When protesters deny freedom of association and expression to others, they lose their ‘right’ to protest.

The Paul Richards column

There is something profoundly disturbing in the news that Tony Blair’s publishers have cancelled both book signings and the launch event for “A Journey”. The book sold over 92,000 copies in its first four days on sale. On Sunday, it will enter the Sunday Times bestselling list at number one. “A Journey” has already been reprinted six times. Regardless of your views on Blair and Blairism, no-one can deny that his book is flying off the shelves. Importantly, it’s being bought, read and discussed by an audience well beyond what the Americans call the Beltway. When my book Labour’s Revival appears at the end of the month, I imagine I will know personally the majority of people who read it. Blair’s book, by contrast, has broken through to a mass audience.

Many of those people planned to get their copies signed by the author. They have been prevented from doing so by a vicious band of wreckers ranging from Stop the War thugs to the BNP. I took part in a BBC radio phone-in with a representative of the Stop the War coalition during the week. He sounded like the ranting SWP-ers I recall from student politics. It took mere seconds before he berated Israel. He was delighted that his tiny sect had denied freedom to the majority of people who wanted to attend Blair’s book signing. He viewed it as a ‘victory’. I think it smacked of fascism.

Protest is an important part of British culture. It remains the hallmark of a decent society, of the kind ruthlessly eradicated by Saddam Hussein and the Taliban. I support the rights of people to protest, picket, demonstrate and make their point, no matter how ill-informed, prejudiced and muddle-headed. Those that chose to move the book from the autobiography to the crime or fiction sections made their point with irony and without violence. But there is a distinction between the freedom to protest, and the hate-filled activities of those who deny freedom to others. When protesters deny freedom of association and expression to others, they lose their ‘right’ to protest.

I think there are people in the Stop the War coalition who think Iraq was better off under the Baath Party than the current democratic government. They regret the removal of a regime which routinely used execution, rape and torture to repress its citizens, and used weapons of mass destruction to massacre its enemies. For these people, as with the BNP, protest is not a manifestation of a liberal, pluralist democracy, but a stepping stone to a dictatorship with them in charge. The Trots call it vanguardism – they lead, we follow. Those who dissent disappear. For that reason there was more at stake than whether Blair’s suit got egged, or even the cost of policing the signings. There is an important principle in play – that if a citizen wants to meet another citizen and ask them to sign a book, no-one should be able to use violence and threats to prevent it. If you’ve followed these weekly columns over the past 14 months, you’ve have spotted that I am seldom disappointed by Tony Blair. I know it’s controversial for a Labour Party member to admire a successful Labour Party leader; it might even catch on. But I am disappointed that Blair didn’t face down the thugs and fascists, and go ahead with the Freedom Signings, as someone would have probably dubbed them. If someone wants to go to a bookshop, no-one should stand in their path.

Paul Richards’s new book ‘Labour’s Revival‘ is out at the end of the month.