Public Order
Debate between Sammy Wilson and Caroline Lucas(1 year, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I am a Protestant. I have sought to live up to that title throughout my political involvement. I have taken part in many protests, as Protestants should. That is why we got our name: protesting about various things. I have been involved in noisy protests, disruptive protests, protests about the closure of schools, about traffic running through streets and about the Housing Executive knocking down houses, and protests about major political decisions made in this place that were going to disadvantage Northern Ireland as a part of the United Kingdom. Sometimes we did not need megaphones, because we had our previous party leader. I suspect that some of the protests we engaged in may well have fallen foul of this legislation.
The one thing I do know, however, is that when we engage in protest, we have to recognise that if we step beyond the bounds of what is allowed, we have to take the consequences. It is as simple as that. There have to be consequences, because protests cannot be unlimited. They have to be balanced against the impact they have on the lives of people who are not interested in the protest or maybe even oppose it, but who are nevertheless affected by it. That is why this legislation is necessary.
Over the last number of years, we have increasingly seen protest methods used by people who are entirely selfish. Sometimes they represent a very small minority—usually protesters are minorities anyway—but are determined to have their cause listened to. They do not even make any bones about it. They go out of their way to have a detrimental impact on other people in order to, as I have heard some of them say, make them listen, to make them wake up and to make them pay attention to their cause, even though, as I pointed out in an intervention, sometimes that cause is totally hypocritical. For example, they protest against taking oil and gas out of the ground, yet are quite happy to drive miles to their protest. Some even fly on private jets to join protests, yet seem to have no idea or awareness of the hypocrisy of their actions.
