Editorial: The right to peacefully protest is as British as the monarchy

We are thinking much of tradition at the moment, and of what it means to be British. One of the unalienable rights available to Brits is, that as long as you’re not hurting anybody, you have the ability to speak your mind unheeded. 

Yesterday two Edinburgh men were arrested for breach of the peace for yelling republican slogans at the Queen’s coffin, a day after a woman was nicked for similar on the Royal Mile.

Now, quite what they were hoping to achieve by protesting at that precise point remains unclear – surrounded as they were by committed monarchists, in a country dominated by monarchists, most of whom are feeling at their most monarchist at this moment. Such a protest is unlikely to have sparked rebellion. Another man was arrested in Oxford for shouting ‘who elected him?’ when the King was proclaimed. It’s not exactly high treason.

None of these people sound like they’d be especially fun at dinner parties, but it is their right to voice dissent to the monarchy – just as it is the right of others in the crowd to tell them to keep their views to themselves. It is at these moments of national significance that it is is more vital than ever that we remember the democratic freedoms that our ancestors have fought for and that have been protected not just in our name but in the name of the monarchy, too. 

There are myriad examples of the police overstepping their role in recent years, from the absurd (yelling at people through a loudspeaker for sitting on a bench in lockdown) to the downright offensive (the policing of the Sarah Everard vigil in Clapham Common). These are small, and perhaps relatively insignificant examples. 

But just as we embark on what will be a deeply emotional week, it is worth remembering that it is not just the Queen or the King or the pomp and circumstance that makes Britain great – it is also the ability of any prat with an opinion to voice it, wherever they like, without fear of the state – just as it is the right of others around them to tell them to put a sock in it.