The "Democracy Village" last Wednesday
Last week I briefly visited the “Democracy Village” on Parliament Square. My instinctive reaction earlier in the week was to support Boris Johnson and Westminster Council in their wish to move the protestors off the Square. As I wrote three years ago now,
I can understand why Liberty and others back Brian Haw, but I’m not really sure it is a fundamental right to be able to demonstrate wherever you want, however you want, at all times and continuously.
Nothing I saw changed my view.
It’s not just that I disagree with them; I probably do on almost everything, but that of course isn’t the point. I’m sure I’d object in just the same way if they were protesting for a pet cause of mine. Nor do I have a real problem with the camp being “an eyesore”. It’s not lovely (you can see more of my photos at Flickr) but it’s not as ugly as all that, either. Nor, finally, is it anything to do with the attitude of the protesters. Not all of those who’ve been attracted there are attractive characters: I’m not sure anyone in the media has yet noticed that this chap, who was filmed there by BBC London News last week, is the one who ruined the 2004 Olympic Marathon, disgracefully depriving Vanderlei de Lima of the chance of Gold, having almost put his death on a driver’s conscience the year before. But they’re not all like him, and when I was there on Wednesday they were neither friendly nor unfriendly, but simply let me be as I walked among them having a look and taking photos.
My difficulty is that this is much more than a limited protest. The protesters have effectively taken possession of Parliament Square, meaning that it can’t sensibly be used by anyone else for anything else – not by other protesters, for instance. If this were a time-limited affair – say for the Bank Holiday weekend – I might have more sympathy. But it’s not. The “villagers” intend to stay indefinitely – at least until all British soldiers are brought back presumably from Afghanistan. That amounts to enclosure of the Square by them for their own private use, regardless of the rights of others; it goes well beyond an exercise of the right to assemble and protest. As the banner says, at the moment they “rule” the Square, and I think they should be stopped.
I do think the Democracy Villagers have got the germ of a decent idea, though, to be fair. When they’re gone, Westminster Council might consider devoting at least part of the Square, some of the time, a to a genuine non-residential Democracy Village dominated by no group and open to all to engage in genuine discussion, education and debate in a friendly atmosphere. It’d have to be run quite brilliantly to avoid its being taken over by angry extremists and fundamentalists. But if it could be made to work, it’d be a really welcome innovation.
oh come on! that is feeble. you don’t like the demo because they may eventually get adverse possession of parliament square? (ok i’m mis-characterising what you said). what is anyone else actually going to do with it? and the slogan in your photo shows they are espousing the digger ideal that the land is common to all (no idea if parliament square is common land or not…). protest is about there NOT being limits imposed from outside, no good sense, no limitation, no polite requests – protest demands attention by breaking the rules of reason. and it’s a good protest – as your idea of a nice temporary democracy village admits. only problem is, when it’s a nice polite regulated temporary one, it’s been castrated. when i as a student we had a sit-in about dog-nose what – the students union actually booked a hall for us to have a sit-in. naturally we had our sit-in elsewhere.
protest is only protest when someone (preferably old and square like me – or dare i say ‘us’?) gets outraged by it.
.-= simply wondered´s last blog ..large policeman with big stick uses it to defend himself from vicious (though small) woman armed with juice carton that might have looked a bit like a gun. sort of. ish. =-.
Westminster Council might be interested to think about designating a spot in Parliament Square for demonstrations, but it’s actually no responsibility of the council. Parliament Square is owned by the Greater London Authority, not WCC. It’s debatable whether planning permission for change of use from WCC would be needed – it’s public open space at the moment, so holding impromptu demonstrations is within that use.
PS Odd that many people have failed to remember previous long-term protests on Parliament Square, including ‘Winnie the Pig‘.