.
After some hours I was finally processed and released with no further action. It turns out I was the lucky one and was the first to be released. The others, including the royal superfan who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, were detained for time frames spanning 10 to 22 hours.
In the days after my arrest I got to experience what it feels like to imagine that the police might be about to jump out at any moment and arrest you for no reason. A paranoia that would be deemed reasonable if I lived in a totalitarian police state.
In countries where democracy has been the form of governance for the lifetimes of its citizens, it is easy to take it for granted. My own brush with the British “thought police” brought into sharp focus how fragile our democratic rights are. If we are complacent, if we let them get taken away from us, it could be a hard battle to win them back.
If you would like to join me and others in a conversation about democratic backsliding and the climate crisis, and to find out how you can support the work I am doing with Page75 Productions to highlight these issues, sign up for free for the event on 25th July.
Liz Smith 