The Green Party has condemned the harmful and shocking Metropolitan police action on Clapham Common this weekend.
Responding to policing at the vigil, Green Party co-leader and candidate for Mayor of London Sian Berry said:
“I can’t think of a more shameful way for an organisation to have handled this whole situation.
“There was literally no chance of this being a violent event if it had been left in peace. And given what prompted it, these scenes are just abhorrent and traumatic to see for so many of us.
“The Met has failed on every level and it’s hard to see how the Commissioner – and the Mayor and the Home Secretary – could not be considering her position right now.”
The highly politicised policing bill arrives in the House of Commons tomorrow, and the Green Party is adamant this should be opposed in order to stop the right to peaceful protest being curtailed.
Jenny Jones, Green Peer and former member of the Met monitoring body said:
“The government wants to use this new policing bill to buttress its political power in a way typical of an authoritarian regime.
“The police used extra-ordinary powers this weekend to stop and break up a peaceful vigil, imagine what they would do if given a new set of extraordinary post-covid powers to stop peaceful protest.
“The resources spent on our police force should be used to protect us all. We don’t want money that could be used to protect women‘s lives spent defending the political interests of this far right government.”