To celebrate the world’s first totally online Artrocker music festival XX Teens took a big banner to Parliament Square to advertise the world’s first totally XX Teens music album.
We never asked for a 20 ft banner but there was some Spinal Tap style confusion between inches and miles and the little stickers we were planning to stick on lampposts and toilet doors arrived as a giant roll of sticky banners. We stuck them in the cupboard with the old band members and Xerox paraphernalia and pretended it never happened.
Then someone suggested we took one to a protest. XX Teens have always been passionately apolitical and furiously apathetic, so the idea of going to a protest filled us with studied cool and aloof disinterest. Perfect. Perhaps if we started campaigning for the redistribution of wealth and social equality, we’d get to be multimillionaire media tycoons, like Bob Geldof? He only had one song too. We were very excited.
The protest was to disrupt George Bush’s visit to London. Historically, protests and demonstrations have only ever had any effect on episodes of Grange Hill. We just went to appropriate some genuine political dissent to promote our album about hats and girls.
We wore white boiler suits because we heard the other protesters would be grubby; we didn’t want them soiling our suits. We got recognised straight away and the police went through a very elaborate routine, cautioning us under terrorism laws, -just to get our photos.
It turns out The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act means that we no longer have the right to peaceful protest (or advertising). The Terrorism Act allows the police to stop and search anyone, anywhere for any reason. The Anti Social Behaviour laws allow them to issue an order banning you from any activity, even if it isn’t illegal.
If you break the ban you can go to prison for up to five years. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act means that the police can force you to pay them an on the spot fine for saying anything ‘likely to cause disorder’. Two years ago a student was ordered to pay £80 for calling a horse gay.
We no longer have habeas corpus. The Anti Social Behaviour laws allow hearsay as evidence. You can now go to jail because someone said you did something that the police decide they didn’t want you to do. You don’t need to break the law and they don’t need to prove it. If you get arrested, the police will take your fingerprints and your DNA - if necessary by force. You’re details will be kept forever, even if you’re found innocent.
It’s over 700 years since the Magna Carta was signed. It protected the rights of the individual through countless wars and a revolution. Now it’s gone. Welcome to Goon Island.
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