Repeat that Beat! (A Benefit for The Advance Party)

 

The Advance Party actively campaigned around the Criminal Justice Act. In 1994 there were a number of marches and demonstrations against Tory changes to the Criminal Justice Bill which was seeking to criminalise and reduce citizens’ rights to protest, by implementing the following measures: i) ending the right to silence if one is arrested; ii) making picketing a criminal offence; iii) ending the right to peaceful protest; iv) outlawing events such as raves and festivals; v) making it an offence for travellers to stay on ‘private’ land; vi) locking up children as young as ten in private prisons run for profit; and vii) giving the police the right to stop and search in the street without just cause.

It appears they were still fighting the changes a year on in 1995. A march from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square on Sunday 24 July was supported by prominent Labour MPs – such as Bernie Grant, Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn – alongside Arthur Scargill, Paul Foot and Mike Mansfield QC (whose chambers represented Neville and Doreen Lawrence at the start of their fight for justice following the racially motivated murder of their son Stephen).