Public Order or Orwellian Overreach: Corbyn and McDonnell Agree to Police Interview

Permits for Protest: Flowers, Dissent, and Starmer’s Britain

There’s a peculiar irony in watching Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, being interviewed under caution by police for the crime of laying flowers. Welcome to Sir Keir Starmer’s vision of law and order, where peaceful protest must be preapproved, predetermined, and preferably performed in whispers.

Let that sink in: a 75-year-old former Leader of the Opposition and his 73-year-old former Shadow Chancellor are being treated like common criminals for participating in a pro-Palestinian rally. Their grave offence? Attempting to lay flowers in memory of dead children. In Starmer’s Britain, even mourning must follow proper protocols and no one must speak out of order.

The Metropolitan Police’s account reads like satire: they posted an image of what they called a group “forcing its way through police lines” – apparently their description of elderly politicians carrying flowers. Corbyn’s response cuts through the melodrama: “This is not an accurate description of events at all.” But accuracy, it seems, is less important than authority in this new order.

It is quite clear the video shows the police directing people no one is pushing…

Nine others have been charged, including Chris Nineham, a chief steward of the march, and Piers Corbyn. The message is clear: organise a protest without permission, face the consequences. Never mind that the very concept of “permitted protest” is an oxymoron that would make George Orwell reach for his typewriter.

The police conditions imposed under the Public Order Act – preventing the gathering outside the BBC’s Broadcasting House due to its proximity to a synagogue – might sound reasonable until you consider the implications. In this brave new world, public space is increasingly becoming private space, where the right to gather must be granted rather than exercised.

From Picket Lines to Police Lines: Labour’s War on Protest…

This is the same Labour Party that once championed the right to protest. Now it oversees a system where laying flowers in Trafalgar Square requires official sanction. The transformation is complete: from the Party of the picket line to the Party of the police line.

What’s most chilling isn’t the heavy-handed response to a peaceful protest – it’s the quiet acquiescence of a public that has somehow accepted that protest needs permission to be legitimate. When did we decide that democracy works better with a volume control?

Oh, how the wheel of political fortune turns. Cast your mind back to 2021, when Jeremy Corbyn proudly declared: “We will always defend the right to demonstrate against injustice. Proud to address today’s #KillTheBill demonstration – together we will stop Boris Johnson’s protest ban.”

How bitterly ironic those words taste now, as the very laws he fought against are used to drag him into a police station. The Tory dystopia he warned us about has simply been rebranded with a Labour logo, and Sir Keir Starmer, that supposed defender of human rights, now presides over its enforcement. The revolution devours its children, they say – but in this case, it’s prosecuting them under public order offences.

As Corbyn and McDonnell prepare for their police interviews, remember: this isn’t just about Palestine, or protests, or politics. It’s about the slow strangulation of civil liberties under the guise of public order. In Starmer’s Britain, it seems, the right to dissent comes with terms and conditions applied.

So welcome to 2025, where protest is permitted, dissent is managed, and flowers are considered a threat to public order. Just make sure you fill out the proper forms before you express your outrage.

At least the ceasefire’s holding out. Well, at least today it is.

Paul Knaggs