Politics: There Was No Ban

Politics: there was no ban

RICHARD NORTH

One thing that has been grumbling along in the media is controversy about the Aston Villa – Maccabi Tel Aviv game held on 6 November. This is largely due to the efforts of Nick Timothy, a former aide to Theresa May and now an MP in his own right.

Timothy has been particularly focused on the evidence supplied by West Midlands Police to the Birmingham City Council Safety Advisory Group (SAG) which supposedly led to a ban on the attendance of Maccabi fans at the game.

The issue has come under parliamentary scrutiny from the Commons home affairs committee, where WMP chief constable Craig Guildford has come under intense pressure, with subsequent calls for him to resign over alleged errors in the police intelligence supplied to the SAG, against a background of claims that the intelligence had been adapted to suit a preconceived decision by the SAG and the Maccabi fans

These matters came to a head yesterday, when Guildford was called back to the home affairs committee to explain alleged discrepancies, in addition to which Birmingham Council Leader John Cotton attended a separate session, accompanied by two officials, Anthony Cox, Director of Law and Governance, and Richard Brooks Executive of City Operations or Corporate Services, for Birmingham City Council.

As to the Council’s role in this affair, I have written about this several times, in particular this piece where I complained of the profound ignorance attendant on the reporting of the issue, and of Timothy’s poor understanding.

Of the many other pieces I wrote, this one on 21 October also stands out, where I published what I knew of the facts at the time, recording a parliamentary statement on the “Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban”, when Lisa Nandy, secretary of state for Culture, Media and Sport asserted that the decision (to impose a ban) was taken by Birmingham city council on the advice of the safety advisory group, and based on a risk assessment by West Midlands police.

Also of note is another piece where I explore some procedural aspects of the “ban” and refer to the strength of the local government administrative system, with multiple checks and balances built in, and the final longstop of allowing an appeal against any decisions.

Notwithstanding that the decision has turned Villa Park into a “no-go area” for Jews, I wrote, there should now be considerable concern that the administrative safeguards no longer seem to be working.

With the second meeting of the home affairs committee now done, we do not yet have a transcript but there is the video recording from which to work, which has left Nick Timothy trilling that “what was left of the credibility of West Midlands Police has been destroyed today”. We learned earlier, he wrote, “that their initial reason for banning Israelis from Villa Park was “the danger to away fans from armed locals”.

Given that Timothy’s credibility is also on the line, it is not improved by his insistence that WMP instigated the ban when – as he should know – the jurisdiction rests with the local authority, not the police.

It was, therefore, extremely helpful to have direct input from the local authority concerned and careful filleting of the evidence – which sailed over the heads of the committee MPs – elicited a startling fact. Put any which way you like, there was no ban.

Despite the torrent of headlines, in many shapes and forms, announcing the “ban” – and Lisa Nandy’s statement – there was no ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans attending the Aston Villa match. It never existed. The local authority, as the authority of record, never imposed a ban.

This came from Tony Cox, as he calls himself, who explained to the committee that the role of the SAG was “to provide specialist advice to the local authority in terms of ground safety”. He then stated that, in this case, the Group, having formed a view on the ill-fated match – gave their advice not to the local authority, but directly to Aston Villa FC, advising them to exclude Maccabi fans.

Cox then apprised the committee of his “understanding” of the procedure, venturing that, “if there is a disagreement about the advice that has been given, it is then for the council to actually see whether or not there needs to be action taken in relation to the safety certificate encompassing that ground”.

“That’s how any prohibition or restriction would be imposed upon the safety certificate in relation to attendance, for example”, he said. It was then left to Council leader John Cotton, later in the session, to add that, because Maccabi decided not to take up its allocation of tickets, this “changed the dynamic” and there was “no decision to be taken”.

Thus, a formal prohibition notice under the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 was never served on Aston Villa FC by Birmingham City Council. As to the “advice” given to Aston Villa FC, the SAG had no business communicating this to the club. This was not within its terms of reference, and it had no executive authority to do so.

What it amounted to, therefore, was a non-binding advisory recommendation which cannot, by definition, constitute a prohibition or a ban. Thus, while the outcome of the SAG’s action has been universally described as a “ban,” it was not a ban in any legal sense, and entirely unenforceable.

The interesting thing here is that Tony Cox, as director of law and governance, seems to have a flawed understanding of the statutory procedure (and the official circulars) while John Cotton, council leader, seems unconcerned that the proper procedure was not followed.

When I wrote earlier about “checks and balances” in the system, there is a reason for the somewhat convoluted decision-making structure and the separation of advisory and executive functions.

Cox and Cotton both suggested that it was not their role to second-guess the decision of the SAG yet that is precisely the reason for the two-stage process. Before committing to formal action, a senior officer of the council needed to check that the correct procedures were being followed and that the SAG was working within its remit, in conformity with the law.

In this, it is important to recall that the powers under the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 are exercisable only within the confines of the stadium itself, and not to the surrounding area. Yet, all the indications are that that concerns were entirely related to the threat of disorder outside the ground, which is entirely a police matter.

It looks, therefore, that the police might have been trying to dump their responsibilities on the council, abusing the law in the process by applying it for a purpose for which it was not intended. Any attempt to impose a ban would have been ultra vires.

As to the police, they have no specific pre-emptive powers to ban fans (as a group, rather than specified individuals) from a match, but they do have S.60 Stop and Search Powers (Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994), which were actually used pre-emptively on the day by West Midlands Police around the match area. That, and high visibility policing carried the day.

Thus, while the actions of the police in this affair are rightly of considerable interest, they are only part of the picture. Just as important is why the correct procedures were not followed by the local authority.

Not least, if there had actually been a formal prohibition notice, Aston Villa could have lodged a formal appeal and gained a public hearing in the magistrate’s court. The informal action deprived the club of that legal right.

Whether the law was being abused by certain actors as a means of banning the match remains to be seen but, if the local authority had correctly applied the law, it is hard to see whether a ban could have been justified even on the disputed grounds furnished by the police.

And yet, to this day, not a single media organ, nor two select committee hearings, nor any independent MP – particularly Nick Timothy – have sought critically to evaluate the role of the local authority.

This is a major lacuna, which speaks to the continued intellectual poverty of those who presume to lead us and govern in our name.

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Featured image: gamereactor.cz

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