"Operation Bridger" or "Operation Bodger"?
My experience of "police protection" for a Party Of Women candidate yesterday. Is it just a tick-box exercise?
(At East Finchley annual family festival, Sunday 23 June 2024).
Operation Bridger has been extended this year, for the first time since WW2, following the murders of two MPs in recent years, assaults on candidates, their campaign offices, and homes, and intimidation of staff and unpaid volunteers.
In February this year the Security Minister in the previous Parliament, Tom Tugendhat, announced that because of the escalation of intimidation of politicians and their staff, especially women, including real life attacks, he was extending police security to ALL elected representatives “and candidates”.
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/statement-on-the-security-of-elected-representatives
This is the first time this has ever been offered to prospective MPs below the level of former Ministers.
He used the words “all elected representatives". As this was way before the surprise snap election, this presumably includes elected local councillors, all 17,000 of them!
He used the words “and candidates”.
There are 4,379 candidates standing in the General Election, more than ever before, for 98 different parties, and numerous Independents. It's wonderful to see so many people stepping up to take part in our democracy.
Every one of those individuals represents a circle of their family, friends and supporters, who may be learning for the very first time how our process to get elected works.
Not every one of them will need or ask for extra security. But they have all been sent police - authored safety instructions from their local councils, and the details of their local police protection contact person. The sort of advice they are getting has been standard for Ministers, and politicians in Northern Ireland, for a long time.
Yesterday I was able to see for myself whether one of our Party Of Women candidate, (who are especially vulnerable because of organised opposition and violent threats towards us), received her promised support, or if Operation Bridger is just a tick-boxing exercise.
We arrived at the front gate of East Finchley’s annual family festival at Midday. We handed out leaflets to hundreds of people going in and out, and spoke to them on a mic and mini-“boombox”. (Which was the most fun standing up I’ve had for years")!
(The thing that looks like a micro-peen hanging from my waist is a “corpse-finger from my Goth days! Well, I thought it was funny)!
My pal and I only stayed for 3 hours because it's a long round trip from Bristol!
It was amazing fun, the vast majority of the public were friendly and courteous, even if they didn't want our leaflets.
Only one or two deluded youngsters tried to waffle our amazing candidate with troon nonsense (“we're all committing suicide” etc - not very noticeably), and she talked patiently to them about our policies until they got bored and left!
There were a couple of women who were glaring, taking photos and busy on their phones- maybe tweeting about how hateful we were! But no organised opposition turned up, so they had to fume away to themselves!
It was very noticeable that it was WOMEN who were most antagonistic- the men were invariably calmer, for example one guy who handed a leaflet back and said “ not for me, I'm afraid, but good for you for standng”!
(This is known as as politeness and civility, two of those “British Values” we are constantly told don't exist any more).
The candidate, Katherine Murphy, stayed with her two other helpers until about 6pm. She said the festival can get rowdy after that, as people get drunker at the bars, so that was her self imposed time limit.
She had contacted her Operation Bridger contact two days before, and informed them of the time of her campaign event, and got gratifyingly personal responses. Mind you, she had to lay it on thick about the necessity of protection, by sending them links to exmples of aggressive organised abuse of women speaking in public.
Example: Let Women Speak in Brighton, at the same time we were at Finchley!
It will make you think you've been transported back to a Medieval village fair, when they brought out the witches! https://www.youtube.com/live/n4Sgw2jsDJA?si=wyy62pLt5SanwSQf
She also detailed to them online abuse and threats she'd received and her personal history of abuse.
All seemed to be going well with the police contact, until she received an email saying they couldn't find anyone available to do the job! Reminder, all police forces can dip into the £31M pot of Operation Bridger for this purpose. Surely offering a plod some much-needed overtime for easy duty on a Sunday afternoon at a family festival isn't THAT hard?
1st black mark for “Bodger”.
So we were on our own, and if anything kicked off, we would have to call 999 like everyone else, although you would hope and expect that if a candidate identifies themselves and tells the operator to alert Operation Bridger…well, what WOULD we expect?
The festival security plod came out to meet us right at the start, with a cheerful “everything ok for you out here"?
Which was encouraging, but after a couple of hours someone (an elderly woman) complained about us distributing “hate leaflets", so we were “on”, as theAmericans say!
She had been haranguing our male supporter, who was round at another entrance to the park. He had his small elderly dog on a lead with him (she's a regular at Reformers Tree) and she gets a bit yappy when scared, so I suspect she was part of the “hate"!
Two local plods arrived on the scene, and on my life, I'm 5ft 1, and they were smaller than me! A boy and a girl, who seemed to be about 15. Both very nervous, the lad said “Wots going on here then"? I was standing next to the candidate and got in quick with “this is a general election candidate, under Operation Bridger”!
Cue glazed expressions from Plod, you could see their brains whirring, like, “Oh dear, that sounds official, we'd better look it up"! They disappeared inside the park, and that was the last we saw or heard of them!
At some point they presumably did look it up, and also found out that any general election candidate’s leaflets (which have to be approved by both the Electoral Commission and Royal Mail) can hardly be called “hate speech”! (Now you start to understand the genius of Kellie-Jay Keen in setting up this political party).
I had the strong impression that the words “Operation Bridger” had worked a bit of magic!
Standard Party Of Women “Non-Hate Leaflets” example!
After we had left, and were struggling with the train delays and cancellations at Paddington, the candidate texted me, with “the police have just turned up"!
I naturally asked “Oh dear, are you being arrested"?
She replied “No, OUR police"! Operation Bridger had finally put in their appearance, 5 hours late!
2nd black mark for “Bodger”!
Katherine is so easily pleased, she was grateful they turned up at all! 😂 They then told her to always contact them when planning a campaign event - as if she hadn't done that already - she was able to show them their email apologising for not finding anyone!
3rd black mark for “Bodger"!
I am not implying that female candidates, or even our Party Of Women candidates, are the only ones in danger during this election campaign. Look at Farage, look at Raja Miah in Oldham.
Any candidate who is assaulted or seriously hurt will represent a humiliating failure for Operation Bridger, and I sincerely hope, a national outcry.
But if you're reading this substack, you are already well aware of the history of the specific targeting of women who dare to speak in the Public Square.
Kellie-Jay Keen has evolved the original Standing for Women with its slogan “Take back the Public Square, one corner at a time". It's now a political party which effectively legalizes our message to the public AND provides - on paper at least - police protection for our candidates.
Let's hope Operation Bridger does its job, and all candidates benefit from it.
And good luck to all Party Of Women candidates out on the stump! Just like at East Finchley on Sunday, they appear to be having a lot of fun! Why not come and join us?
Go to partyofwomen.org and “our candidates” to see all of them. There’s a donation button and “how can I help". Plus, if these amazing brave ladies inspire you, why not press the “Become a candidate” button?
And join the only party that places women and girls front and centre! We don't dilute our message - we leave that to other organisations who say they speak for women.
Many members of the public expressed their appreciation yesterday, of both our leaflet, and the candidate's bravery. As you can see here:
Great read
Bev White, the POW candidate for our neighbouring constituency seems to be getting on well enough with her campaign, and the local paper gave her 250 words on the NHS last week -more considered and thoughtful than the other parties. She did say the subject th8s week was potholes