Mass Lone Demonstrations.

Thanks to a friend for flagging this up - did you know that in order to protest around Parliament Square in London, you need police permission? Where's the civil liberties

A regulation of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) establishes a 1-mile radius exclusion zone for public protests around Parliament Square, in front of the Houses of Parliament. To hold any kind of demonstration, you have to apply to the Metropolitan Police six days in advance, giving details of your demonstration and have it approved. Failure to do so is an arrestable offence. This is the only such regulation anywhere in the country, and that it is right at the seat of democracy makes it even more ludicrous. Why do we need police permission to hold a lone demonstration, in a public area, especially in front of our elected representatives?

Satirist Mark Thomas is trying to coordinate mass lone demonstrations - as many people as possible applying to demonstrate on the third Wednesday of every month to illustrate the downright silliness of this law. The above link provides all the details of how you can join in and what you need to do. Yes, the police will have quite a bit more work having to process all these applications to demonstrate - but that's just the point, and they should be off doing more worthwhile things like chasing after bad guys, not having to spend time simply to re-give us the right to demonstrate .