Leave Steve Bray alone

Yes, Steve Bray is an annoying berk.

(He's the nutter who dresses up in an EU cape and hat and shouts rude things through megaphones outside parliament and Conservative conferences.)

He's also part of the great British tradition of people who think something is wrong making a nuisance of themselves by shouting about it.

If he started behaving in a threatening way, the police should, and I think would, take action. But I have never seen him do that.

If he started shouting at people's kids outside their houses, or using his megaphone in a residential area in the evening or at night, that would be harassment and it would be right to take action, but to the best of my knowledge he hasn't done that either.

I'm not convinced that taking his amplification equipment off him is proportionate or reasonable or that this was the intention of the Police, Sentencing and the Courts act which came into force yesterday and the vast majority of which, such as mandatory life sentences for those who kill a police officer or emergency services worker, whole life orders for the pre-meditated murder of a child, and ending the early release of those who are still a danger to the public, I welcome.

Let's not make the odious little twerp into a martyr. Leave him alone.

Comments

Jim said…
He is exercising his right to protest, I cant see why the police ever took his equipment off him. I have had concerns, real concerns, about the police and the way they have been behaving for some time, they are now just political henchmen.
Its ironic really that protecting our rights and becoming a true democracy was the main reason i voted to leave the EU.
6:19 am
Chris Whiteside said…
There are some forms of protest which go over the top by risking the lives or health of innocent people - blocking roads and railways for instance - and it was right to try to do something about this.

But I cannot see that the action against Steve Bray was appropriate or proportionate. We should protect the right to peaceful protest.
8:24 am
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