The police are ruining their reputation

The British free speech crisis has shown the British state at its worst: authoritarian, capricious, and unfair. It has made examples out of people who may have believed that Britain was a free country — issuing fines and jail sentences to people for political speech or jokes. It is ultimately eroding the public’s trust in the fairness of the law and, with it, the rule of law itself. 

Who are the police’s real constituents today? It is hard to say

While much opprobrium has been directed, correctly, at the political-legal class — the legislators, prosecutors and judges with the power to enact and enforce bad laws — the crisis has also exposed the worst aspects of policing and the police. Far from enforcing the laws of the land fairly and transparently, there is a growing perception among the public that the police are failing to carry out their duties, prioritising the wrong sorts of crimes. 

Who are the police’s real constituents today? It is hard to say. They seem to be alienating different chunks of the British public, group by group. The latest example is their seemingly endless enthusiasm for prosecuting speech crimes. Earlier this month, an activist called Martin Frost was arrested in Manchester on public order grounds for burning a copy of the Koran in public. Frost was protesting the murder of an anti-Islam activist in Sweden, a fact of which the police were notified. 

Regardless, they still decided to arrest him and press charges, with the courts hearing from a “victim” of the book-burning that seeing a Koran being burnt aggravated him so much that it was the “most emotion” he had “ever felt”. The police also decided to post his name and date of birth on social media after his arrest. While this is generally standard practice, there are many cases in which the police decline to do so, on the grounds of a suspect’s personal safety. Considering the likelihood of reprisals — with his very protest being against the murder of an activist — it is interesting they chose to go ahead with naming him.

Since then, it has been reported that West Midlands Police have renewed their persecution of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a Christian activist, for the supposed crime of silent prayer within 150 metres of an abortion facility. Vaughan-Spruce had been prosecuted by West Midlands Police before. She was acquitted in 2023 of breaching a Public Space Protection Order, and even won a £13,000 payout from the police who settled a claim that they had violated her human rights. 

On 10th February, new footage was published of a West Midlands Police officer — decked out in the modern police high-vis uniform — informing Vaughan-Spruce that her mere presence within a “buffer zone” around an abortion clinic constitutes “harassment, alarm and distress”. This is despite her previous acquittal and the Crown Prosecution Service issuing guidance in 2024 that silent prayer did not necessarily amount to a crime under the laws around protest outside abortion clinics. In 2023, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services found West Midlands Police to be performing poorly when it comes to investigation and solving crime, and achieving acceptable outcomes for victims. 

This follows high profile cases like the police investigations into Maya Forstater and Allison Pearson for speech crimes, and the recent arrest, trial and acquittal of former Royal Marine Jamie Michael for charges of stirring up racial hatred after posting a video on Facebook about the dangers of illegal immigration. In each of these cases, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service — when involved — have decided to prioritise the protection of minority rights and the maintenance of multiculturalism over freedom of expression. It is much like the behaviour of West Yorkshire Police who oversaw the forced, public apology by a woman in Wakefield to a room of Muslim men after her son was accused of damaging a copy of the Koran.

While senior police officers and commissioners frequently complain about constrained budgets when it comes to collapsing investigations into thefts and burglaries, public trust in the police and the rule of law is corroded by decisions to deploy significant resources to prosecute speech crime, including counter-terrorism officers. 

Nothing sums up the collapsing trust in the British police among the British right better than the explosion of complaints about “two-tier policing”. This became prominent after the 2024 riots, but reflects a longer-term trend, which came to a head during the pandemic. 

Since the Macpherson Report was published, anti-racism has been the official mantra of the British police, so much so that in the wake of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots of 2020, Avon and Somerset Police declared itself “institutionally racist.” Curiously, nobody resigned for this crime. Despite this institution-wide push, which included soft-hatted officers kneeling before BLM rioters in 2020 — contrasted with the batons and helmets deployed against anti-lockdown protesters in the same era — research found little improvement in trust in the police among black members of the public. 

The prosecution of speech crimes will erode public trust in the police and is taking us to anarcho-tyranny

Police forces up and down the land were infamous for heavy-handed policing of lockdown rules. From the violent response to the Sarah Everard vigil in London, to Derbyshire Police’s absurd use of drones to spy on people walking their dogs, the police behaved in an invasive and authoritarian fashion throughout the pandemic. Since the end of the pandemic, a wave of shoplifting, phone theft and burglaries has swept Britain, but the police have shown little interest in tackling it. 

While it is important to acknowledge that on-the-ground policing is downstream of the capacity and competence of Britain’s courts and prisons, as well as the unpredictable behaviour of the Independent Office for Police Conduct, every police force makes a choice in how it deploys its resources. One of the most common complaints among the public is that the police do not prioritise the correct crimes and are inaccessible or unseen to the public. It is especially frustrating because the recipes to success are clear: visits to every burglary, greater foot patrols, and getting out of the office. Ironically, considering their role in the prosecution of Martin Frost, it was Greater Manchester Police which exemplified this approach recently, coming out of special measures in 2023. 

The prosecution of speech crimes will erode public trust in the police and is taking us to anarcho-tyranny: the police will come after easy targets, and leave persistent criminals to run rampant. There is no British equivalent to the “thin blue line” movement in the United States, a segment of the population which will support the police come what may, and they may find themselves without a dependable public support base. While it is for politicians to repeal the laws which have killed free speech in Britain, the police must do their part too to revive Robert Peel’s founding principles and protect the safety, order and indeed liberties of the British people, instead of enforcing the political creed of multiculturalism over freedom, as many do today.