House of Lords inflicts 14 defeats on the Police Crackdown Bill

Priti Patel's fascist Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Bill got battered with 14 defeats in the House of Lords. Priti Patel is screaming into her cauldron and on twitter this morning after the House of Lords decimated her authoritarian Police Crackdown Bill. Whilst protesters made their presence known outside, the Lords upheld democracy inside and decided the loss of the right to protest, the ability for the police to on a whim end freedom of speech and freedom of expression was a power they should not have. 14 separate defeats were handed to the government last night, they’d added on several late admissions to try and force the bill through thinking Lord’s wouldn’t sit up half the night to vote it down, but they were wrong and because they were introduced at the Lords Stage, defeating them in the Lord’s kills those particular additions off stone dead. They will not go back to the Commons. An amendment to require a review into the prevalance of spiking was voted through, the government for some reason didn’t want this. An amendment for a duty of candour in the police was voted through similar to that which healthcare professionals have. God forbid the police not conduct themselves civilly, the Tories evidently want a brute force though, another defeat for them. An amendment recognising misogyny as a hate crime passed, the government was defeated again over the issue of police curbing protests due to noise, the Lord’s stripped this out of the original bill. The Lord’s also voted to strip out the part of the crackdown bill where the police could ban or restrict public assemblies, which effectively bans protest. An amendment passed that meant protests obstructing vehicles leaving parliament can be moved on BUT peaceful gatherings such as those in Parliament Square are safe, rather than a blanket ban of parliamentary grounds. An amendment also passed to repeal the vagrancy act. Now all of these can go back to the Commons to be debated again, but these next ones were all introduced by the Lords and have been killed off completely. The government wanted to add the offence of locking on, which would have criminalised anyone who shackled themselves to railings for example. They wanted to criminalise the blocking of all roads, which got amended to just motorways and major A roads. They wanted transport construction sites banned from protest, but lost, they also lost when it came to blockading what they deemed national infrastructure, in which they included print works – God forbid their propaganda not get out! They tried to get banning orders through stopping certain people from attending protests, they tried to sneak in stop and search powers for the police whether people were under suspicion of certain offences or not. All were beaten, all are dead and buried now. A good day for democracy, but handed to us by the undemocratic House of Lords, it’s an uncomfortable win. The Police Bill is badly wounded, but its not completely dead yet.