2009-03-21
Scotland Yard issued a stark warning of violent disorder in the City of London on the eve of the G20 summit, with the police stretched to their limit in the middle of an extraordinary week of public protest.
Anarchists, environmentalists and anti-globalisation groups are collaborating to mount an “unprecedented” sequence of demonstrations across London and police chiefs fear that they will be playing cat and mouse with militants.
The cost of the operation to protect the City and the summit on the first two days of April could hit £10 million, more than five times the cost of the 2001 May Day demonstration. At least 1,000 anti-capitalist demonstrators plan to converge on the Bank of England and will be met by 2,500 uniformed police, many equipped with riot gear. Hundreds more officers will be deployed in security operations at the G20 summit venue in East London and protecting locations where 40 delegations of world leaders will be staying.
City bosses have been advised to cancel meetings and place extra security on their offices in anticipation of trouble on what the protesters have labelled Financial Fools’ Day.
The officer commanding the police response said that a hard core of protesters was intent on storming buildings and provoking violence. “Everything is up for grabs. That is the aspiration, to get in and clog up these City institutions as best they can,” Commander Bob Broadhurst, of the Metropolitan Police, said. “We are seeing unprecedented planning among protest groups. Some of the groups of the late 90s are coming back to the fore and there is a coming together of anarchists, anti-globalisation groups and environmentalists. They are plotting and planning what they are going to do and the picture is changing almost every minute. They have some very clever people and their intention on April 1 is to stop the City.”
The summit eve is the most dangerous flashpoint in a week of demonstrations and other big events, including two England football internationals, that require public order policing. Mr Broadhurst said: “This is a challenging week. It is what we do and what we do best, but it is not often you get 20 world leaders plus. I think we live in extraordinary times and this has led to an extraordinary event, which will bring a challenge to the Met.”
Protesters are talking online about “a summer of rage” marking the tenth anniversary of the J18 anti-capitalism protest, in which there was widespread rioting and vandalism in the City. Organisers are communicating on blogs, forums and social networking sites and will change their tactics on the day by text-message alerts.
The G20 Meltdown site states: “We can’t pay, we won’t pay and we are taking to the streets. At 12 noon, April 1st, we’re going to reclaim the City, thrusting into the very belly of the beast: the Bank of England.”
The police’s ability to pre-empt trouble is hampered because they cannot obtain intercept warrants to gather intelligence for public order matters. There is no intelligence pointing to imminent terrorist activity but Britain’s threat level remains “severe” and there will be a big security operation to protect the delegations.
A big potential flashpoint will come when roads have to be closed to allow diplomatic convoys to travel between their accommodation, the summit venue and official receptions at Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. Mr Broadhurst said that the coincidence of security and public order operations was always problematic.
Britain is not immune to the danger of serious social unrest and public disorder as a result of the economic crisis, a report said yesterday. Bouts of social unrest will disrupt economies and topple governments around the world over the next two years, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, which rated the threat of upheaval as “grave” and named 95 countries as being at high or very high risk. Britain was rated as being at “moderate” risk, but the document made clear that this was “far from a clean bill of health”.