From Cable Street to Wapping: the history of policing public order

Scenes of heavy-handed policing causing dismay and distress on Clapham Common and demonstrations degenerating into violent disorder in Bristol provide a fitting backdrop to the controversy about proposals to extend police powers. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is working its way through Parliament, but debate on the policing of public order is by no means new. We could usefully reflect on the lessons of two historic confrontations involving the police that took place on the streets of East London: one in 1936 — the Battle of Cable Street — and the second in 1987 — the Battle of Wapping.

The first Public Order Act was passed in response to a large-scale violent encounter that became known as the Battle of Cable Street. In the 1930s, Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF) had adopted the black-shirted uniform of their Italian fascist counterparts and delighted in wearing it on military-style parades. They planned a deliberately provocative march through predominantly Jewish Stepney in East London. Anti-fascists mobilised in very large numbers to block the march. Despite the use of mounted officers and baton charges, the police failed to force a route for the march down Cable Street, where barricades had been erected and the anti-fascists had massed. The march was abandoned.

The Government concluded that the existing laws and powers available to the police had not been up to dealing with the disorder and passed the Public Order Act 1936. It was even-handed, targeting both sides. Section 1 was clearly aimed at the black-shirted BUF: “any person who in any public place…wears uniform signifying his association with any political organisation…shall be guilty of an offence”. Political uniforms were banned and the practice was established of using very specific provisions to allow a “blanket” prohibition of broader activities. The section continued to be used against groups deemed ‘unacceptable’; in 1974, twelve people were fined the maximum £50 under the Act for wearing black berets at London’s Speakers Corner during a Sinn Fein rally.

But another section of the Act was aimed at the antifascists who had stood behind barricades in Cable Street to stop Mosley’s march: “any person who in any public place…uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace…shall be guilty of an offence”. Modified over time to suit changing circumstances, in particular by the Public Order Act 1986, variations of this provision have come down to us and are to be further fine-tuned by the Bill currently before Parliament. A central concern of those who object to the Bill’s widening of police powers is scepticism about the Government’s claim that “the police must act within the law and be able to demonstrate that their use of powers are necessary and proportionate. They must act compatibly with human rights, principally Article 10 (freedom of expression) and Article 11 (freedom of association).”

By a coincidence of geography another “battle” in which public order powers came into question was “fought” only a few hundred metres from the site of Cable Street confrontation: the “Battle of Wapping” in January 1987. As in 1936, mounted police and the baton charge were much in evidence, but a dispassionate look at the activities of the police on that day may help explain the scepticism of the current Bill’s critics — a scepticism that my own personal experience of the occasion may add weight to.

The 1980s saw a series of set-piece battles between capital and organised labour — from miners to seafarers — as laws introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, designed to curtail trade unions’ industrial power, tipped the balance in employers’ favour. Media-owner Rupert Murdoch saw the opportunity to break the powerful print unions. In 1986 he provoked a strike and sacked the entire workforce of striking printworkers, moving his four major newspaper titles, including The Times and The Sun, to his News International printing plant at Wapping, East London. As in the long-running miners’ strike of a few years before, the longer the dispute continued the more bitter it became, not helped by the description of strikers as “the enemy within” by the Prime Minister a few years before.

The Wapping dispute was played out at night when the newspaper lorries emerged from the plant and a major demonstration was organised for the night of 24th January 1987, the first anniversary of the start of the dispute and I joined a demonstration of local people supporting the sacked printworkers. There were serious clashes between police and demonstrators; missiles were thrown at the police, who responded with charges by mounted officers and the widespread violent use of batons and shields. Many injuries were sustained by both police officers and demonstrators in what became known as the “Battle of Wapping”.

There were also a large number of arrests, many for breaches of the “threatening…words or behaviour” provision of the Public Order Act. I was one of them. I attended court confident of my innocence, but my barrister advised me that magistrates were more likely to accept the police’s version of events than a demonstrator’s and that I should ask to be “bound over to keep the peace” (a legal “goalless draw” and the way about half of all Wapping cases were brought to a swift conclusion). But the prosecution, convinced they were going to secure a conviction, refused the offer of a “bind-over” and the trial proceeded. However, the arresting officer and his witness, another police officer, had been particularly ineffective in what was later alleged to be their “canteen conspiracy” to invent and coordinate what they claimed had happened. They were even less convincing when it came to presenting their statements in open court. I was acquitted.

In an echo of the policing of the recent Clapham Common vigil, disturbing images of police action in Wapping filled the media and the then Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd responded to pressure for an inquiry by ordering the Northamptonshire police to investigate under the auspices of the Police Complaints Authority. And herein lies the importance of the Wapping case — the fact that it was the subject of a criminal investigation into the police. The most notorious incident in the industrial strife of the 1980s had happened two and a half years before – the “Battle of Orgreave”, where police had violently clashed with striking miners. The Conservative Government had resisted all calls to hold any sort of inquiry and instead had brought public order charges against 55 strikers. The cases all collapsed but no action was taken against any police officer.

However, after Wapping the team from the Northamptonshire constabulary came to London to carry out police work in an unbiased and professional manner to ascertain whether crimes had been committed – they were the exemplars of the “honest copper”. After a painstaking and thorough investigation, 16 officers were charged with various offences; they included my arresting officer and his witness who were charged with perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

At the point where the system of police accountability was about it show it was serious about tackling police wrongdoing, all the cases were thrown out by an eccentric magistrate for delay, to the delight of senior figures in the Metropolitan Police and Police Federation, who poured scorn on the Northamptonshire constabulary, decrying their “lack of experience of policing major events and protests”. Not a single word was uttered by any public figure in defence of the “honest coppers” from Northamptonshire. With the collapse of the criminal case, I took a civil action against the Metropolitan Police for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and misfeasance in a public office that resulted, in 1991, in the award of a substantial out-of-court settlement. It is inconceivable that the dishonest testimony of the two junior officers in my case was not known to their senior officers who must, therefore, have colluded. Unsurprisingly, to my knowledge, no action was taken against any officer.

To be a police officer is a noble calling; they place themselves at great risk of danger to protect society from criminals, while often facing open suspicion and hostility. In such circumstances it is both understandable and admirable that there is a strong ethic of mutual protection and support amongst officers. However, there is a fine line between “having each other’s backs” and closing ranks around wrongdoers. This line was demonstrably crossed in the Wapping case. A system that makes successful cases of calling the police to account — such as did happen, albeit belatedly, for the 1989 Hillsborough disaster — so extremely rare does not lend itself to high levels of trust in the policing of public order or confidence in measures to widen police powers.

The 1936 Public Order Act cleverly gave the police the power to tackle what was considered “unacceptable” at that time – uniformed public activities by the British Union of Fascists — while introducing offences that could help maintain public order. But public activities that are considered “unacceptable” change over time and beg the question: on what basis is it decided what, and who, is considerable acceptable? The current Bill uses broader devices: imposing conditions on protests that are noisy enough to cause “intimidation or harassment” or “serious unease, alarm or distress” to bystanders. If the police are given further powers to make such decisions, they would have to convince the public that they would exercise their discretion in a fair and even-handed manner, with proper concern for individual freedom. Lawmakers may find a stroll around some East London streets a useful meditation while considering whether to pass this highly contentious Bill.

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