From inside the Bristol 'Kill the Bill' protest

a friend of Boshemia writes their experiences from inside the Bristol ‘Kill the Bill protest on 21 March 2021.

Yesterday in Bristol, England a protest against the UK government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill was staged. It ended badly.

First of all, let me make something clear. Though I am morally opposed to violence, I will not condemn all those who protesters who participate in it. Violence and riot can still be a legitimate expression of protest. If protestors are met with physically hostility, it is inevitable some of them will respond in kind. Yes, there will always be a handful of opportunists who come to these protests purely to create trouble. But genuine anger and disaffection of legitimate protesters boiling over into violence does not invalidate that anger or disaffection.

That being established, let me also make clear, as someone who was there, that everything right up until the very literal end of the day was 100% peaceful. Nothing about day’s demonstrations had given any of us any reason to think it would end how it did.

Tributes laid

It started with a largely static demonstration on College Green. It was about as socially distanced as could be managed with that many people, and more or less everyone I saw there was wearing mask. Tributes were laid, chants were shouted, and space was peacefully occupied. After about 45 minutes, the protest, spurred on I think by a drumming group, began to move with purpose out of College Green and down through the city centre towards Castle Park. This brought traffic to a standstill with drivers waving in support from their cars, bus drivers honking along with the beat of the drums, and an amused Tesco delivery van driver good-naturedly shrugging at apologetic marchers as they flowed around him. The atmosphere of all this began as righteous anger but evolved into what I’d call a joyful solidarity. The latter is the mood that marked most of day and I wish it were the one that we’re taking away from it now.

Police escalation

Eventually protesters were called on by a speaker to march on the police station where they staged yet another peaceful sit in. I will stress that what came next comes from my own perspective with what was probably the most hindered view I had that whole day. It seemed that the police began to push into the crowd and the crowd pushed back. People climbed atop police vans and buildings, the first minor scuffles began to break out, and bottles were thrown.

Shortly afterwards the mounted police arrived, ploughed into the crowd and were severely jostled. The riot police turned up not long after, which was when one of the first fireworks went off and the situation began to go irretrievably downhill. When the police appeared to fall back, which was greeted with cheers from the crowd, I decided it was the time to head home. I was sensing an all-too uneasy feeling of calm before the storm and wanted to get out of there. Turns out I had good instincts. As I walked home, I read on my phone about the rapid escalation of violence at the scene, with more fireworks thrown, vans set on fire, and direct physical clashes between police and protesters. I felt saddened, and still do remembering so many calls from the crowd to remain peaceful in that last half hour, that it came to this.

Powerful protest and people power

It was a day of peaceful but powerful protest and people power. I wish it could have stayed that way but it didn’t. It is the opinion of this author (and I very much stress the “my opinion” angle here) that police escalation of hostility was what sparked the violent clashes as the sun went down.

The papers and commentators will still prattle on about ‘left wing thugs causing wonton destruction’ and whatnot for the next week but I was there, I saw what it was about. It was about angry people refusing to be complacent at the prospect of their rights being stripped away.

And if a few police vans have to be set on fire to get that message across, then let them burn.