Rishi Sunak thinks that democracy is under threat in the UK. I agree with him. The difference is that I think it’s under threat from people such as Rishi Sunak and he seems to think it’s under threat from people like me.
In the last few years, successive UK governments have eroded fundamental civil liberties and human rights, imposing greater restrictions on peaceful protest than have been seen in Britain since the Second World War.
The police have been allowed to exceed even these powers with virtually no consequences. My personal experience of this reality came with my unlawful arrest by Thames Valley Police when I objected to the proclamation of Charles Windsor as king in September 2022. Many others have faced far worse consequences.
But now, Sunak and his allies in the right-wing media want to restrict the right to protest even further. They are justifying this assault on democracy by claiming that they are doing it to protect democracy.
Sunak claims that there is a “growing consensus that mob rule is replacing democratic rule”.
I find it difficult to believe that such a claim could be taken seriously by many people at all, let alone that there is a “consensus” about it. Sunak’s assertion makes about as much sense as Suella Braverman’s fantasy statement that “the Islamists, the extremists and the anti-Semites are in charge now” (I’m pretty sure the Tories are still in charge, though of course some of them are indeed extremists and anti-Semites).
According to Sunak, the threat of mob rule comes from left-wing protests. In recent days, a number of ministers have attacked the overwhelmingly peaceful anti-war marches that have been regularly taking place against the Israeli forces’ murderous assaults on the people of Gaza. Home Secretary James Cleverley says that protests should stop because protesters have “made their point“. He has not suggested that Israeli forces could stop killing children because they have made their point. I would much rather not be spending time protesting against the slaughter of innocent people. The need to do so will end only when the slaughter ends.
Parts of the media are whipping up talk of the fear and threats faced by MPs. I strongly oppose death threats to anyone. Having received quite a few of them myself over the years, I sympathise with MPs who receive a lot more and who genuinely fear for their safety. But banning protests will not make them any safer.
Six MPs have been killed in the UK in the last century – a much lower number than in some countries, but still outrageous.
The first four were killed by Irish Republicans. Of the most recent two, David Amess was killed by an Islamic fundamentalist and Jo Cox by a far-right white supremacist. Both these murders were horrific and any humane person rightly condemns them. Neither Cox nor Amess would have been saved by restricting rights to protest.
Some papers have focused on the very small number of protests that have taken place outside MPs’ homes. I agree that protesting at people’s homes is generally wrong – especially if there are children there, as they may be frightened and are not to blame for their parents’ actions. The reality is that demonstrations at politicians’ homes are relatively rare and usually small-scale.
I suspect that most of the commentators calling for a crackdown on protests know this. But talking them up diverts attention from the reality of peaceful and diverse groups of people who are marching every week against violence.
We already have laws to deal with the vile instances of antisemitism that have increased since October. Such outrages are in no way representative of the anti-war marches that have brought together Muslims, Jews, Christians, atheists and many others to oppose the Israeli government’s military aggression. The vast majority of them also oppose Hamas’ aggression.
The only major violent demonstration in central London in recent months was not an anti-war protest but was in effect a pro-war protest. Far-right activists fought with the police near the Cenotaph, which they claimed they had come to “protect” from people protesting against the war in Gaza on Armstice Day. Their fury had effectively been whipped up by the likes of Sunak, Braverman and Tom Tugendhat, who all must have known that in reality the anti-war march was going nowhere near the Cenotaph.
Democracy is not simply about walking into a polling station every five years and then shutting up until you’re allowed to vote again. Sunak apparently sees no irony in talking of democracy despite having been elected as Prime Minister only by the Conservative Party, and appointed to the post by a monarch elected by nobody at all. Under First-Past-the-Post, a winning party never receives more than half the votes, but is declared to have been elected democratically.
Nonetheless, we are lucky to have more elements of democracy in the UK than can be found in much of the world. The democracy we have – however limited – is something to celebrate.
We have it not because the rich and powerful generously handed it down to us. The only reason we have any democracy at all is that our ancestors went out onto the streets and campaigned for it. Chartists, Levellers, women’s suffrage campaigners and others struggled and in some cases died for the elements of democracy that we now enjoy. It is not Sunak and the Daily Mail, but people marching against war in Gaza, who stand in the tradition of such people.
In a country in which the super-rich have vastly disproportionate power, wealthy individuals such as Rishi Sunak are the last people likely to support taking democracy further. We can expect no help from them in working towards real democracy, in which we would have democratic control of local communities and democratic control of workplaces.
Sunak’s government sells arms to Israel and Saudi Arabia and suppresses peaceful protest. Anti-war demonstrators are exercising their rights to resist war with active nonviolence. One side in this argument is anti-violence and pro-democracy. And Sunak is on the other side.
Symon Hill 