Boris Johnson’s approach to dealing with adversity was to ignore, deny and suppress it. Claims of a child outside of wedlock? Ignore, deny, suppress. Caught breaking Covid laws in attendance at a party in your own back garden? Ignore, deny, suppress. Your deputy chief whip is caught in the middle of a sexual assault case and it’s proven you knew about his actions before hiring him? Ignore, deny, suppress.
This mentality, this pure entitlement displayed at every crossroad by our ex-Prime Minister was one that spread through his cabinet like a virus, moulding his and now Sunak’s government policies. Business Secretary Grant Shapps has proposed a new bill that would enforce ‘minimum service levels’ for certain strike periods, in a bid to, as he claims, “protect the lives of the British people”.
In a period of unprecedented striking across all our working industries, with economic conditions reaching breaking point, the government has once again opted for the Boris strategy: ignore the workers, deny their demands, suppress their rights.
Although entirely unjustified and terrifying, this new Bill shouldn’t come as much of a surprise considering this new-look far-right Tory government’s previous tackling of social unrest. Following the wave of Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion protests over the course of 2020-21, then-Home Secretary Priti Patel oversaw the establishment of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.
Essentially, these new laws have increased police powers while responding to peaceful protests, allowing arrests to be made on the basis of being too loud or causing too much public disruption. The fact that the very nature of protests is to cause disturbance to day-to-day life to be heard, and deliver messages of discontent to the government in a manner where they are forced to listen, speaks for itself on the intent of this Act.
This is not a benevolent attempt by the government to protect the public, but an attack on those who speak out on urgent matters of injustice and inequality. It doesn’t stop there, though. The Public Order Bill, which has already passed through the Commons and is currently under review in the Lords, goes one step further than the previous Act could get away with.
Suella Braverman’s much-anticipated sequel would further increase police powers so that they can make arrests following suspicion that someone may be planning to attend an unruly protest. Yes, you read that right – an officer only has to suspect someone may be on their way to chuck paint onto a Barclays building or block off a road in order to cuff them. Again, the government runs the same old line that this is in the interest of public safety, when in fact they’re slowly repealing what has become a universally recognised right in the UK, the right to protest.
Human rights groups have suggested that the passing of the Public Order Bill would align the UK with the anti-protest laws of Russia and Belarus. You could say this seems like a dramatic statement, but the rhetoric doesn’t look so different. Take the widespread anti-war protests that took place across Russia last year, for example. One activist, Marina Litvinovich, was detained upon leaving her house after calling for people to protest in the streets on Instagram, simply for inciting action.
Overall, nearly 20,000 taking part in anti-war protests have been detained as of last November. This has been called out by the mainstream media as violent repression, but where is that same criticism for our own government, when soon enough people could be arrested under much the same justification? For causing whatever the state decides could produce dangerous social unrest?
It's not just the right to protest which is under fire, but also the right to strike. The proposed Bill from our Business Secretary, which I outlined earlier, follows a near-identical reasoning in its repressive nature, sticking sharply to the party line. It claims to support the right to strike, while standing in direct opposition to the innate purpose of strike action.
The forcing of some minimal service over strike periods would not only violate labour laws, but also invoke antagonism among workers, as many would be left with the choice to cross the picket line made up of their colleagues, or risk losing their job.
Suddenly, in the space of a year, serious legislation has been rolled out, and serious freedoms have been drawn back. Many will kid themselves into thinking these are so-called urgent solutions to immediate issues, but this is only the start of our ever-right-leaning government’s agenda. Had it not been for the hindrance to parliamentary affairs that the pandemic brought, we may already be far deeper into the repressive pit.
Here, is where I bring the word fascism into play, and people will roll their eyes. It’s a word that’s seen a resurgence in use by those critical of recent developments across the Western world, which I agree is often spoken with as much thought as Fox News pundits calling out Joe Biden’s communist agenda. That said, though, the precedent being laid out in the UK right now holds us in very dangerous territory.
Let’s consider the socioeconomic conditions which allowed Fascist regimes to rise up over the past century: economic hardship leading to increased poverty and striking, an anti-foreign sentiment producing a culture of suspicion backed up by the media machine, suppressed political opposition or outright censorship. Does any of this sound familiar?
Of course, nothing in history is a given and so far, Europe has not reached the dark heights that were surmounted throughout the 20th century. But things can change quickly.
The UK may very well be in its most vulnerable situation since the end of the Second World War: a population polarised to pick a side on all matters of public opinion, a post-Brexit economy that has so far left us with ever-growing inequality and a cost-of-living crisis, a looming recession that many are saying could be the worst in decades.
On top of all of this, the Conservative Party is adding fuel to the fire, delivering a stream of legislation providing no real solutions to public anger, no hope or security for the average person just trying to get by. The tense battle between protester and MP, union leader and employer, is not going to be broken by the ignore, deny, suppress government strategy. The people are mad, and they won’t be silenced. But something’s got to give, and I truly fear for what comes next.
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