BRISTOL was thrown onto the national stage on March 15 2021 when protesters against the draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill were savagely attacked by police. The protesters responded by smashing a police station’s windows and burning a police van.
The people of Bristol were not dissuaded and sustained large turnouts on actions over the next week despite continued police aggression. More than 10,000 people showed themselves willing to put their bodies on the line and fight back against this Bill which, among other things, intensifies the persecution of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community, strips protesters of their right to protest and hobbles the right of unions to use picket lines.
After the impact of Colston’s statue going into the River Avon during the Black Lives Matter protests, even the most cynical on the left harboured some secret hopes that opposition to the Bill could build into something really interesting.
Even the liberal press felt obliged to condemn the police violence (although sadly not any of Bristol’s MPs or the mayor). It was evident the police were losing control of the narrative, first after they started lashing out at peaceful protesters and working journalists — and then after they were caught wildly overstating the severity of their injuries to the press. The chief constable of Avon and Somerset police even had to step down, likely due to his handling of the situation.
When the Bill passed its third reading a few weeks ago, however, all that could be mustered were a few hundred protesters who managed to block the motorway into Bristol. The question any socialist needs to ask themselves is: how did we drop the ball so badly?
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