IN THE period between 2018 and 2020, the Call it Out Campaign managed to build up a widespread presence in the Scottish media and, therefore, the public consciousness. The message it spread, arguably for the first time ever in Scotland, was that anti-Catholic hate marches could not continue in the same numbers and in the same format.
We began to engage with different divisions of the Police Service of Scotland (PSoS)—notably in Greater Glasgow and North and South Lanarkshire—to try to overturn the decades-old belief that this practice was just ‘normal,’ it was ‘how it had always been.’
We made it clear to senior police officers that their role was not to act as some kind of ‘honest brokers’ between two warring tribes; that Scotland, two decades into the second millennium, was a modern, democratic state with a network of legally-based rights; that they, the local authorities and the Scottish Government were duty-bearers and that our community—and others—consisted of citizens who were rights-holders.
We made it clear that if there were ‘two sides’ then that consisted of us and the various duty-bearers and that we had no particular interest in the other sets of bilateral relationships, which undoubtedly exist—that was their problem to manage.
We also made some inroads into establishing that they had a duty to operate the legislation in relation to processions/parades in its entirely and not to cherry-pick the bits that suited them. The legislation, the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 63(8)a makes clear that when a public procession is notified to the local authority in which it is planned to take place, the local authority must consider the likely effect of the proposed procession, its timing or its route, on:
(i) Public safety
(ii) Public order
(iii) Damage to property;
(iv) Disruption of the life of the community
Moreover, they must consider whether it would place an ‘excessive burden on the police’ and whether any previous procession breached any prohibition or condition imposed on it or whether any code of conduct was ‘generally followed’.
In practice, local authorities rely on the police—the only statutory consultee—to tell them if any of this is relevant. If they don’t, council officers do not convene their Processions Committee and the procession goes ahead as notified. All good so far... except the police only ever, prior to 2018, considered items (i), (ii) and (iii) (usually only (i)) and previous conduct (well... sometimes).
Under pressure
During the period 2018-2020, due to the pressure of our campaign and its peaceful and organised nature, we were able to convince them that ‘disruption to the life of the community’ was particularly relevant for anti-Catholic marches going past Catholic churches and especially in those parts of the city where these take place on a weekly basis during the summer. Some divisions of the PSoS began to carry out the Community Impact Assessments which are necessary in order to assess any ‘disruption to the life of the community.'
On the basis of these changes, an anti-Catholic march in 2019 was subjected to an order by Glasgow City Council and was not allowed to go ahead as notified. The organisers (Apprentice Boys of Derry) challenged this in the Sheriff Court. In an eminently readable—not to say highly enjoyable—judgement by Sheriff Reid in October of 2019, the legal position was made crystal clear. Citizens do not have an absolute right to march where and when they please albeit that such a right is not to be interfered with without very good cause. In effect—trying to avoid a spoiler here—the rights of other citizens must be balanced against the qualified right to march.
That particular march did not go ahead. Indeed, the route requested, which took the marchers past St Alphonsus Church on London Road, Glasgow, has not been used since, despite a number of attempts by anti-Catholic organisers to use it.
So far so good. Then comes Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdown, during which, no procession took place. I now admit to a certain degree of naivety in that I had hoped that the natural break in this ‘tradition’ caused by a global pandemic might be sufficient to allow the anti-Catholic organisers to have a good look at themselves and realise that the time was up for their ‘croppies lie down’ triumphalism and flagrant anti-Catholic bigotry being paraded on Scotland’s streets. Sadly, that has not turned out to be the case.
In the period since 2022 we have seen the numbers of such marches increasing annually and will, without intervention, no doubt revert to the pre-Covid-19 numbers of 300-400 a year, constituting an overwhelming proportion of all processions in Glasgow and some other local authorities in Scotland.
More worrying is that the officers within the PSoS and in local authorities charged with managing public processions, appear to have reverted to the pre-2018 understanding of the legislation.
Cowardly councillors?
In recent correspondence/communication with a citizen who is concerned about such marches, a council officer from North Lanarkshire said ‘they were entitled to it’ because of ‘human rights legislation!’
If local press reports are anything to go by, similar misunderstanding of the legal position appear to be held by councillors and officers of local authorities across Scotland including Inverclyde, Glasgow and South Lanarkshire.
The Provost of Inverclyde, in a humiliating climb-down was forced to apologise for an article he wrote in which he tried to dismiss all concerns about the ingrained and institutional anti-Catholic bigotry which these processions, and the management of them, represents. He did this in a half-joking, half-earnest piece in the Greenock Telegraph in which he suggested that it would all be jolly good fun and a bit of colour and ‘swagger.’
In the piece carrying the apology, Provost McKenzie—in tones which suggested he had a considerable degree of sympathy for himself—opined that a former colleague had advised him, in relation to Orange marches, as follows: “Do not support, do not oppose, just let it happen.” The extent to which that particular councillor took seriously his obligation to balance the rights of different parts of the community is made abundantly clear in that advice.
However, I would suggest that his advice has been shared and is followed by close to 100 per cent of all councillors across Scotland. Those who actively support these marches should be credited with at least having the courage of their—dubious —convictions. The rest of the spineless cowards who walk our municipal chambers continue to keep their heads down and their mouths shut.
A recent article in The National revealed that of the public processions taking place in June and July of this year, Catholic churches will be disproportionately affected. One in four Catholic churches in Glasgow will have Orange Marches (29) pass by them—in line of sight—and a further 10 will pass directly in front of them.
An Orange Order spokesperson was quoted as saying: “Our parade routes are not picked to cause offence...” I will leave it to the reader to judge whether this is a credible claim given that the occasions before 2020 when routes were changed to avoid Catholic churches, the planned processions were cancelled.
Forgotten judgement
Sheriff Reid’s judgement appears to have been very conveniently forgotten, especially in Glasgow where the Public Processions Committee has not been convened by the outgoing Chief Executive, Annmarie O’Donnell for some years.
Ms O’Donnell, who retired in May of this year, is succeeded by Susanne Millar who—going by the fact that anti-Catholic marchers in the City of Glasgow were facilitated by her from 5am till 4pm on Saturday July 6—is following her predecessor’s practice. I say ‘by her’ because she also failed to convene the Public Processions Committee to consider whether any of this constitutes ‘disruption to the life of the community.’
Worse than this, it now appears that Glasgow City Council have been ‘planning’ this ‘Festival of Anti-Catholic Hatred’ (my term) with the Greater Glasgow Division of the Police Service of Scotland for the past ten months! It also appears that the latter are satisfied that there will be no ‘disruption to the life of the community.’
Call it Out has written to the new Divisional Commander, Chief Superintendent Lynn Ratcliff to ask her precisely how such satisfaction has been established. We await her reply.
I am sure readers of The Irish Voice will be interested to know why the Police Service of Scotland and Glasgow City Council are working with a hate group to facilitate their events—events which are catalysts for anti-Catholic hatred in the only Scottish city with a majority of Catholics in it. I encourage you all to write to your public representatives and to CS Ratcliff to ask to be updated.
I further encourage you to make it your business to question all your local representatives on this issue and to ensure, without placing yourselves at risk, to take note of any directly observed misconduct during these marches which you can then convey to the local Police Division either directly or via Call it Out.
In the meantime, we, as an organisation, will meet soon to consider how we can recover the small gains we thought we had made prior to 2020. One day this will all seem extremely odd—a strange and regressive practice which should never have been tolerated. People might even ask, why didn’t anyone say anything? Let’s make sure that history records that some of us did.
Jeanette Findlay is the Chair of Call It Out: The Campaign Against Anti-Catholic Bigotry and Anti-Irish Racism
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