Posted on 09/15/2004 8:19:11 PM PDT by Happygal
Pro-hunting demonstrators descended on Westminster yesterday, storming into the Commons chamber and causing chaotic scenes inside and outside Parliament in a foretaste of a countryside uprising against a hunting ban.
After the worst breach of Commons security in living memory, armed police were placed at all entrances to the chamber - the first time MPs have had such a guard.
Protestors in the Commons Enlargement Despite the disruption, the Government succeeded in pushing the Hunting Bill through all its stages in one sitting and it was sent to the Lords.
Five demonstrators evaded recently-upgraded security to reach the floor of the chamber, using a forged letter that purported to show they had been invited to a site meeting to discuss building works inside the Palace of Westminster.
It is believed eight or nine men entered the building wearing hard hats and suits. Three were detained before they could enter the chamber.
Friends of the men, who included Luke Tomlinson, a friend of Prince William and Prince Harry and member of the England polo team, and Otis Ferry, the son of the rock singer Bryan Ferry, said they had given themselves only a 10 per cent chance of success.
The supporters of the invaders said they were astonished that on a day when there was a full-scale political protest outside Parliament, security could be so lax. The men reached the Speaker's chair and the front benches, only inches from where Tony Blair, the Cabinet and Opposition leaders had been sitting four hours earlier.
Shocked MPs and ministers watched as one protester harangued Alun Michael, the rural affairs minister, who is promoting the ban.
Commons officials, including Mark Harvey, the Assistant Serjeant at Arms, in tail coat, ceremonial sword, silk stockings and knee breeches, rushed forward to tackle the T-shirted invaders. The sitting was suspended for 20 minutes.
Eight men were arrested on suspicion of "uttering a forged instrument; burglary with intent to commit criminal damage and violent disorder". They were taken to a central London police station.
In an emergency statement at 10pm, Michael Martin, the Speaker, said that the intruders had gained access to the Palace of Westminster from the public St Stephen's entrance by using a forged invitation and once inside had been helped by a passholder.
"It is not clear yet whether this passholder, who apparently gave assistance to the intruders, was a member of staff, a member of the press, or an employee of a member. All these possibilities are being investigated," Mr Martin said.
He told a packed Commons that he had asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate and to provide a "significant additional squad of police officers to be deployed in the vicinity of the chamber today".
The security row escalated after it emerged that the BBC had been tipped off 24 hours earlier about a planned demonstration. A spokesman said that it had been decided "at an operational level" not to act on the information - partly as they were not convinced the protest would take place.
Andrew Marr, the BBC's political editor, said a dry-run of the protest had been carried out on Tuesday.
The security breakdown and violence occurred only three days after a demonstrator dressed as Batman breached the security cordon around Buckingham Palace.
But yesterday's lapse in Commons security was far more serious than Monday's incident at the palace, the throwing of flour bombs at Mr Blair from the visitors' gallery in May or the scaling of Big Ben in an anti-war protest in March.
MPs said it was the first violent intrusion on the floor of the Commons since the reign of Charles I - when the King entered the chamber on Jan 4, 1642, in an unsuccessful attempt to arrest five members.
Attendance in the Commons had been very thin as MPs debated the ban on hunting and hare coursing. The Bill was given a third reading by 356 votes to 166, a majority of 190. A motion to delay the ban until July 2006 - beyond the latest date for the next general election - was approved on a free vote.
Ministers have already served notice they will use the Parliament Act to overcome the expected opposition of the Lords to ensure the Bill becomes law this autumn.
Mr Blair remained behind a security screen in Downing Street and did not venture the few hundred yards through the angry crowd to the Commons to vote.
Violence had broken out earlier in Parliament Square. Police, apparently under little provocation, used truncheons to batter the heads of protesters who were shocked at the force used against them.
Nineteen people were injured, two of them police officers, and 11 demonstrators were arrested for public order offences.
Although the mass protest had started in good natured fashion, the police were caught off guard by its scale. The organisers claimed that there were 20,000 taking part but the police put the figure at half that.
A succession of Tory MPs addressed the crowd, promising to repeal the Bill, "a class war measure", if they won the next election.
Simon Hart, of the Countryside Alliance, said he did not condone law breaking, but Labour was "destroying people's lives in some perverted game of political football".
Mr Blair's decision to press forward with a ban - after years of trying to evade a decision - has been seen as an attempt to re-energise Labour's core vote after the anger within the party over the Iraq war.
The scale and intensity of the protests - which drew comparisons with the poll tax demonstrations when Margaret Thatcher was in power - surprised and alarmed many MPs.
It was seen as a sign that many members of a normally law-abiding "middle Britain" could be prepared to conduct a campaign of civil disobedience if the ban goes ahead.
a) I'm with the hunters on this one. Traditional country life pursuits are eroded for a few bleeding heart PETA candidates.
b) The ease of how the protestors (a few farmers frankly) got into the House of Commons is worrisome. Al Queda are taking notes on stuff like this.
One for you ping list?
One thing I've noticed about the British... When they go overboard, they go waaaay overboard, but they manage to do it with more class than our liberal protesters...
Correction, the traditionalist British protesters do it with class and the result is almost always humorous.
I agree, it's funny...if it wasn't so serious.
I mean in one week, we had a bloke in a Batman suit on Buckingham Palace, and a crowd of farmers storming the Commons!
Security, me arse!
unarmed tax paying peons
confronted by
armed police protecting those who live off the peon's extorted tax money
welcome to Kerryland
BTW, I think the Fox hunting ban is nothing more than pandering to urban 'sophisticates' who want to meddle in country pursuits.
Hunting is a sport that dates back to 1660.
Pro-hunting demonstrators clash with police outside the Houses of Parliament in London, September 15, 2004. Fox hunting could be outlawed across Britain after hundreds of years as parliament votes on Wednesday to ban it against a backdrop of deafening street protests and political wrangling.
They need to hire the farmers and hunters to help provide security. Issue them big guns too and an unlimited hunting license to go with it!
This works. Do not ask me how I know, but it works. Well actually I discovered this trick years ago with a buddy who is a Union electrician. Don't try this in high-security/Secret Service areas.
There's some pretty tough looking blokes in that crowd. I just wish that group would have run into some hunting ban supporters from PETA having their own little march.
This is probably the 3rd time that security at the Brit Parliament has been breached seriously in under 6 months-remember that incident when a few "father's rights"blokes sprayed a purple powder(turned out be harmless) onto Blair himself as he was making a speech in the well of the house.
The Brits will only learn if they faced a terrorist attack like the one on the Indian Parliament in 2001-it is now extremely tightly guarded institution now,with the likes of the Israeli Knesset.
armed police were placed at all entrances to the chamber - the first time MPs have had such a guard.
Excellent news. A foretaste of what politics could be like if American (or Britain) had a serious, balls-out Right that did more than bitch and moan.
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