Category Archives: Protests

The 2013 March for England in Brighton: Questions for Sussex Police

Posted on 23 April 2013 | 4 Comments

Updated: 30th April 2013, with Sussex Police’s answers in italics. The police cannot become properly involved in the political debates about protest. All they can present are the facts as they saw them. Thus, my questions have been factual. Aside from observing that Sussex Police have not answered all the questions below, their answers are published without further commentary. The text below is my original post text as are the questions.

Here’s a list of straight questions, which Sussex Police need to answer following Operation Wheeler on Sunday 21st April 2013. Operation Wheeler was the name given to the massive policing operation in Brighton, which related to the “March for England”, a protest by a collection of far-right organisations. Yesterday, I published my personal account of the 2013 March for England.

Each question is numbered. I invite Sussex Police to reply to each specific question, using the contact form on this blog (they can identify themselves in a twitter Direct Message to verify answers received at this end come from them ~ I suggest they include a code in both the contact form and the Direct Message). My readers are welcome to put these questions to Sussex Police themselves. I’ll publish all the official answers in this post under each question.

Reports suggest that ten police forces were involved in Operation Wheeler. However, Sussex Police was in charge on the day. Therefore, all these questions are addressed to Sussex Police.

As a preface to the answers, please can we request that contrary to your usual ‘Comments Policy’, you publish our whole comment in full at first (including this introduction). That only seems fair since we have answered your questions in exactly the format requested.

It should also be noted by your readers that you were offered a face-to-face meeting with the operation commander, Supt Steve Whitton, prior to the answers being provided in writing. We suggested that you could record the full conversation in audio or writing, to publish here.

This was our preference, as it would allow you immediate reaction to, or clarification of, the answers provided. It would have reduced the time it has taken to provide the answers in writing. It would also, in our view, have provided a more meaningful and natural dialogue, particularly as some of your questions are a little loaded or without context, so have resulted in short answers without the ability for immediate two-way clarification.

The invite to meet with Supt Steve Whitton stands and, while we will do our best to engage with any resulting debate here or on Twitter, we must balance this with the time taken already to address your questions.

These answers have been compiled from information on operational systems and conversations with a number of people involved in the operation.

1. Who was in charge of Operation Wheeler?

Superintendent Steve Whitton.

2. What public order experience did the officer in charge have prior to 21st April 2013?

Supt Whitton is one of the most experienced public order commanders in Sussex Police and has commanded many public order events. He is nationally-accredited public order gold commander.

3. Why did Sussex Police allow the “March for England” to occur in Brighton on 21st April 2013?

There was no reason to request the local authority to make a banning order through the Home Secretary.

One of the guiding principles of our common law is that a citizen is free to do anything not forbidden by the law. Citizens of the UK are entitled to expect that peaceful assemblies, processions and demonstrations will not just be permitted, but will be positively facilitated by the police. This is emphasised by the European Court of Human Rights in a stated case which talks of the obligation of the state to go beyond non interference and extends into facilitation.

Police only have the power to approach the chief executive of the local authority, who in turn must approach the Home Secretary, in order to seek a ban. Only a procession can be banned and there is no power to prevent an assembly. The police can only approach the council where they believe serious disorder will occur and they cannot prevent this with the resources and legislation available to them. It is seen as a severe measure in relation to breaching people’s Human Rights.

4. Did Sussex Police consider the impact of the “March for England” on local residents, including the Scouts who subsequently decided to cancel their annual St George’s Day parade? If not, why not? If so, why was priority given to the “March for England”?

A multi-agency partnership meeting considered the impact at great length over several months of planning and Sussex Police engaged at length with local residents, businesses, traders and other interested parties. The scouts informed us that they had decided to change the date of their parade. There had been no conversation with them prior to that decision. With all policing operations, the impact on the wider community is balanced against the rights of others.

5. Why have Sussex Police allowed a man from Portsmouth to organise a march in Brighton for three years running?

There is no geographical restriction on organisers. It is not a factor we can legally consider.

6. Are Sussex Police aware of any local people joining the “March for England?” If so, how many? How many of those are what is commonly called “street drinkers”?

We do not know what percentage of the participants in the march were local.

7. What was the cost of Operation Wheeler?

The cost of the operation is still being established and will be made public in due course. It does take some time to collate all this information as we are dependent on receiving costs from mutual aid forces and we need to establish how long everyone involved was on duty and what other costs may have been incurred. We strive to keep costs as low as possible, but have already publicly indicated that the total cost will amount to several hundred thousand pounds.

8. Did Sussex Police have problems with the batteries in their cameras?

The Logistics Officer is not aware of any replacement batteries being requested during the operation.

9. Why did Sussex Police give permission to an organisation which has form for provoking large scale counter-protests to take over Brighton Seafront?

The seafront was established as the best option for the march, predominantly taking in consideration our key priority of keeping everyone safe – public, participants and police. The route was agreed by a multi-agency partnership meeting and considered the impact on city centre routes and business areas that were affected in previous years.

10. Does Sussex Police accept that its decision directly led to a massive loss of business for Brighton’s commercial economy, at a time of economic hardship and on a day which would otherwise have been lucrative?

We are aware that there was a negative impact on the city and the effect that the march would have was considered by the agencies and partners who discussed at great length the location of the march. While we recognise the problems experienced by local traders, the geographical scale of the impact was less than previous years and the majority of the city was unaffected directly by the march and the counter protestors. A neighbourhood policing inspector is personally visiting businesses along the route to better understand the impact the day’s events had on both residents and businesses.

11. Did Sussex Police consider suggesting an alternative venue for the “March for England”? If not, why not? If so, which venues were considered and why were they rejected? Was Preston Park considered?

A number of options were considered by the multi-agency partnership meeting. An open area such as Preston Park would be very difficult to effectively police with the prime objective of public safety without significantly increasing the number of police officers required to prevent violence and disorder. Had the march taken place elsewhere we consider that the impact would have been far greater.

12. Does Sussex Police accept that it, effectively, invited two groups of violent people into Brighton on 21st April 2013, because the “March for England” always attracts opposition, some of which is violent?

Sussex Police did not invite either of the groups and does not accept that point. We have an obligation, as outlined in answer 3, to facilitate peaceful protest and we are asked to do so for various groups in Brighton and Hove.

13. Why didn’t Sussex Police request that the “March for England” pay for the policing operation to protect it?

The march and counter protest are not organised commercial events, but protests and therefore do not incur policing costs. The role of the police is to facilitate people’s right to peaceful protest, which we do regularly for a variety of groups and causes. Brighton and Hove hosts the second highest number of protests in the UK, after London.

14. Did Sussex Police ask the “March for England” to make any financial contribution to the policing costs?

No and we don’t do. This could set a dangerous precedent or expectation for us to ask for cost recovery for every form of protest, which would be outside the spirit of current legislation and likely to be highly unacceptable to the public.

15. Did Sussex Police’s annual budgeting arrangements include a specific sum for policing the March for England? If not, why not? If so, what was that sum?

There are no budgeting arrangements considered in the annual budget for specific events, protests, etc., although there is overall contingency planning for those expected to take place across Sussex.

16. Why didn’t Sussex Police have any form of public address system on 21st April 2013? Was this option considered? If not, why not? If it was, why was it rejected?

Officers leading teams at various locations on the route of the march and its environs were equipped with portable megaphones and this proved sufficient. The matrix signs around the city warned of disruption and road closure, signs at Brighton railway station provided similar information and a large engagement process was undertaken to inform as many people as possible by many methods, including online, social media and traditional media updates on the day.

17. Did Sussex Police announce in advance that protesters would be arrested if they protested in zones designated for the opposing protesters?

No. It is not an offence to be in an ‘opposing’ protest zone. However, we would discourage this in the interests of personal safety and to prevent disorder and would consider arrests if offences were committed.

18. Do Sussex Police accept that no-one was arrested for protesting in the opposing protesters’ designated zones?

Yes, as it is not an offence.

19. Do Sussex Police accept that known supporters of the “March for England” entered the zone designated for the counter-protest and protested there?

We were made aware at the time that there may have been a handful of March for England supporters in the designated protest area for the counter protest. We were not aware until it was raised with us and it was then monitored, with action taken where appropriate to keep everyone as safe as possible.

20. Do Sussex Police accept that the “March for England” supporters who entered the official counter-protest zone were not arrested, despite that causing offence to those who considered themselves officially separated from the “March for England” supporters?

Being ‘offended by association’ is not a criminal offence. No arrests were made from either March supporters or the counter protest purely as a result of groups mingling, in line with answer 17.

21. Do Sussex Police accept that erecting a barrier which they themselves could not easily cross to remove “March for England” protesters from the counter-protest zone was a mistake, which could easily have prevented them from keeping the peace had more serious trouble occurred?

No, the barriers proved very successful and no serious disorder occurred in the areas where the barriers were deployed. Officers were deployed on both sides of the barriers in these areas and were very successful in limiting movement between opposing groups.

22. Do Sussex Police accept that deliberately and conspicuously photographing peaceful demonstrators is likely to alienate them from the police? Do Sussex Police regard anyone with a megaphone or a banner as a likely criminal?

Officers in many roles, including Evidence Gathering Teams, who were clearly distinguishable, were deployed to support the operation. No group was singled out or treated differently in relation to the use of cameras.

23. Why did Sussex Police search journalists on their way to cover the “March for England” under powers intended to combat terrorism?

A mini-bus containing nine journalists was stopped in an intelligence-led operation at Hickstead. They were treated as any other members of the public while searches were legally made.

One officer erroneously issued a ticket suggesting that the search was conducted under the Terrorism Act and they were quickly advised of their mistake, which we admitted to on Twitter the same day. The search was under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which does not make a distinction based on people’s employment.

Officers and media relations staff liaised with many journalists covering the march, providing information throughout the day, facilitating interviews with the police commander and continuing with updates into the evening and next day. Officers on the ground were briefed about dealing with media representatives and provision was in place for any accredited journalist to be allowed access to any areas, including the otherwise closed route of the march.

24. Do Sussex Police accept that Operation Wheeler was stopped too early because groups of people connected with the “March for England” and part of the counter-protest continued running fights around the city after 6pm?

No. While the operation nominally concluded at 6pm, enabling the stand down of the vast majority of officers, thus reducing costs, a number of units remained deployed and were able to deal with the few sporadic incidents that occurred after that time.

25. Do Sussex Police accept that its decision to pay for coaches for the “March for England” supporters either amounts to or directly leads to a widespread perception of helping the “March for England”?

While we are aware of this perception, the decision to use one coach inbound and two outbound was taken to reduce the risk of disorder or violence and the potential for bystanders to become inadvertently involved. We are satisfied that the decision was justified by its success in moving the participants in and out of the city without incident. This tactic has been used successfully to minimise disorder for similar marches in other areas of the country.

26. What other protest groups has Sussex Police given coaches to in the last five years?

None that we are aware of, but we are also not aware of any protest taking place where the level of opposition would be likely to pose a threat to those involved that required this tactic.

27. Why didn’t Sussex Police pay for coaches to help counter-protesters to travel to Brighton & Hove City centre?

The buses were not provided to help people into the city, they were provided to mitigate an identified risk to safety of all those involved. The buses ensured that people were able to exercise their rights without the threat of violence and ensured we were able to bring the march to a swifter conclusion.

28. Does Sussex Police accept that assisting anyone to demonstrate a partisan cause, by paying for their transport, is likely to lead to a breakdown in public trust and confidence in the police because it inevitably breaches police neutrality?

No. The provision of transport was for the mitigation of risk and in the interests of the safety of everyone involved – the public, participants in the March and the counter protest, and the police. If we had been approached by an organiser from the counter protestors, then consideration would have been given to offering the same facility. The same considerations would be made for any group in the future where the risk level was similar.

29. Why didn’t Sussex Police arrest people wearing masks and take them into custody?

Sussex Police had the power (Section 60AA) to request the removal of masks, hoods, etc. and if the person refused they could be arrested.

30. Do Sussex Police accept that in at least one instance they wrestled a mask wearer to the ground violently, rather than arresting him/her and taking him/her into custody?

While we are unable to identify the specific incident from your description, this probably would have been an arrest. While it may appear rather robust, if a person is resisting arrest or struggling in any way, officers are trained to secure them swiftly and safely with the minimum risk to both the arrested person and the arresting officer(s).

31. Why didn’t Sussex Police arrest “March for England” supporters wearing masks or other face coverings?

If a person wearing a mask or other face covering complies with a police officer’s request to remove it, there is no cause for arrest.

32. Why didn’t Sussex Police arrest “March for England” supporters making offensive gestures (eg raising their middle fingers, making Nazi salutes)?

A number of people were arrested for using threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause fear of/provoke unlawful violence. Two have subsequently been charged and will appear in court next month. The affiliation of an arrested person is not recorded as part of the custody process.

33. What steps have Sussex Police taken to identify those “March for England” Supporters who made violent threats on twitter in advance of the march?

Investigations are continuing into a number of threats and potential hate crimes and where it is possible to identify the perpetrators, action will be taken. These incidents were not confined to one particular faction.

34. How many police officers were injured on Sunday 21st April 2013?

There were no serious injuries, although one officer was withdrawn from duty after suffering a pulled ligament in his leg.

35. How many other people were injured on Sunday 21st April 2013 in connection with events relating to the March for England?

We do not hold this information conclusively, as we are not responsible for the treatment of patients. We would only be informed if injuries were associated with a crime.

36. Why did Sussex Police declare Operation Wheeler a success?

Sussex Police declared that it was satisfied with the operation. Our absolute priority was public safety, but we also had responsibilities to respond to crime and disorder, and to facilitate peaceful protest. These priorities potentially conflict at some times in protest situations and require careful balancing.

Overall, we believe we delivered an operation that kept the city relatively peaceful and free from serious disorder, despite the very high risks assessed and experience of similar events elsewhere in the country and previously in the city.

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Posted in Brighton, Fascism, Hove, March for England, Police, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Protests, Racism, Sussex Police

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The final fascist “March for England” in Brighton

Posted on 22 April 2013 | 3 Comments

Yesterday various fascist groups mustered their followers with the intention of frightening the good people of Brighton on a sunny St George’s Day. This was their fourth visit to my home town and, arguably, the most disastrous for them so far. Their numbers were few, their march was pathetic, they were massively outnumbered by counter-protesters. Following the fiasco of the 2012 March for England, Sussex Police adopted a different strategy, namely to separate the visiting fascists from the local counter-protesters. As yesterday’s sunny afternoon turned into a chilly evening, the police were congratulating themselves on a successful operation. From a purely policing point of view, it appeared better than last year, when they found themselves overwhelmed by the numbers of anti-fascists, lost control of their plan for the day and even failed to arrest one fascist thug whom they had wrestled to the ground.

However, that superficial analysis breaks down when the facts on the ground are examined more closely. With a helicopter, approximately 700 officers, some mounted, three dozen riot vans and various roads sealed off with large metal barricades which would be the envy of any commercial event, their advance preparation was better organised. They arranged low level barricades, behind the bannister on the sea front, into a chain of pens which were slow and cumbersome to climb over. Presumably the idea was that the anti-fascists could not disrupt the march by bursting through that dead zone. Unfortunately, the police couldn’t easily cross the barrier either. Despite declaring in advance that protesters would not be tolerated outside their various designated zones, when known fascists entered the anti-fascist zones, the police could not enter it to contain them. I witnessed a group of six flag waving fascists at 12:53pm well inside the anti-fascist zone (opposite the Thistle Hotel). Local people called across to the police to remove them but for several minutes the police just stood around as if they were little more than lollipop men. I shouted over a request that they deal with the situation but the response was, “Stop shouting!” After many requests one police officer wandered over to his side of his barricade and asked the fascists to climb over it. Looking somewhat reluctant, he put a foot on the railing and said, “Are you going to climb out or do I have to climb in?” The fascists argued with him. He did not climb in. Two protest liaison officers were eventually seen strolling up towards the illegal immigrants, as if they had all the time in the world. They were escorted away but not, so far as I can tell, arrested.

Sussex Police barriers between the beach and the seafront road on Sunday 21st April 2013

Bad luck if that’s your bicycle

This incident was repeated several times before the fascist march began. On the one occasion I witnessed when the police did climb across their barrier, it looked like a training exercise performed by Dad’s Army. When Sussex Police sat down to plan their day (Operation Wheeler), did they not ask themselves how they would cross their own barrier if they needed to?

Prior to the march beginning, known fascists were allowed to wander freely around town, waving flags and chanting “Eng-ger-land”. This behaviour is indistinguishable from their method of protest on their official march. Therefore, it is fair to call it protesting. Yet they do not seem to have been arrested for it. At 1:12pm two flag waving fascists managed to squeeze through a gap between two of the blue police vans shown above so that they could confront the hundreds of people occupying the roads to the North of the roundabout by the Palace Pier. They were pushed back by mounted officers fairly swiftly. Were they arrested? I don’t know, but Sussex Police should be able to answer that question.

More worryingly, no-one in Sussex Police seems to have thought about any form of public address system. With 150 uncooperative fascists and 3,000 angry locals to deal with, the police left themselves with no method to communicate with large parts of the crowd. Instead they seemed to rely on officers barking orders to whoever was in the mood to listen. At one point I found myself in conversation with several of the local councillors and the MP for Brighton Pavilion, Caroline Lucas, all of whom were were protesting against the fascists. One of them informed me that the police had promised them that they would have a public address system. Why was this promise broken? Surely it could not have been for want of financial resources?

Perhaps that last question should be directed to Katy Bourne, the Conservative Party Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner. She is in charge of allocating the resources for Sussex Police. Every section of Brighton’s political and social community declared its opposition to the fascists, except the Conservative Party. Sadly, the local Tories spent most of 2011 and much of 2012 concentrating their fire power on whipping up hatred against Traveller groups living on the fringes of the city, with the result that they were widely accused of racism. Their silence on this year’s arrival of the blatant racists echoed their failure to comment the year before. The combination of their refusal to condemn racism on our streets, their encouragement of racist attitudes and one of them now running the police is exactly what people most feared when the Police and Crime Commissioner posts were created. With each step, the police look increasingly politicised. Of course there are some sections of society which will never trust the police. The tragedy is that now many of us, who previously were prepared to accept that policing is a complicated job, now distrust the police because of this politicisation. The Tories tell us that operational decisions remain purely in the hands of the Chief Constable but he can no longer be regarded as independent when a politician has the power to fire him and hire someone else. The Tories could easily have condemned the so-called March for England. That they didn’t must have been a deliberate decision. It sits uncomfortably with the kindly manner the police treated the fascists in comparison to the locals.

I arrived at the seafront hours before the march began. The first thing I did was ask a policeman with a camera to photograph me and take a note of my identity. I explained that I done the same thing the year before and that, consequently, the police had been able to safely ignore various unfounded allegations made against me online because they knew that the fascists had identified someone else as me (someone who threw an empty plastic water bottle). This year the policeman I spoke to refused. I was struck by them failing to understand my request. I had to explain it and the reasons for it three times. The officer with the camera told me, “We are only photographing people where a crime is committed or there is a risk to public order.” I suggested that, as with the year before, police time need not be wasted if they photographed me again. This generated a different response, “We’ve got a problem with our batteries and cannot take too many pictures.” Police officers should tell the truth, so it’s fair to presume that this wasn’t some petty lie to get me to go away. That’s another question for Katy Bourne to answer. She can talk to the officer who refused to photograph me because his colleague allowed me to photograph his number instead:

A police officer in Brighton, 21st April 2013

Luckily I didn’t have a battery problem

Later on, another police officer with a camera photographed me when I suggested to the fascists, through my megaphone, that having turned around to march back to the Palace Pier, they were now facing Mecca. Then I played them the Call To Prayer, which they didn’t seem to enjoy but with hundreds of police and their barrier separating us, it couldn’t possibly have been described as a threat to public order.

After the march, the police allowed some fascists to roam around town looking for fights, just like last year. Predictably, there were outbursts of violence around the town well into the evening. Some people blame the violence on Antifa, who were out in strength. However, Antifa only exist to prevent the fascists from taking to the streets. They don’t demonstrate on their own. Had the fascists not been given a licence to demonstrate wherever they wanted, there would have been no trouble. They were even escorted to a bar in West Street to enjoy a drink! The police showed the Antifa activists little mercy and repeatedly attacked them. At one point one of them was wrestled to the ground because he refused to take off a face mask. Yet I saw plenty fascists covering their faces. Again, it is now very hard not to see the police as a politically motivated force, much as they were in the Thatcher years. Further proof of police bias to the far right comes from the fact that Sussex Police paid for at least one coach to bus the fascists to the start of the march. I’ve been on plenty of demonstrations in my time but I never heard of the police sorting out protesters’ travel arrangements before. This is another question for Katy Bourne to address.

On the plus side, Brightonians excelled themselves in their mockery of the fascism. Unsatisfied with screaming abuse, all manner of creative counter-protest dominated the day. The top prize for sheer good humour goes to the new EDL. If you follow that link, you’ll see that it doesn’t go to the racist English Defence League but instead to the English Disco Lovers. Already they are close to their stated aim of being the first result in online searches for the EDL. Their disco danced its way along the seafront all day and proved the value of good humour as a challenge to hatred. After some of the fascists had been bussed out of the town centre by the police, I went off to speak to them. It would be inappropriate to reveal the details of that conversation now but suffice it to say that we can be confident the fascists will not dominate St George’s Day in Brighton next year. 2013 was their final march. Watch this space and the EDL website for more information. The English Disco Lovers appear at 0:53 in this video:

Yesterday should have seen all of Brighton united against fascism. Of course, no-one could have been surprised by the Tories’ attitude but the real shock of the day was seeing the local Labour Party’s official tweeter attempt to make political capital out of the fact that the Green Party administration of the City Council had previously declared itself supportive of the lawful right to protest. Early on in the afternoon, @BHLabour, tweeted, “Businesses closes and residents terrified as @BHGreens proclamation that we are a city of protest brings March for England to our city #labour“

Brighton & Hove Labour Party tweet criticising the Green Party as if they welcomed fascists to Brighton. 21st April 2013

Brighton & Hove Labour Party’s official twitter account created division instead of unity

This tweet was met with a storm of protest from all sorts of people, including several prominent Labour Party members and local trades unionists, many of whom could not be described as sympathetic to the Green Party, such as Caroline Penn. Ever since 1936, whenever the fascists have taken to the streets in Britain, everyone else has put their differences aside and united against fascism. Aside from the nonsensical nature of the tweet (the fascists came to Brighton before the Greens won power in the city), much offence was caused by it. Who on earth was on Labour’s Sunday shift on twitter last week? It wasn’t just a single tweet. Here’s another, at 2:26pm.

Brighton & Hove Labour Party tweet, concentrating on division rather than unity against fascism. 21st April 2013

Another divisive tweet from the Brighton & Hove Labour Party

And another, at 3:48pm:

Brighton & Hove Labour Party tweet, concentrating on division rather than unity against fascism. 21st April 2013

Labour insists on division

The decision to allow the march was made purely by Sussex Police. There is no mechanism for a political party to “apply to have march banned.” It wasn’t just three divisive tweets. Here’s another at 4:44pm:

Brighton & Hove Labour Party tweet, concentrating on division rather than unity against fascism. 21st April 2013

Will Labour explain its policy on the law on protest?

Did the Labour Party ask Sussex Police to ban the fascist march? No, they did not. By 7:18pm, the local Labour Party seemed to have come to its senses. It offered this apology:

An apology from Brighton & Hove Labour Party for creating division instead of building unity against fascim. 21st April 2013

Brighton & Hove Labour Party makes first apology

Some people complained that this apology appeared to attempt to shift the blame onto those offended. Seeing the logic of that, Labour offered another apology, at 7:46pm:

False claim that Brighton & Hove Labour Party had removed offending tweet. 21st April 2013

Brighton & Hove Labour Party falsely claimed that it had removed offending tweets

At the time of writing this blog post, the first tweet has been removed but the three subsequent tweets, shown above, which make similar points and cannot be described as in the spirit of unity are still on twitter, for all the world to see. The Brighton & Hove Labour Party has a proud tradition of opposing fascism. It has long been involved in anti-fascist movements and must understand what unity means. Its insistence on abandoning unity against fascism is a very sad development indeed. Recently the local Labour Party suspended one of its local councillors (Anne Meadows). Will it now suspend its twitterers, who have chosen to create division rather than unite against fascism?

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Posted in Brighton, Caroline Penn, English Defence League, English Disco Lovers, Fascism, Green Party, Hove, Katy Bourne, Labour Party, March for England, Police, Police and Crime Commissioner, Police Violence, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Protests, Racism, Sussex Police, Thieving Tory Bastards

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A tale of two public meetings

Posted on 13 March 2013 | 3 Comments

There’s been two public meetings about long overdue works planned for Seven Dials in Brighton & Hove recently. They could not have been more different. Both of them were held after the public consultation on the proposed redevelopment of the area had been closed.

The first public meeting was organised by Brighton & Hove City Council and held on 17th December 2012. The Chair of the Council’s Transport Committee, Ian Davey, and the Leader of the Council, Jason Kitcat, attended. The original scheme to reorganise the Seven Dials roundabout had been amended as a result of the consultation process and that was the purpose of the meeting ~ to present that amended plan to the public. By all accounts, it was an angry occasion, with a lot of shouting. About 150 people attended.

Introductory address by Millie, Seven Dials Save Our Tree Action Group public meeting, 12th March 2013, West Hill Community Association hall, Compton Avenue, Brighton

Millie, whose timely action kick-started the campaign, giving introductory address

The second public meeting was organised by the Seven Dials Save Our Tree Action Group, an emergency campaign formed by local residents to save the rare Wheatley Elm on the corner between Vernon Terrace and Seven Dials. That meeting was held last night (Tuesday 12th March 2013). Neither Mr Davey nor Mr Kitcat, whose ward the tree is in, attended the meeting, which took place on a wintry night and following a last minute change of venue (because the original was closed due to snow and ice). It was a calm and constructive occasion. About 120 people attended.

The purpose of the first meeting was to explain what the city council had decided to do with the roundabout and the surrounding area, following the most extensive consultation the city had ever completed. The bigwigs from the council did the talking and took questions. The purpose of the second meeting was to find a way to force the council to admit that its consultation had been flawed because it had omitted to mention at any point in its process that a rare Elm tree would be felled as part of any of the plans. The people did the talking and together produced a range of sensible proposals to prove to the council that the Elm tree did not need to be felled.

I did not attend that first meeting because I was satisfied with the overall shape of the concluded plans. I attended the second meeting because, in common with huge numbers of other residents, I did not realise that the council planned to fell the Elm tree. The consensus last night was that the council could easily adopt one or more of the peoples proposals to save the Elm, at little cost and with minimal disruption to the work which had been temporarily halted by the direct action of the residents in the previous week. We focused on how to persuade Mr Davey to recall the Transport Committee to consider, for the first time, this issue.

However, at the end of the meeting, I rose to speak from the floor and pointed out that Mr Davey’s power of recall was not the only mechanism by which the tree could be saved. Briefly, I explained that there were more legal remedies available (other than the ones already mentioned), that I knew how to launch them, that I was willing to do it in my own name and that since I would be representing myself, it would not cost the arm and leg normally charged by barristers to fight applications for judicial review. I said that if I was forced to go down this route, I was confident of success and then the council would be obliged to start the entire consultation process again.

Mr Davey and his fellow Green councillors should take note. The residents are desperate for this not to turn into a political issue but the fact is that no-one expected a Green Party council to prioritise motor traffic over a rare and much loved tree. The chair of the Brighton & Hove Green Party, Rob Shepherd, was in the room and so I pointed him out to the assembled crowd (he had been silent until then) and demanded to know whether he had personally asked Mr Davey whether he intended to recall the Transport Committee or not. I sat down to a hearty round of applause.

Mr Shepherd said he was “losing his voice” but then spoke for a few minutes. He needn’t have. All he could mumble was that he hadn’t spoken to Mr Davey in over a week, which means that he hadn’t contacted him since the campaign to save the tree began. He claimed to know that Mr Davey was “listening” but failed to say how he knew this or what that even meant. Mr Shepherd did not receive a hearty round of applause.

Whilst the campaign to save the tree is decidedly not party political, inevitably residents will make political judgements of those who represent them in the corridors of power, as a result of the manner in which local politicians respond to their legitimate grievances. After the meeting closed, Mr Davey contacted the campaign to give his apologies for not attending.

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Posted in Brighton, Elms, Green Party, Hove, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Protests, Seven Dials, Seven Dials Save Our Tree Action Group, Trees

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Public meeting to Save Our Tree!

Posted on 12 March 2013 | Leave a comment

Over the last week, the residents of Seven Dials, in Brighton, have mobilised to save a rare Elm tree which the local authority wanted to fell. The timing was very bad for me personally but, let’s face it, much worse for the tree! Although Brighton & Hove is one of the few places in the country with any Elms left in any number, no part of the council’s consultation process over the reorganisation of the nearby roundabout even mentioned that an elm tree would be cut down. Despite the tree being the oldest resident in the Green Council Leader’s ward, he had not raised any objection to its felling. Jason Kitcat’s inaction looked like spelling the end of his political career.

Tom Druitt and I got word from trusted sources on Wednesday (6th March 2013) that the council’s contractors were going to arrive very early in the following morning, to beat the anticipated protesters to the scene. Consequently, Tom Druitt and Stephen Hendry climbed the tree very late on Wednesday evening and set up a new home for themselves there. Life at Seven Dials on Thursday was very different from normal. That’s when the (peaceful) battle to save Brighton’s favourite Elm tree took place. The tree huggers were successful and the felling was delayed. The following day (8th March 2013), council officers agreed to a meeting with the campaign to save the tree. Tom Druitt descended from his tree house and met them. The council officers agreed to a week’s reprieve.

On Saturday (9th March 2013), the pressure on Jason Kitcat finally bore fruit and he arrived at the tree with his wife, Ania, who is Regency ward’s other councillor. In the video at that last link, he declared that the council would listen to the ideas put forward and seek second opinions. Since the council had already consulted its own experts, that must be a commitment to seek independent advice.

On Sunday (10th March 2013) the core campaigners met and elected a steering committee to oversee the campaign. The meeting asked me to make them a website, which anyone can see, free from the proprietary control of Facebook. Thus I created Save Our Tree, which now serves as a central point of information for the campaign to save our precious tree.

Today (Tuesday 12th March 2013) there will be a public meeting at 7:30pm at West Hill Community Hall, Compton Avenue, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 3PS. The purpose of this meeting is strictly limited to a discussion of ideas on how to preserve the tree. We will not be revisiting the plan to redevelop the Seven Dials roundabout, which has already been subject to a nine month public consultation process. The problem was that this process omitted to mention that an Elm would be felled, which is very odd because the city of Brighton & Hove is the custodian of the so-called National Elms Collection.

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Posted in Brighton, Elms, Green Party, Hove, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Protests, Trees

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Save Our Tree campaign wins its first battle

Posted on 9 March 2013 | 2 Comments

Yesterday local residents Alison Risby and Tom Druitt from the Save Our Tree campaign aiming to stop the felling of a rare and beautiful elm tree at the Seven Dials roundabout met with senior officials from Brighton & Hove City Council, following the council’s decision to grant a temporary reprieve on work to fell the tree. Here’s my full account of the previous day’s direct action to save the elm tree.

During the meeting the officials gave a formal undertaking not to do any further work on the tree or the railings next to the tree (which are embedded into its roots) during the course of the next week (ending Friday 15th March). During this time the council will explore the alternative ideas that the Save Our Tree campaign put to them. The Save Our Tree campaign will write to the Chair of the Transport Committee requesting the decision on the elm tree to be reviewed by the committee. The council will organise an email address where local residents can voice their concerns over the felling of the elm and will communicate this to the Save Our Elm campaign on Monday 11th March. The two parties will meet again on Friday 15th March to discuss the next stage.

Stephen Hendry, one of the two who have been up in the tree for two days, said, “This is fantastic news. We have won the battle but not yet won the war. I’m looking forward to a hot bath but will be back in the tree if necessary.”

The last couple of days has featured an emergency defence of the tree. It has mobilised local residents and reminded the nation that the spirit that led Brighton to save its elms in the 1960s is still very strong. Now the focus needs to shift. Specifically, we need to:

  • contact experts in various disciplines (Wildlife, Highway Engineering, Road Traffic Accidents, Disabilities, et cetera.,), put neutral questions to them, receive their written opinions, present those to the council. (Partisan questions undermine the legal integrity of evidence.)
  • Collect more signatures in favour of retaining the elm tree.
  • Prepare proper plans to merge the wonderful redesign of the Seven Dials roundabout with a scheme to protect the elm tree (which could be either returning to the original scheme of converting Vernon Terrace to a one way street, closing off the junction between Vernon Terrace and Seven Dials so as to convert the Montpelier Crescent/Vernon Terrace into a cul-de-sac or simply raising by means of subtle ramping the pavement and road around the tree).

This is a big ask in a week, especially since the original consultation took many weeks to complete. I know how to organise all of the above and am ready, willing and able to coordinate the work listed above, if the campaign wishes. I’m sure that we would all prefer not to revisit the entire consultation again but it may be that the extra time afforded to the campaign is insufficient to marshal the evidence required.

Therefore, we must be prepared to go to the High Court in London to apply for judicial review of the entire consultation. Without going into detail now, that would be expensive for the campaigners and also for the council. I’m confident that we could win that case, for reasons which legal wisdom prevents me from detailing here (no point in explaining the legal merits to the council lest it just helps them prepare their defence). At some point this weekend I’ll set up a fund to raise the necessary monies to fight that case. If we win a judicial review case, the council may well be obliged to restart the entire consultation. I imagine that the Transport Committee will prefer to avoid that unnecessary expense and the attendant loss of time to progress their plan to make Seven Dials safer.

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Posted in Brighton, Elms, Green Party, Hove, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Protests, Seven Dials, Seven Dials Save Our Tree Action Group, Trees

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The battle for Brighton’s favourite Elm tree

Posted on 8 March 2013 | 11 Comments

This is my personal account of events on the ground and in the last Elm tree at Seven Dials from late in the night of Wednesday 6th March to the evening of 7th March. For background information, please see my post on the plan to kill the oldest resident in the Green Council Leader’s ward and Tree Lessons for Jason Kitcat.

At 11:00pm on 6th March two Green Party activists climbed up the Elm tree, having heard that the council’s subcontractors planned to arrive very early in the morning the following day to fell the tree. The police arrived before they started up but made it clear that they had no wish to intervene at the time. The climbers sat in the first couple of branches until 4:30am the following day, when they climbed higher and set themselves up with netting, bedding, food, water, a toilet and the usual techno equipment required in these situations. I arrived on the scene just before they raised their ascent. I stood at the bottom of the tree with another soul whose vigil had passed through the night. Our mission was simple: to prevent the tree being felled. Sure enough, the contractors arrived at about 5:00am and set up a site compound on Montpelier Crescent.

Brighton's Favourite Elm, Seven Dials

Brighton’s Favourite Elm

Shortly afterwards I went over to talk to them, to explain that we would not allow them fell the Elm. They told me that their job was just to secure the site and that they would not remove anyone who was inside the area they were going to enclose. Their foreman also told me that he would allow people inside the enclosure to come and go for comfort breaks. Both him and his work crew were perfectly courteous to both me and all the protesters who arrived later. In fact, he kept calling me “brother“, which is a first for me!

As they erected the fencing (at 6:00am), various other people arrived and got themselves inside the enclosure. With the enclosure complete, more and more people arrived in support. The occasion was and remained completely peaceful, friendly and civil. The police came back and spoke to everyone. The police sergeant I spoke to was perfectly well aware of everyone’s lawful rights.

Elm tree at Seven Dials, Brighton, occupied by protesters to stop felling

Occupy Elm

At around about 7:00am a council officer, Dave Parker, arrived to inspect the situation. We explained that our people were ensconced in the Elm and kitted out for a very long stay there. One lady summarised the flaws in the public consultation process and said that she had contacted the council as soon as she had discovered the plan to fell the Elm but had received no reply. Mr Parker asked her to explain what points she had raised in her correspondence. These were the same as were set out in my first post on the Elm. He asked her if she could email him. After some more conversation of the consequences of her leaving to do this, he proposed that he would ensure that no action was taken “until I receive that email and give a formulated response.“

The lady left to send the email. Mr Parker went off towards Montpelier Crescent, where he spoke to the contractors. Then Mr Parker returned. At 8:00am he informed us that the trees would not be felled that day and that he had called off the tree surgeons.

The residents got up and went to work, stopping by our spot first, signing our petition. Cars began to hoot their horns in support. We stayed put, fearing that without a formal stay of execution our departure would endanger the Elm.

120 year old elm tree at Seven Dials, Brighton

120 years old and here to stay

Around about 9:00am our local Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas turned out in support of the campaign to save the Elm! She had already declared her support the night before but her presence really lifted the morale of the protesters. Throughout the day, various Green Party councillors arrived to show their support. I’m not going to name them all, mainly because I fear that I might miss some out but also because I didn’t time stamp their arrivals with a tweet. Special mentions must also go to Councillor Ruth Buckley, who represents the neighbouring ward of Goldsmid and Councillor Phélim Mac Cafferty, who represents Brunswick and Adelaide ward. Both of them were present for several hours.

Shortly before 10:00am, various strangers had become acquainted with one another. Commitments were made to protect the Elm and supply those of us inside the enclosure. A vicar arrived and dished out tea and coffee. An online petition was created to mount the pressure on the council. It’s worth noting at this point that earlier the previous day the local Tories had tried to set up their own petition but they had not contacted the emergent community group which had galvanised the support for the Elm (@SaveOurTree on twitter). The day before 500 signatures against the felling were presented to the council. We carried on gathering signatures on paper and, at the time of writing, another 742 people have signed the online petition.

Just after Noon, an experienced independent arboriculturalist informed me that the contractors had damaged the roots of the trees in the Crescent by excavating the top 250mm of soil around some semi-mature Elm trees there, without “any regard or basic understanding of BS 5837 2012 in relation to design, demolition and construction.” Furthermore, he said, “I would be hard pushed to find a private developer undertaking site works with so little understanding of what needs to be done to protect trees on a construction site.” He had spoken to one of the Highway Engineers on site in the morning, who confirmed that he could see no reason why the pedestrian crossing near the Elm we were protecting could not be moved a little further to the South (which would obviate the council’s claimed issue of a problem with a motorist’s sight line around our Elm tree). He also told me that there was no reason why the residents’ demands could not be met and the tree saved. He asked me not to put his name into the public domain at this time.

At 12:30pm our decision to stay was justified when the contractors drove a large digger into the enclosure and announced that they were going to use it to rip the railings out of the ground. We pointed out that the railings were embedded in the Elm’s roots and that their removal would undoubtedly damage the main roots of the tree. We stood in the way of the digger.

Digger being stopped from damaging elm tree roots at Seven Dials, Brighton

This digger shall not pass

At this point, the contractor’s boss, Martin Baldwin, got a bit stroppy with me and the others inside the enclosure. There were only four of us in there, although there were many more people outside. He tried to tell me that if we caused an accident we could be sued. I suggested that making invalid legal threats was not conducive to the calm atmosphere which had prevailed up until then. Much later he told me that he had never had to deal with anything like this and admitted, most cordially, that the tension in the situation had perhaps got the better of him. At the time I pointed out that if there was an accident with his digger and our heads, the risk was someone getting killed. He said that would be our fault. I suggested that it would be corporate manslaughter in the circumstances, which were being properly recorded in photographs and film. He took the point and ordered his men to lower the digger’s arm until we had resolved the immediate dispute. I invited him to back off.

All the while I’d been posting to app.net (and cross-posting to twitter). At this point, I asked for as many people to join us as possible to prevent the railings from being ripped out. More people entered the enclosure by climbing over the fence or squeezing under it. I told Mr Baldwin that I could only speak for myself but that I could not stand by and watch the Elm’s roots being damaged. I said I would get in the way and that I suspected many others would as well, with the result that they would not be able to lift the railings.

The police arrived again. A different sergeant came to talk to us. I spoke to him at length, to get to the bottom of his view of the situation and his intentions. To cut a very long story short, his immediate difficulty was that without expert opinion on possibility of damage to the Elm’s roots, he could not see any reason to prevent the contractors from carrying out their lawful activity. I phoned up the arboriculturalist again. By this point, I had almost mastered pronouncing his job title! I passed the phone to the officer and they chatted for a bit. The policeman said that was good enough for him for now but pointed out that he could be overruled by someone further up his chain of command. Fine, I thought, let’s see what happens.

Wheelchair user passing by Elm at Seven Dials, Brighton

Proof that the council was wrong to claim that people in wheelchairs cannot pass the Elm. N.B. The fence erected to enclose the site narrowed the pavement by nearly a foot.

At 1:09pm I published a post on my blog, detailing the problems already caused to nearby trees by the contractors, as described to me by the arboriculturalist. By this point, I’d pretty much mastered the pronunciation of his professional title but the police had given up attempting it, referring to him as a tree expert.

At 1:30pm we got word that there was some kind of special meeting taking place inside the City Council. We were unsure of the nature of that meeting. The police appeared to want to take their cue from the decisions taken in that meeting.

Gift of a banana for protesters saving the Elm tree at Seven Dials, Brighton, 7th March 2013

The best present ever

Another call of nature was pressing most urgently on me. Whereas the foreman had most graciously agreed in advance to let me re-enter the enclosure on each of the two occasions I had previously left, now Mr Baldwin was in charge. I guess him watching the police listen to our concerns and apparently delay the proceedings still further had exacerbated his worsening mood. He was, “not your gate man.” He declined to promise me re-entry at 2:18pm. I’m sure he realised pretty soon that that had been a tactical error on his part because the immediate consequence was that people began to lift the fence up to get in and out underneath it. This had happened a couple of times before but the police had successfully persuaded us to leave it alone, on the basis that those of us inside the enclosure could come and go as we pleased, so long as we asked nicely. With the niceties removed, we were obliged to avoid public toiletries by mucking about with the fence. Fairly quickly, this decision was reversed.

Banana given in support of the Elm tree at Seven Dials, Brighton,7th March 2013

Another name for the petition!

I spent a bit of time talking to Mr Baldwin. Despite his apparently hostile mood, he was in fact a perfectly reasonable person after that. We explained ourselves to each other, discussed the politics, law and commercial realities of life in general, Brighton and he became very pleasant again. Although others might take a harsher line with people doing his job, I was inclined to take him at face value. Here was a fellow who had never encountered public protest before and was presumably ill-trained for how to deal with it. His professionalism kicked in again, after a period of readjustment. He was as obviously keen for us to go away as we were for him to do the same. We were both big boys and rose above our difficulties, so as to avoid the situation becoming unnecessarily inflamed.

The lady who had persuaded Mr Parker to halt the felling suggested that the contractors cut the railings off at ground level with a ‘disc cutter’ (by which I presumed she meant an angle grinder). Initially, I thought that this might be dangerous afterwards for pedestrians but I thought about it a little bit and realised that the resulting metal stubs would be concreted over to cover up their sharp edges. At 3:10pm she told me that the contractors had agreed that they could do that instead of using the digger. They didn’t though.

At 4:00pm, Mr Baldwin informed me that they were not going to do any further work that day or the next day. All through the day I had been watching the urgent chatter inside the Green Party’s private communications systems, which allow all members to chat with all other members live and direct. Pressure had been mounting on the council via this channel as well as various other means. I was aware that a majority of our Green Party councillors had declared to the other Green councillors that they were in favour of saving the Elm. After Mr Baldwin told me that he was pulling out, I checked our party’s internal comms and found a message from the Council Leader Jason Kitcat, whose ward the Elm stands in, which confirmed that there would be a pause in the proceedings. Unfortunately, he gave no detail as to proposed length of the pause.

Councillor Ken Norman, a Tory in his natural state of being

Not a happy bunny ~ Councillor Ken Norman (Tory)

Without a written guarantee that the tree would not be felled, none of us were in the mood for trusting the assurances given. The tree-dwellers declared that they would remain in situ. They had enough supplies to hold out for a considerable period of time and the means to replenish themselves. A rumour arrived that the work would be halted for a fortnight but I wasn’t able to ascertain whether its source was trustworthy. Mr Parker told one of our tree-dwellers that no further work would take place until Monday. However, Mr Baldwin told me that they would do some work and explained that this would involve resetting the kerbs and pavement on the Southern side of the pedestrian crossing near the Elm. The contractors took down their fence and rearranged it around this area. Nonetheless, many people on the ground declared that they could not risk abandoning the site in case the job started up again unexpectedly. I shared that opinion. Although I had to go home pretty soon, to look after my wife, who is recovering from surgery (She more or less ordered me to go and save the tree!), I was satisfied that various people were prepared to sit the night out and support the treetop encampment.

Later on I heard from our tree people that a Mr Geoff Raw (a council officer but, forgive me, I have lost track of his job title in the long day that was yesterday) had informed them that the reprieve would remain in place until further consultation had been done with the public. Furthermore, a meeting had been arranged for the following day to discuss that. Our hardy tree people told Mr Raw that they would need that undertaking in writing. Mr Raw agreed to draft a letter. They have told me that if that letter shows sufficient consultation with the public, they will descend. To a heroes welcome, I imagine. Certainly, they’ll both get a pint of Harvey’s from me!

Before I left at 4:30pm, two local Tory councillors turned up (Ann and Ken Norman). They angrily declared their support for the tree but bizarrely claimed that they had raised objections to its felling, despite there being no record of any objections. As soon as they arrived, they spotted Councillor Ruth Buckley, made a beeline for her and, despite the fact that she was talking to me, started shouting at her. How rude!

Councillors Ruth Buskley (Green) and Ann Norman (Tory) of Brighton & Hove City Council

Tory Councillor Ann Norman (right) lays into protesting Green Councillor Ruth Buckley (left) for reasons no-one could fathom

Protester in Elm tree at Seven Dials, Brighton, 7th March 2012

Stephen Hendry

Tom Druitt, Managing Director of the Big Lemon Bus Company, eating a hot dinner and working on a laptop whilst sitting in the Elm tree at Seven Dials, Brighton, to save it from felling

Tom Druitt, Managing Director of the Big Lemon Bus Company, enjoys a working dinner!

In a nutshell, the reason why no-one objected is because virtually no-one was aware of the plan to fell the beloved Elm. The decision to fell emerged very late on in the consultation process and was effectively buried in much other detail. However, I’ll not publish my full analysis of the legal situation right now. I prefer to leave that for a more timely moment. Similarly, I prefer to hold the cards of our legal options to my chest at the moment. Let’s see what today brings first… round one to the Elm’s neighbours!

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Posted in Brighton, Elms, Green Party, Hove, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Protests, Seven Dials, Seven Dials, Seven Dials Save Our Tree Action Group, Trees

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Campaign for Ciclovías in Brighton & Hove

Posted on 16 October 2012 | Leave a comment

There seems to be universal agreement that cycling is a healthy transportation activity. It’s good for you, good for the planet and good for the wallet too. Sometimes people say they don’t like getting the two wheel contraption out in the rain or the wind but the biggest inhibitor isn’t the weather at all. It’s the other traffic. Whilst most drivers are considerate, a consistent minority treat cyclists like shit. No amount of education, campaigning or legislation seems able to eradicate the problem. It is caused by the power some feel when they’ve got a steering wheel in their hands and an accelerator pedal under their right foot.

Some enlightened political administrations have dealt with this problem by creating separate lanes for cyclists. The reasoning that giving cyclists their own space will give the cautious the confidence they need is sound. Different places have adopted different qualities of lanes. The qualities chosen appear to be dictated by whether those commissioning the lanes are cyclists or whether they are merely theoretically in favour of cycling for reasons of public policy but on a personal level persistently prefer to travel by car. Brighton & Hove City Council is a fine example of this phenomena. A previous Labour administration (admittedly before Hove was politically joined to its neighbour), decided to create cycle lanes. I was in the Labour Party at that time. Unfortunately, those in charge of overseeing the procurement process were not committed cyclists. The result was a mare’s nest, much of which sensible cyclists ignored. Our cycling lanes became the proverbial laughing stock for proto-Clarksons everywhere. The current Green Party administration has set about creating cycling lanes which are the envy of the world. The fellow in charge of this project is the estimable Ian Davey, a committed cyclist. Our political opponents bombard him with criticism because they know that the legacy of his building projects will be with us for generations to come. Compare and contrast the two approaches ~ Labour and Green. (Links from Weird Cycle Lanes.) It’s obvious which is more likely to encourage cyclists to get from A to B.

Much of the criticism directed at the Green administration for building these new lanes revolves around the fact that cyclists have not immediately congested their new spaces. The thieving Tory bastards would like us to imagine that something is not a success unless it immediately becomes a victim of its own success. Plainly, projects like this take years to take effect. First we have to create the infrastructure, then we have to wait. The new lanes are being created at the points of most need, in the places where people have been killed. They are not yet joined up. For that to happen, we will most probably need to give the Greens another full term in office here in Brighton & Hove. That’s because these lanes are being built in the midst of a deep recession. There just isn’t the cash floating around to overhaul the entire City’s transport network in a couple of years. Was there ever?

Meanwhile, the planet continues to heat up. Although we have lost the visible smog which characterised the times of Dickens, our cities are more polluted than ever. The central valley in Brighton is almost permanently permeated with a particularly obnoxious mixture of contaminants. People sitting outside the Circus Circus pub at Preston Circus, Brighton, are breathing the worst of it. Nitrogen dioxide levels are nearly twice the legal limit set by the European Union (EU). Financial penalties loom because of this. Our national government has washed its hands of responsibility by passing a law which ensures that local authorities have to pay the fine. These EU limits are not set, as UKIP and most of the Tory party would have us believe, as some kind of draconian plan to bastardise our precious British car culture. They are in place to protect our health. The EU cares about us more than our own government. There is a limit to what local authorities can achieve when attempting to tackle the problem, in the absence of support from central government.

There are other methods which we haven’t yet tried in the UK. The same problems have been suffered all around the world. Bogotá, Colombia, took a radical approach over thirty years ago: once a month they banned vehicular traffic from their roads altogether. 30% of its citizens join in every Sunday and on all public holidays. The roads are taken over by cyclists, pedestrians, runners, skaters and so on. Stages are set up in public areas, for mass yoga lessons and similar events. These days give citizens a breathing space, in much the same way as London in the mid-19th Century took a strategic decision to save large green spaces as parks to act as the City’s lungs. Known as Ciclovías, these events have been copied around the world. So far, 42 cities in Australia, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, USA and South Africa have taken up the idea. It’s worth remembering that inactivity is at least as dangerous as smoking. With the most environmentally enlightened council in the country, Brighton & Hove is well placed to be the first to stage a Ciclovía in the UK. Here’s a ten minute video showing how Bogota runs its Ciclovía.

The first Brighton Ciclovía could start small. We don’t have to close every road to begin with. The event can be time limited. Banning vehicular traffic between 10:30am and 6:00pm would be a good start. The crucial idea is to remove vehicles from those roads which suffer most from vehicular traffic. There’s little point in allowing our arterial roads to remain choked with poisonous fumes and banning them from the residential areas. The first Brighton Ciclovía could start with banning vehicles on the entire seafront, on the London Road all the way to the City’s boundaries and for the entire length of the Old Shoreham Road. The last Sunday of every month is probably as good a day as any other to use.

The idea is to inspire us, to let us see what a better transport system could look like, as well as give us room to breathe more freely. It is the same idea as that sought by Critical Mass in Brighton every month. However the Mass can only take up as much space as its noble participants physically occupy. Brighton is used to seeing our roads taken over by public events. 28 of the weekends of each year sees some kind of rally on Madeira Drive. Some of these events lend nothing to our local economy but still manage to make that part of our classic seafront impassable for the residents of East Brighton. The Motor Caravan Rally is an obviously antisocial example. They don’t even buy food from local vendors; they use their own kitchens instead.

The local politics of this proposal will be stark. We’ll have to persuade the Brighton & Hove Green Party to support the idea. They ought to be favourable. It is bang on the nail of their natural politics but, being in a minority administration, they will need convincing of its popularity. That requires nothing more than signatures on a petition and the like. The Tories will whinge that it will affect local business, as if they still have a clue how to run any. The fact is that cyclists, pedestrians, runners and skaters buy stuff too. Labour will complain that the police won’t manage to enforce it. Both Labour and the Tories will present a case that says it is further evidence that the Green Party is really a cult hell bent on destroying Brighton & Hove. The Liberal Democrats can say whatever they like. No-one’s going to listen to them anymore. They are now nothing more than a curiosity of political history.

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Posted in Brighton, Brighton Critical Mass, Ciclovías, Critical Mass, Cycling, East Brighton, Green Party, Hove, Ian Davey, Labour Party, London Road, Madeira Drive, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Protests, Thieving Tory Bastards

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In support of nominating John Cooper QC for the Bar Pro Bono Award

Posted on 2 October 2012 | Leave a comment

The following is the text of an email which I have sent to Karen Todnor, of Kaim Todnor Solicitors, London, in support of her nomination of John Cooper QC for the Bar Pro Bono award.

Dear Karen,

I’m delighted to support your nomination of John Cooper QC for the Bar Pro Bono Award for his work with ‘Occupy the London Stock Exchange’ (OccupyLSX). It is difficult to imagine how anyone could have given more time, worked harder or brought greater experience to that cause.

I first instructed Mr Cooper on the night of 15th October 2011, when OccupyLSX was only a few hours old and still surrounded by hundreds of police, some of whom had been violent towards the protestors. He accepted my instructions immediately and kept in close contact from that point on, day and night. There can be no doubt that his conspicuous role contributed to the manner in which the City of London Corporation dealt with us protestors. His involvement generated much publicity with the result that the City’s officials knew that we were being properly advised. They knew that there would be inevitable and costly consequences had they misbehaved.

When St Paul’s Cathedral closed its doors to worshippers, we invited Mr Cooper to an on site conference. At the conclusion of our meeting in a crudely constructed tent pitched next to the outside walls of the Cathedral and next door to a kitchen feeding thousands, Mr Cooper said to his clerk, “this is by far and away the most unusual location I’ve ever conducted a conference in!” The circumstances were more unusual still. Mr Cooper’s guidance led to the Cathedral reopening its doors somewhat shamefacedly a few days later, without having affected the protest at all.

All too often in these sorts of situations, the police simply pile in without thought for life and limb. Although the encampment was eventually moved on, it was done so according to the law. That was thanks to Mr Cooper’s involvement. Mr Cooper fought both the eviction trial and the subsequent appeal pro bono. Without his commitment to justice, there would have been no trial, no due process and nothing but more trouble. This is no exaggeration: other lawyers, who have traditionally helped such causes pro bono, backed away from the camp, in the case of two firms at the very last moment. Whether that was down to their own resources or some other factor I cannot say. However, with Mr Cooper it was different. From the moment he accepted my instructions, his commitment was unwavering. Throughout his time representing Occupy London he was steadfast, detailed in his attention and utterly charming, despite some very challenging circumstances.

Having myself previously chaired the Free Representation Unit, I believe I understand what distinguishes a commitment to pro bono work for the sake of principle as compared to for the sake of a curriculum vitae or some paltry fashion. Occupy London chewed through countless hours of Mr Cooper’s time on a near weekly basis. When it wasn’t weekly, it was daily. We were not easy clients to deal with; we were fickle, we were administratively inefficient at times, we were operating at the fringe of conventional politics and law. Despite all these difficulties, Mr Cooper simply stepped up to the challenge as if he was merely walking up the front steps of a courthouse.

An indirect consequence of Mr Cooper’s work for Occupy London has been that a large number of people, who would otherwise have remained disenfranchised from the ordinary processes of law and, to greater or lesser extents, civil society, have been properly introduced to them instead, with beneficial consequences for all.

Kind regards,
Scrapper Duncan

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Posted in City of London Corporation, Eviction, John Cooper QC, Law, Occupy London, Occupy London Stock Exchange, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Protests

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Pedestrian Power Manifesto

Posted on 27 August 2012 | Leave a comment

We are walking creatures. That’s what we’ve evolved to do. When we walk, we better our health, calm our restless spirits and find our place in the world. Walking is a sacramental duty for those of us able bodied enough to perform it. By walking, we assert our very being in an increasingly mechanical and unnecessarily fast world. With each mile underfoot, our breath deepens, our thoughts collect and our alienation retreats. Whether we walk alone or in company, whether it be in the town or the country, whether it is for a mindful purpose or a pointless pleasure, our footfall reminds us of and inspires us towards creating a better world.

We mostly live in absurd clusters of dwellings arranged for and dominated by networks of roads designed for motor vehicles. These load bearing machines carry us far and our culture farther but along the way they steal much away from us. Their manufacturers have created a cultural claim that the car is the clarion call of freedom. We know this lie so well that we regard car free zones as unspoilt. We escape to the sea, to the hills, to the pathless woods and call them beautiful. We know each other by our deeds, not by what mechanical purchases we have made. No-one believes that increasing the ownership of private vehicles will improve our world, yet the few politicians and community leaders who dare speak out against the insidious rise of these machines are condemned as harshly by our media as traitors. The same media is mostly owned by corporations which derive considerable advertising revenue from car dealers and the like, with the consequence that though they pray in aid the rightful cause of the freedom of the press, they are usually the least free to speak for us.

Walkers have been militant for a long time. We have obtained rights to ramble, rights to roam and rights to remain on our feet. We have trespassed, taken down forbidding signs and taken the wealthy – who seek to exclude us from their land – to court and won. We have formed traditions which see us reclaiming the streets. Yet still the conquest of the car continues. Those of us who own cars, drive them into busy places and then complain about the traffic, forgetting that we only criticise ourselves. Despite clearly knowing that new roads, widening roads and relentlessly providing for cars instead of people only leads to more cars being used, we continue to perpetuate the myth that one day a natural balance between ourselves and these ugly machines will be struck.

Pedestrian power is a simple approach to the problem. Relying on the basic democratic principle that everyone is equal and free to act as they wish without harm, it substitutes quietitude and dignity for noisy protest and disruption. Pedestrianists make a point of walking into and across spaces owned by vehicular traffic. Safe in the knowledge that every breach is a break for freedom, we employ the craft of artful dodging to carry us to our destinations. We act as a reminder that people do take priority over petrol engines. When crossing a road, we avoid designated crossings if we can. More than that, we seek out knowledge of how to recover the places stolen from us and share it with others.

Be safe, be sure, be straightforward, become the change we want to see. Instead of annoyance at a difficult junction, we find another way across. In some places pedestrian power prevails already. The time has come to spread the word, to lengthen our strides, to learn about our lost land. When we discover a new way through some forbidden zone, we share the secret for the benefit of all. We write about it, we film it, we talk about it and we walk it. Again and again. Until it becomes second nature.

Please share your explanations, your accounts and your videos of crossing roads and junctions safely with us, tagged with ‘pedestrianism’. We’ve made a formal start to the project here in Brighton & Hove, by showing everyone how to cross the cumbersome Seven Dials roundabout on foot quickly and safely in heavy traffic. Although famous for our promenading, we too have accidentally grown a city cluttered with awkward junctions. Plans are already being prepared for opening up their secrets. People are coming forward with their previously private tricks. Watch this blog for more explanatory films. We want to watch yours too! We will learn from one another.

Pedestrianism is popular and has the power to replace the painful places with pleasure points. It’s a simple numbers game. The more of us who actively pursue this path, the less space there will be for cars. The less space there is for cars, the less attractive driving everywhere will become. Whether our revolutionary goals are attained before the oil runs out remains to be seen. No matter to us. We know that with every step, we remember how to live properly, how life once was and show others a vision otherwise unseen.

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Posted in #walk7dials, Brighton, Carbon Emissions, Cars, Hove, Pedestrianism, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Protests, Seven Dials, Walking

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Time for Julian Assange to resign

Posted on 24 August 2012 | 5 Comments
Julian Assange

Poster Boy For Hacktivism

Hardly a day goes by without a reference to the most famous prisoner in London, Julian Assange. For many months he advertised himself as being imprisoned, when he was actually living, courtesy of Vaughn Smith in accommodation so luxurious that many would gladly commit serious crimes to obtain it. In fact, many of us regard living in a country pile that grand, when others sleep on the streets, as a crime in itself. Instead of lying low, Mr Assange had relentlessly made use of the high profile organisation he founded, Wikileaks, to campaign for his personal cause and in the process did much damage to the noble cause he once promoted.

This blog has long carried links at its foot to wikileaks and its mirrors. That’s not going to change – the organisation he founded is larger than Assange, though it might not seem so at the moment.

Bolsheviks whispering in public

Bolsheviks whispering in public

The revelation of secret material is a just cause. Though the Bolsheviks have been rightly maligned by history, one of the main motivations for every foreign nation which had dealt with the Tsars declaring outright hostility to them from the start was that they published all Russia’s secret treaties. They proved that they could not be trusted. Of course, that meant that it became difficult to establish new alliances on the quiet. For a while at least. The lesson was well learnt, by radicals and moderates alike. Keep Mum and keep your friends. Blow your cover and blow your cool. However, whilst clandestine dealings may be a necessary evil, it is an evil which must nevertheless be challenged. All evil needs to be challenged and anything which harms us ordinary folk to the benefit of the rich is evil. The Bolsheviks were right to publish the treaties but stupid to do it themselves.

Map showing Belgrano's last journey

Belgrano’s last journey.

That’s where the inappropriately named Wikileaks comes in. It told us what we might otherwise only truly hope discover in the generations to come, if our various civil services or Judges sitting on Freedom of Information requests deemed the information was practically worthless. Who cares to find out now that Thatcher was truly angry about some stuff she appeared to be angry about at the time? What mattered during her reign of terror was that her government lied to the House of Commons about the reason for the sinking of the Argentinian battleship, the Belgrano. They said it was within the UK’s self-declared exclusion zone around the Falkland Islands and sailing towards them with apparently maliciously intent. We didn’t have Wikileaks back then but we did have one incredibly brave senior civil servant, Clive Ponting, who risked life imprisonment to tell us the truth: the ship was well outside the zone and sailing away. Mr Ponting lost his job, kept his liberty (against all expectations and a judge’s explicit instructions to a jury) and ruined the government’s credibility. Properly speaking, he allowed us all to call the government to account.

Bradley Manning

Bradley Manning is accused of passing the US diplomatic cables to Wikileaks

The people who take these risks are few and far between. The are brave or reckless, depending on your point of view. For far too long we’ve relied on disloyal souls like Ponting or Trotsky to break with tradition. Wikileaks mission was to provide a platform for people to share secrets without sticking their own necks into the noose. (Bradley Manning was apparently only caught because he confessed to a colleague.) It was inevitable that whoever could be identified with Wikileaks would run into serious trouble sooner or later. Assange headed for Sweden to avoid such trouble but his womanising proved to be his undoing. Having outsmarted the world’s authorities for so long, Assange’s decision to flee Sweden for London is as baffling as it was stupid. Why didn’t he go to Iceland?

Most unusually in such cases, the Swedish authorities released the statements of the two women who accused Assange of rape and sexual molestation. A British newspaper published them in its print edition. I read them and formed my own opinion of whether they could be easily attacked in a courtroom in cross-examination. My own professional opinion on the matter is irrelevant. The only relevant opinion is that of a Swedish criminal court, having heard all the evidence in a properly conducted trial. Incidentally, I now cannot find any web page in any British newspaper which contains these statements but I have a distinct recollection of reading them and their contents. Similar versions are easy to find online though, generally in unusual places such as here.

Unfortunately, there’s far too many people involved in the whole debate who appear unable to stick to plain facts. On one side, we have people who either support Assange or oppose American style corporate hegemony whenever they can, regardless of the merits of the issue at stake. On the other side, we see those who dislike the hacker’s original poster boy intensely and much of the established media, who have been embarassed by the apparent ease by which this startling character has scooped them out of existence for years. Much of the debate is characterised by mud slinging. We are left with the impression that both Assange and his detractors prefer to continue in that manner, rather than let their high profiles slip out of public sight for an instant, despite having little to add to debate.

Assange’s supporters have essentially aped his own party line, which is that he has been unjustly imprisoned, is the victim of a conspiracy to smear him and faces eventual extradition to the USA and the death penalty. His critics call him everything under the sun and accuse him of undermining women’s rights by refusing to face trial in Sweden on sex charges. Whilst both camps may rightly claim veracity in their causes, the arguments have now degenerated into little more than name calling. Pretty much the same thing happened to John Wilkes, whom we now remember mostly for allowing us to hear what happened in the House of Commons, rather than his disgusting sexual behaviour.

Unless Assange is arrested or manages to escape London, there can be little more news in this story. Anyone who has done what Assange has done is likely to fear for their lives. The US has form for killing people without trial, in all sorts of places. Plenty of it. He’s likely to live in the Ecuadorean embassy in London for a quite a while. Doubtless, he will be happy to hold court there, safe in the knowledge that he can live unmolested.

If you were in his shoes, you might well also be hiding in a flat in Knightsbridge, swapping insults on twitter and descending into increasingly petty disputes. How many people alive today have challenged the US so successfully? How many ‘Westerners’ are heroes across the Arab world? How many of us manage to maintain an even keel when under even half as much extraordinary pressure?

When Assange turned up on the first day of Occupy London, the 5,000 people gathered to make camp that night cheered him as he called for the “construction of law” (2:00 onwards in my video, where Julian Assange complains about the evasion of law). It is difficult to square that statement with his apparent manipulation of the legal process for his own selfish ends. Make no mistake about it, that is exactly what he has done. Rape and sexual molestation are extremely serious allegations. For years such crimes were not taken seriously by a world dominated by excessively powerful men. It has taken years of struggle to change that situation. We now know that Assange was making arrangements for his present asylum many months ago, whilst still apparently complying with the UK’s legal process. Why did he bother? Why didn’t he just jump ship sooner? No sensible or serious British lawyer could possibly have advised him that he stood a chance of avoiding extradition to Sweden by legal means.

We are driven to the conclusion that having lived so much of his life in the limelight, he is now heavily addicted to it. He has stood on many stages. There were the days when he appeared in an Australian courtroom as a teenage hacker, his years of mocking US power, to English courtrooms and now a posh balcony with the world’s media baying at his feet.

If his political skill matched his technical prowess, he would resign from Wikileaks to allow it to continue fighting the good fight without being tarnished by association with him. Lots of people resign their posts while they clear their names or flee justice. The time has come for Assange to follow their examples.

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Posted in Julian Assange, Occupy London Stock Exchange, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Protests, Wikileaks

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