if the Coronation was an opportunity to showcase what makes Britain unique, one of those things is surely the degree of earnest debate about whether or not protesters should have been allowed to disrupt it.
This is not a question one can imagine long detaining, for example, the French, whose republican tradition retains a remarkable measure of lèse-majesté.
(Throw an egg at His Majesty and receive “a 12-month community order with 100 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay costs of £600 and a £114 surcharge”; try it with Emmanuel Macron and risk a four-month prison sentence and being barred from ever holding public office.)
Protest was, of course, permitted yesterday. A so-called static demonstration took place in Trafalgar Square.
What was not permitted was any disruption the procession or the ceremony. The police not only made sure that protesters were kept away from the main event, but claimed to act on intelligence received to take a preventative approach.
(This latter has produced some controversy, as it led officers to arrest people distributing rape alarms – extremely noisy devices which can panic horses – who may have been part of Westminster Council’s night safety team.)
Does this constitute an unacceptable breach of our essential liberties? The British people, whose views on policing are dizzyingly authoritarian, almost certainly don’t think so. But one doesn’t have to be an enthusiast for tear gas and cavalry charges to accept that the Metropolitan Police got the balance right yesterday.
Yes, disruption is very often a tactic employed by protesters. But it does not follow that the right to protest is a right to disrupt public services and occasions; there is a world of difference between a country where any sign of dissent is swept from the streets, and one which balance the right to express dissent with the right of others to enjoy in peace whatever is being dissented against.
An important part of the right of freedom of association must necessarily be at least a measure of freedom of disassociation; the right not only to gather with others, but to do so in peace – and thus to enjoy unspoiled the biggest royal (and thus national) state ceremony in decades.
(An argument which many of those demanding the right to shout at the King would likely accept when it came, for example, to banning silent prayer vigils outside abortion clinics.)
Might the police have made some missteps in the course of such a huge operation? Almost certainly. Better planning would have had them liaise with bodies such as Westminster Council to ensure people weren’t handing out rape alarms for innocent reasons on the eve of the coronation.
But individual officers are not psychic, the potential of such devices to disrupt the event (perhaps dangerously) was real, and some activists are not above employing subterfuge. The Met could not expect every potential disruptor to advance openly in Republic’s canary-yellow uniform. If erring had to happen, better it was on the side of caution.
Yet that the coronation went off so smoothly does pose a question for the police.
The Met have proven that they are able, when willing, to mount comprehensive and effective operations aimed at preventing challenges to public order, whilst ew legislation passed by the Government has both greatly expanded their arsenal of powers and made very clear where Parliament stands on how much disruption is compassed by the right to protest.
Members of the public should bear that in mind the next time Extinction Rebellion, Insulate Britain, or whoever else try next to mount a coordinated effort to blockade transport or other infrastructure. For we know now that the police can prevent such things – if they choose to.