‘Abhorrent Idea’: Undercover Police to Patrol Pubs to Stop Harassment of Women

Protestors assemble in Parliament Square to demonstrate against Government's Police,
TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images
Victoria Friedman

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has unveiled a pilot scheme of undercover police officers patrolling pubs and nightclubs to look out for “predatory and suspicious offenders” following the killing of London woman Sarah Everard.

Mr Johnson went on to announce a doubling of funding for other measures such as street lights and CCTV.

“We must drive out violence against women and girls and make every part of the criminal justice system work to better protect and defend them,” the prime minister said, according to The Times.

Dubbed Project Vigilant, the pilot scheme would see undercover, or ‘plainclothes’, police going to pubs, bars, clubs, and other popular nightlife spots to look out for suspicious or predatory behaviour, relaying the intelligence to uniformed officers.

Director of Big Brother Watch Silko Carlo called the plans an “abhorrent idea”, which “I refuse to believe any (socialised) woman had any input to. I would feel so deeply uncomfortable in a bar full of secret police, I expect men would, too.”

Journalist Martin Daubney remarked: “Anybody who thinks undercover cops patrolling bars will be only used to ‘protect women’ aren’t paying attention.

“How many more liberties will we surrender before people wake up and realise: we are becoming an authoritarian, Stasi state that no longer resembles Britain?”

However, the government’s adviser on stopping violence against women, Nimco Ali — a friend of the prime minister’s liberal-progressive financée, Carrie Symonds — praised the initiative, describing it a “watershed moment” on Good Morning Britain, going on to call for “sexual harassment” on the street being “banned”.

A spokeswoman for the Reclaim the Streets movement, which had organised the London protests in contravention of coronavirus lockdown laws that prohibit gatherings, said while it welcomed the additional funding, women would not feel safe until “misogyny and racism” were tackled at an “institutional level within government, police and the criminal justice system”.

Radical feminist group Sisters Uncut — which describes itself as an “intersectional feminist direct-action collective” — was joined by Black Lives Matter-splinter group All Black Lives UK at Sunday’s Reclaim the Streets protest, which began outside of Scotland Yard.

Breitbart London exclusive reporting showed protesters shouting far-leftist slogans such as “No Justice, No Peace, Fuck the Police” and carrying banners reading “Abolish the Police” and “ACAB”, an acronym for “All Cops Are Bastards”.

The event followed the more peaceful vigil organised by Reclaim the Streets on Saturday. While the Met was criticised for breaking up the vigil on Saturday, where mourners had come to pay their respects and lay flowers, it admitted it took a more hands-off approach when the far-leftists protested on Sunday, stating it had made no arrests.

Monday saw further protests, which resulted in four arrests: three for lockdown breaches and one for the assault of an emergency worker. Despite the arrests, the BBC described the Met’s approach to policing the event as being once again a “hands-off approach”.

A poll by YouGov revealed that most Britons (43 per cent) did not think that Saturday’s vigil should have gone ahead, compared to 40 per cent who did, with 59 per cent saying that given the current coronavirus pandemic, no vigils, marches, or protests should be allowed to take place at all.

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