Here Lucy Frazer MP, the Culture Secretary, is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg on her Sunday programme on 7th May 2023 on a range of issues including the local elections. She is asked by Kuenssberg, who doesn't mention republicans by name (only 'activists'), about the arrest of legitimate protests at the Coronation. First, Frazer sidesteps the question by gushing about the event itself, then she justifies the police arrests by conflating the disruptive style of protest (such as by Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil) with the peaceful protest of republicans. She compounds her deception by then stating that the 'police are operationally independent' which as we have seen is not true. For example, compare yesterday's action by the police at the Coronation with state visits by Chinese leaders. In 1999, the Chinese leader Jiang Zemin's visit was marred by the actions of the police in disrupting legitimate protests by pro-Tibetan groups. This included aggressively snatching banners from protesters, and driving police vans in front of groups to hide them from the Chinese leader's motorcade. Yesterday's behaviour by the police in arresting the Republic team leadership at 7am and confiscating their banners and hiding the agreed protest area from the procession by high metal hoardings is from the same playbook. The police are clearly NOT operationally independent. Frazer then confirms this by ending saying that the context of the event as a whole, with the event being global and hundreds of foreign dignitaries present along with hundreds of thousands of Royalist supporters on the procession route, justified the police action. Basically she said that the police were right to act in the way they did because the government didn't want to be embarrassed by the fact that not everyone in this country wants a monarchy. The planned protest would have shown Britain in a light that the government and Buckingham Palace would do anything to avoid. That included trampling over people's right to peaceful protest. #notmyking #abolishthemonarchy
6 май 2023
