Tag Archives: manifesto club

How to criminalise virtually everyone

By Mary Reid | Mon 29th February 2016 - 4:03 pm

I had not heard of the Manifesto Club until today, when the BBC Today programme featured their report into Public Space Protection Orders (1 hour 21 minutes in).

On their website they claim:

The Manifesto Club campaigns against the hyperregulation of everyday life. We support free movement across borders, free expression and free association. We challenge booze bans, photo bans, vetting and speech codes – all new ways in which the state regulates everyday life on the streets, in workplaces and in our private lives.

We believe that the freedom issues of the twenty-first century cut across old political boundaries, and require new schools of political thought, and new methods of campaigning and organisation.

Our membership hails from all political traditions and none, and from all corners of the world.

Back to Public Space Protection Orders: last month the Manifesto Club published a report called PSPOs: A busybodies’ charter. These are orders that local councils have been allowed to enact over the last year or so under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act, with minimal consultation. Indeed 79 local authorities have already done so, usually because they want to reduce anti-social behaviour. But the impact of these orders sometimes goes far beyond the intended targets and can seriously curb the human rights of citizens.