Last month, you may remember the Met Police raided a Quaker meeting house in Westminster, causing huge uproar. Over 20 uniformed police, some equipped with tasers, entered and arrested six female members of the activist group Youth Demand who had gathered there. They were arrested on suspicion to cause a public nuisance, under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023, but have since been released on bail (apart from one who was released and will face no further action).
On the surface of it, the police raid might appear excessive and authoritarian. Even the most hardened on the Right could find themselves agreeing with George Monbiot in the Guardian, who criticised the police’s heavy handedness, recounting how “six women were having tea and biscuits” before their arrests.
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