by James Martin Charlton, The Critic
The institutional culture of the university is reshaping the everyday instincts of frontline police
Two-tier policing has become a familiar term used for the widespread suspicion that police in the UK apply inconsistent standards to different groups – a pattern often seen as symptomatic of bias or favouritism in the exercise of authority.
It is difficult to deny that such a pattern of policing exists. Take two recent examples. Montgomery Toms, a self-styled “freedom campaigner,” turned up at the London Pride march with a sign on which the trans flag was emblazoned, accompanied by the words “= mental illness”. This one-man counter-protest — for Pride itself, lest we forget, is a protest — was quickly dealt with by the Metropolitan Police through arrest and the imposition of a three-month exclusion order from the City of Westminster.
Just a few weeks later, when protests by local residents kicked off outside a hotel housing migrants in Epping, Essex Police took a very different approach to counter-protests. A reasonably large group of Stand Up to Racism activists were escorted by police from the tube station to the hotel, in order to facilitate their “lawful right to protest.” When things predictably became, in the words of the old East End, a little tasty, the police bussed the counter-protesters back to the station. You don’t need to agree with Toms or Stand Up to Racism to see the double standard.
One could find hundreds of similar examples. Each time this happens, a sizable number of social media users and many on the right-hand side of the media point out the discrepancy. There occasionally follows a denial by police and governing politicians that anything untoward or unfair is happening. Rinse and repeat. What is missing from this tedious repetition is a clear understanding that these discrepancies will continue to occur with monotonous regularity, and why they are bound to happen.