MONDAY 8 OCTOBER 2007: MARCH TO PARLIAMENT, IN DEFIANCE OF THE BAN

Tony Benn, Brian Eno, Mark Thomas, Walter Wolfgang, George Galloway and Ben Griffin (ex SAS trooper) will head the march to Parliament in defiance of the ban. Make sure you are there to demand troops out and in defence of our civil liberties. It is vital that we defy the ban. Don’t miss this demo.

Assemble at 1.00PM in Trafalgar Square

“If they are planning an Iranian attack they will have a public even more upset and disgruntled than before. This is what this tightening up is about …..Civil liberties never seem very important until you need them. At times like this we need to be re-inforcing them.”
Brian Eno

“This is rather a ham-fisted attempt to prevent us from demonstrating. What they (the government and police) do is up to them. We will just ignore them and we have the moral and logical high-ground. I will be marching on Monday 8 October.”
Mark Thomas


The 1839 Sessional Orders legislation has been dusted off to ban the 8 October Troops Out march.

Sessional Orders are passed at the beginning of every Parliamentary session under an 1839 law to ensure free passage for MP’s to arrive and depart from Parliament. Similar Orders apply to the House of Lords.

Under the 2005 SOCPA legislation any march / demonstration in the vicinity of Parliament must be allowed to take place so long as a minimum of 6 days notice is given to the police.

Something more restrictive was needed so the 1839 legislation passed many years before this country had universal suffrage is now being used to attempt to ban the 8 October Troops Out march.

Since the march to Parliament is intended to be a peaceful attempt to alert Parliament to the feeling of the majority of the British public about the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan and MP’s themselves will be on the march this cannot be interpreted as obstructing the passage of members of Parliament.

To do so is an affront to the democratic rights of the people of this country and this is made clear in Tony Benn’s letter to the Home Secretary which he delivered on Monday 1 October.



Tony Benn's letter to the Home Secretary

TO:

The Right Hon Jacqui Smith MP
Home Secretary
House of Commons
London
SW1A OAA
Monday October 1st 2007

Dear Home Secretary

LOBBY OF PARLIAMENT ON OCTOBER 8th

I am writing to you as President of the STOP THE WAR COALITION, to give you advance notice that there will be a demonstration in Trafalgar Square the day Parliament meets calling for the immediate withdrawal of all British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan at which I shall be speaking along with others.

Afterwards many of those present – including myself – will be marching along Whitehall to the House of Commons to meet MPs and urge them to support this call for a withdrawal, as I shall be doing in approaching Malcolm Rifkind my own local MP.

We shall be doing this in an orderly manner and I am making available to those who wish to have one, a postcard over my printed signature as a Privy Councillor, asking the police, and others to assist them.

I enclose a copy of this postcard.

The authority for this march derives from our ancient right to free speech and assembly enshrined in our history, of which we often boast and which we vigorously defended in two world wars.

I am copying this letter, and its enclosure, to Jack Straw, the Commissioner of the Metropolis, and as a courtesy, to the Prime Minister’s office.

I hope that you will be able to re-assure me that those who demonstrate and march down Whitehall will enjoy your full support and the support of the police.

But it is only fair to tell you that the march will go ahead, in any case, and I will be among those marching.

Yours in peace

TONY BENN


Sessional Orders from 1839

“ORDERED, That the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis do take care that the passages through the streets leading to this House be kept free and open and that no obstruction be permitted to hinder the passage of Members to and from this House during the sitting of Parliament, or to hinder Members by any means in pursuit of their Parliamentary Estate; and that the Sergeant at Arms attending this House do communicate this Order to the Commissioner.”

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=346&Itemid=27


Update 1

Hugh Muir
Tuesday October 2, 2007
The Guardian


One feels for our MPs. Mocked, unloved - they need support just to drag themselves into work. Luckily they have Black Rod and Scotland Yard to help them out. After weeks of amicable discussions, the Met has told the organisers of the Stop The War event scheduled for next Monday that they cannot march towards parliament from Trafalgar Square because if they did, it might stop MPs getting to the Commons. This relies on use of the sessional order which is ratified by the Commons each year, but dates back to 1839. The ban would cover Parliament Square, parts of Waterloo, the Strand, Piccadilly and Leicester Square, as it must. MPs travel in from all points of the compass. They need protecting. For all that, figures such as Tony Benn, the comedian Mark Thomas and musician Brian Eno say they will march on regardless; and to those who find that disturbing they offer this gesture. Any MP who says, "I'm lost and I'm frightened and I need to get to work", will be gently escorted through the melee and deposited at St Stephen's Gate. They could also join the march, of course. It will be going the right way.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/diary/story/0,,2181419,00.html


Update2: March to Parliament. Why you should join us:

"In the run up to this much anticipated general election, the leaders of each major political party have claimed to champion our civil liberties. No doubt they will now unite to ensure that this peaceful demonstration takes place."
Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty

"The authority for this march derives from our ancient right to free speech and assembly enshrined in our history. It is only fair to tell you that the march will go ahead, in any case, and I will be among those marching."
Tony Benn, in letter to the Home Secretary

"A protest demanding all the troops out now is of national significance. To try and stop that protest is a major interference with free speech. The march should go ahead whether it is formally permitted or not."
Walter Wolfgang, Labour Party NEC

"The government want to bury the issue of their disastrous war. They will not succeed. We will be marching in our thousands on Monday."
Lindsey German, Convenor Stop the War Coalition

"In a democracy we expect peaceful protest to be permitted. We are not yet in the kind of tyranny that the Burmese people have to suffer, I hope the authorities will reconsider."
Bob Wareing MP

"Gordon Brown cannot praise protesters in Burma and then ban a protest in London. I will be protesting on Monday, regardless of whether Police permission is granted."
Ben Griffin (ex SAS trooper)

"If people aren't allowed to have their say on all our streets, what kind of Parliament are we meant to be defending?"
Michael Kustow, theatre director

"This is rather a ham-fisted attempt to prevent us from demonstrating. What the government and police do is up to them. We will just ignore them and we have the moral and logical high-ground. I will be marching on Monday 8 October."
Mark Thomas, comedian

"It's becoming remarkably hard to escape the feeling we're ruled by people who are basically paranoid authoritarian incompetents."
Iain Banks, author

"It is depressing that our democratic rights are being whittled away bit by bit. We will look back and wonder how this happened. They wouldn't get away with this in one go. First an arrest for reading names, then a ban on marches. What will be next?"
Benjamin Zephaniah, poet

"The stop the war demonstration on 15 February 2003 was arguably the most politically influential march in Britain since the 1970s, so it's no surprise that politicians are immobilising anti-war demonstrations now. At a time when the political debate at Westminster occupies ever narrower ground, it's vital that voices from outside are heard."
David Edgar, playwright

http://www.stopwar.org.uk


Practise What You Preach, Gordon..
Oct 1 2007 George Galloway

NEXT Monday, the Stop the War Coalition, of which I am vice-president, will seek to march from Trafalgar Square to parliament to demand the return of all British troops from Iraq.

The police have said we cannot, citing the Government's decision not to allow demos outside parliament when it is sitting.

But what would be the point of demonstrating when parliament is not sitting? And what kind of free country doesn't allow its citizens to peacefully demonstrate outside its parliament?

Why, a country like Burma perhaps. That's where the Buddhist monks are being dragooned and bludgeoned and even shot for, er, demonstrating against their government.

In that case, Gordon Brown (forgetting that the death toll in Burma would constitute a quiet afternoon in Iraq) is posturing all over the world stage about tyranny. Well, if it's good enough for Rangoon, Gordon, it's good enough for us. We will march next Monday whether you like it or not. Some of us will be wearing saffron robes and shaving our heads to make the point. I advise you, as you get into your stride in the election campaign, not to misuse our hard-pressed police officers in the way the Burmese junta are using theirs.

link


Sign petition (over 3000 so far):

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=338&Itemid=1


Update 3

Police ban London antiwar march
New attack on democratic rights
Statement of the Socialist Equality Party (Britain)
6 October 2007
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author

The Metropolitan Police have banned a demonstration by the Stop the War Coalition in central London. Police spokesmen have indicated that this is in response to pressure from the Labour government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The march is planned to coincide with the reopening of Parliament on Monday October 8. This is a major attack on the freedom of speech. It must be condemned and opposed by all workers, young people and socialist-minded intellectuals.

The ban marks an escalation of the Labour government’s 10-year assault on democratic rights. Not content with the mass of recent legislation to curb the right to free speech, it has turned to anti-democratic legislation dating back to the 19th century.

The march has been banned under a little-known law dating from 1839, at the time of the Chartist movement—a period that was to encompass class conflict at home and colonial insurrections abroad. It was a time when the British ruling class believed they were on the brink of social revolution—a fear which was to be confirmed by the 1848 revolutions that toppled thrones in Europe and gave birth to the Marxist movement.

The bourgeoisie weathered a storm that lasted from 183,7 when the Charter was published and launched the first working-class movement, to 1858, when the “Indian Mutiny” or first War of Indian Independence was bloodily crushed. By a combination of violence and economic concessions, the capitalist class was able to maintain its hold on power.

The use of such legislation indicates that the representatives of capital once again fear a threat to their rule. In today’s economic climate, the ability of British capitalism to make the kind of economic concessions it made when it exercised undisputed world hegemony is severely limited. All that is left is its monopoly of violence, which it will not hesitate to use if it faces opposition to its fundamental interests.

Still on the statute book, the Metropolitan Police Act of 1839 allows Parliament to renew a Sessional Order annually that instructs the police to prevent any obstruction to Members of Parliament or the House of Lords going about their business. The order can be applied to the public streets in the vicinity of the Houses of Parliament, “Her Majesty’s palaces”, “the public offices”, the courts, theatres, and “other places of public resort”.

The order allows the police to break up demonstrations and disperse crowds on any day that the Houses of Parliament are sitting. It could be applied to a demonstration anywhere within London that might be interpreted as hindering MPs and Lords from travelling to Parliament.

Since August 1, 2005, spontaneous demonstrations have been banned in a wide area of central London under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCP Act 2005). This act created an exclusion zone within a one kilometre radius of the Houses of Parliament. A large part of central London is covered by the exclusion zone. It takes in St James’s Park, an extensive area of the South Bank, and a swathe of London from Charing Cross to Lambeth Bridge.

In December 2005 Maya Evans became the first person to be convicted under the SOCP Act 2005, when she read out the names British soldiers who had been killed in Iraq. Her companion, Milan Rai, who read out the names of Iraqi civilians who had died, was found guilty of breaching the act in April 2006. The site of their protest, the Cenotaph war memorial, falls within the exclusion zone.

Even that act was not enough for Brown. The government’s use of the Sessional Order effectively extends this already widespread ban to the whole of London. Potentially even a rally in Trafalgar Square could be covered by the Sessional Order if it is deemed to impede MPs and Lords from travelling through London. Trafalgar Square is the traditional location for political meetings and is not part of the exclusion zone.

Under the SOCP Act 2005 any one wishing to demonstrate within the exclusion zone must apply in writing for permission. Even if approval is granted the demonstration may be subject to restrictions such as a ban on the use of megaphones, a change in route, or time limits.

The organisers of the march on Monday , October 8 had applied for and been granted permission. Their route from Trafalgar Square to the Houses of Parliament had been approved. On arrival at the House of Commons, they intended to lobby MPs calling for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq.

The fact that the government has responded to a peaceful lobby of Parliament by what was expected to be a relatively small number of people in such a draconian manner must be taken as a warning of the direction in which the government is heading. Brown’s administration is set to be even more repressive than that of Tony Blair. It is reaching into every corner of its legal armoury in order to suppress free speech.

Its actions tend to confirm press reports in Britain and the UK that the British government has given its backing to a bombing campaign against Iran. Under these circumstances, and with the possibility of a snap general election being called, even a modest demonstration calling attention to the government’s militarist and colonialist policies is considered anathema.

Brown fears any action that might become a focus for continued mass opposition to war in Iraq, Afghanistan and a possible war against Iran.

Since the mass global anti-war mobilisations of 2003, the Stop the War Coalition has run the anti-war movement into the ground by refusing to tie opposition to war to a political struggle by the working class against the government. Instead everything has been made dependent on what is politically acceptable to a handful of Labour and trade union “lefts” that have made a show of opposing the occupation of Iraq.

Since it became clear that Blair would step down to be replaced by Brown, it has centred its propaganda exclusively on a humble appeal for a change in government policy. In April, even before Brown became prime minister, the Stop the War Coalition was urging him to “Withdraw British troops from Iraq no later than October 2007,” “Declare that this country will not participate in any attack against Iran” and “Pursue a foreign policy independent of the administration of the United States of America.”

Chair of Stop the War Coalition Andrew Murray, of the Stalinist Communist Party of Britain, and convenor Lindsey German, of the Socialist Workers Party, admitted in an open letter to their affiliated groups that “Brown has been at the Prime Minister’s right hand throughout the decisions on Iraq and Afghanistan.” “Nevertheless,” the letter continued “it is our conviction that mass pressure, combined with electoral self-interest, can force the British government to break from George Bush’s wars.”

Since then Brown has succeeded Blair as Prime Minister and behind the scenes is preparing for the next phase of a Middle Eastern war that, while it may be led by Washington, is just as much in the interests of the financial oligarchy that dominates Britain.

Despite this record of political cowardice and opportunism, the government clearly has no confidence that its supine leadership will be able to contain the mass upsurge of revulsion that bombing Iran would produce. Brown realises that an extension of the war could see millions on the streets again. The decision to ban Monday’s demonstration indicates that his government will meet protests with naked repression.

He will be given a free-hand by Britain’s media, which has greeted the ban on the demonstration with near total silence. The coalition’s own response to the ban has been similarly low key. Although they have decided to march in defiance of the ban, their response is ludicrously out of touch with the political realities of the situation.

This is epitomised by its president, the former Labour MP and government minister Tony Benn, who will be at the head of the march. He has written to the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announcing his intention to carry a postcard printed with his signature as a Privy Councillor. The postcard will ask the police to assist him. He proposes to hand out copies of this postcard to any other demonstrator who wishes to carry one.

“The authority for this march,” Benn writes, “derives from our ancient right to free speech and assembly enshrined in our history, of which we often boast and which we vigorously defended in two world wars.”

Benn makes no mention of the fact that the right to free speech was won by a long history of bitter struggle on the part of working people. Instead he relies on the very institutions that opposed the right of free speech and the extension of the franchise to the mass of the population. His letter appeals to Smith, “I hope that you will be able to re-assure me that those who demonstrate and march down Whitehall will enjoy your full support and the support of the police.” Emphasis added

To imagine that Benn’s status as a privy councillor can be used to defend the marchers on Monday is at best a dangerous illusion. Historically, the Privy Council was the body that advised the sovereign. Even in more recent times it is under the name of the Privy Council that the Prime Minister issues Orders in Council without reference to parliament or public discussion. But Benn’s own record as a minister who employed repressive measures against strikers and who established an unaccountable armed force to protect nuclear installations suggests that his reliance on his position in the Privy Council is not the result of political naivety, but rather a desperate attempt to maintain illusions in British parliamentary democracy and to oppose a genuine challenge to the government.

It is indicative of Benn’s politics and those who support his leadership of the Stop the War Coalition that on Thursday October 4, just days after the ban was imposed, he announced his desire to be nominated as Labour’s candidate for Kensington in west London. Whatever anti-war noises he might make, this is subordinate to his continued loyalty towards a party and a government that has moved in lock step with the Bush administration over Iraq.

For the Stop the War Coalition to pretend that a handful of supposedly left Labourites, such as the octogenarian Benn, can pressurise Brown into ending Britain’s war in Iraq, Afghanistan or ending its support for the US over Iran is politically criminal. The only way in which militarism and colonialism and the accompanying attack on democratic rights that is expressed in the ban on Monday’s march can be defeated is by a politically independent movement of working class against the Labour Government.

http://wsws.org/articles/2007/oct2007/ban-o06.shtml

See also:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/382791.html


A bit of background about The Chartists:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/CHphysical.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/CHmoral.htm