LONDON — Westminster’s Parliament Square is sinking into “squalor and disorder” amid rising crime and fear from MPs and peers that they’ll be attacked by protestors, a Westminster think tank has warned.
Analysis by the right-of-center Policy Exchange think tank — published Monday — finds that violent crime in the streets around the parliamentary estate has risen two-and-a-half times faster than in London as a whole – and three-and-a-half times faster than for the Westminster borough as a whole over the past decade.
Between 2013/14 and 2021/22, recorded violent crime increased by 168 percent on streets or parts of streets within a quarter-mile of parliament. That compares to a 67 percent rise in London and a 47 percent rise in the Westminster borough.
“Nowhere else in Europe, with the possible exception of the Eiffel Tower, is more famous, or more emblematic of its nation,” said report author Andrew Gilligan, a former adviser to Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London. “Yet what should be a showpiece has declined into a degree of squalor and disorder.”
Public order offenses also increased around parliament by 252 percent compared to 93 percent in London and 75 percent for Westminster borough.
Gilligan’s report says the rise in offenses coincided with relaxed rules on Westminster protests, and warns that “extreme left-wing and right-wing protestors” are able to threaten MPs, ministers and journalists doing their jobs.
Local police come in for some criticism in the report for allowing serious potential security threats to develop, including the erection of semi-permanent structures which could be used to hide a bomb.
Gilligan warns that some MPs and peers have already said they are afraid to walk outside parliamentary buildings at certain times and lack confidence the police will protect them. Control of public spaces around parliament is currently split between eight different official agencies, his report highlights.
The report recommends placing a new statutory duty on police to protect the U.K.’s democratic institutions and access to the parliamentary estate for those who have business there. It says Westminster City Council should take out a wider Public Space Protection Order to cover anti-social behavior around Parliament. And the report is calling for a “controlled area” for protests to be restored to pre-2011 — broadly within one kilometer of parliament.
