By a delegate to NEU conference
This following is the text of a second emergency resolution, as amended, passed at the NEU conference by a vote of 96%:
Conference notes:
The Government’s new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill attempts to limit the right to protest in the wake of Covid pandemic.
Following more than a decade of austerity we will be asked to pay the price for the Covid-19 crisis. Working class communities, women, Black communities, and disabled people have suffered disproportionately.
The new Policing Bill gives police new powers to stop protests that cause “serious disruption” to an organisation or have a “relevant impact” on people nearby.
A further clause in the Bill criminalises protests causing “serious annoyance” – every employer and reactionary could use this claim to curb protest.
Conference further notes:
The attempt by police to break up a vigil in memory of Sarah Everard on Clapham Common.
Attacks by Police in Bristol and elsewhere against peaceful protests against the Bill
The Bill increases stop and search powers that will be used to scapegoat minorities and increase racism.
The Bill includes a new trespass offense that will be used to target Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) groups.
Clauses against “unauthorised encampments” will be used against GRT communities potentially seizing homes, putting parents in prison and children into care. It could also hit homeless people constructing makeshift shelters and protesters.
Progress on disabled people’s rights has, in large part, depended on peaceful direct action.
Conference believes:
The Police Bill is an assault on our right to assembly and protest aiming to make it as ineffective as possible.
The Bill is a threat to trade union activity, restricting our right to protest, placing further limits on our freedom to picket during industrial disputes.
The Bill threatens and undermines the human right of ‘peaceful assembly and association’ as contained in Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 11 of the UK Human Rights Act.
Conference instructs the Executive to:
*Oppose any attempt by government to use the COVID-19 crisis to limit the right to protest.
*Campaign against the whole of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.
*Work with other campaigns – human rights, disabled people’s rights organisations, environmental, anti-racist and all those defending the right to protests, and Gypsy Roma and Traveller organisations fighting the criminalisation of their way of life -to oppose and defeat this attack on our rights.
*Call for a coordinated Trade Union response to this Bill through the TUC.
