On 13 March, Nottinghamshire Police shut down an open mic against sexism and misogyny at Nottingham’s vigil for Sarah Everard. This fact has been completely omitted by the bourgeois press, which has shown much praise for Nottinghamshire Police in recent days, remarking the “stark differences” between “minimal” policing in Nottingham and the brutal arrests seen in London (The Guardian).
The organisers of the vigil, Nottingham Women for Change and Nottingham People’s Assembly, were complicit in fabricating this narrative, and indeed were complicit in shutting down the protest. Former Nottingham East Labour CLP Chair Louise Regan was quoted in The Guardian pointing to the policing of the Nottingham protest as a positive example and local Labour Party Women’s Officer Sian took to twitter to commend Nottinghamshire Police for being “respectful attendees” at the vigil, claiming that they only asked people to “start dispersing towards the natural end of the event” and showed that “policing by consent is possible”. The reality was very different; there was nothing respectful or consensual about the way Nottinghamshire Police shut down women’s voices and demanded people disperse, while Sian threatened that people would be arrested and fined if they did not comply. Earlier in the vigil Sian had got even more ‘hands on’ with her censorship, cutting down an RCG banner with scissors and attempting to confiscate it.
During the vigil, Nottingham RCG comrades set up a paper banner where people wrote their own messages of grief, anger and solidarity and facilitated a socially distanced open mic, allowing women in the crowd to speak on their own experiences of living in a sexist, racist, and unjust society. After a young girl and two women had spoken, the police and organisers from the Labour Party interrupted this democratic space and ordered people to disperse. By this point several more women were lined up to speak, some with deeply emotional and defiant testimonies of sexual violence and abuse. While the police had kept their distance as long as the vigil remained silent and passive, as soon as women started speaking out the police claimed that the socially distanced event was no longer ‘Covid safe’. Stewart Halforty, a Labour Party member and Nottingham People’s Assembly organizer, was acting as police liaison for the vigil and supported the police in shutting it down, angrily telling RCG comrades who were running the open mic “you need to stop this now”.
Having successfully silenced and dispersed the protest, the police were then able to get their photo opportunity, in the now deserted Speaker’s Corner; the image of a Nottinghamshire Police officer kneeling and lighting a candle for Sarah Everard has been shared far and wide on social media, alongside outpourings of gratitude for their so-called “hands off” approach. This is the same Nottinghamshire Police which stops and searches black and Asian people at highly disproportionate rates, and which just last year, singled out and arrested a black pro-Palestine activist at a demonstration called by the Nottingham Revolutionary Communist Group.
Saturday’s protest in Nottingham offers a lesson in how the police are weaponising faulty coronavirus science to undermine the right to protest – an outdoor, socially distanced event with masks, hand sanitiser and cleansing wipes is not a significant Covid risk. The influx of thousands of people to beaches last summer did not lead to an increase in Covid-19 cases, nor did the large Black Lives Matter protests which took place around the world over the summer of 2020. It also shows the Labour Party once again collaborating with the police to shut down democratic protest and silence anybody who doesn’t fit in to their narrow conception of acceptable politics. With the draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill going through Parliament, it is up to all of us to defend the right to protest.
The Nottingham Revolutionary Communist Group will be discussing the relationship between Capitalism and Women’s Oppression in our online Education for Liberation FRFI Supporters group on Thursday 25 March. Contact us to take part at [email protected] or message us at @NottsRCG on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
