Consolidating ‘traditional methods’ of public order policing: the response of the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police to mass demonstrations in 1968

Abstract

This article examines the response of the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police to mass demonstrations in 1968. Using a variety of contemporaneous sources, including underused archival material, documents released through freedom of information requests, and evidence disclosed as part of the ongoing Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI), it shows how the experience of mass demonstrations that year, which came against the backdrop of widespread international protest, prompted significant developments in terms of crowd control tactics, covert intelligence gathering practices and the use of new technology to enable greater command and control over police resources. Taken together, these measures represented a permanent change to the public order capacity of the Metropolitan Police, providing a model that was gradually exported to other forces across England and Wales with the encouragement of the Home Office. However, despite the significant changes introduced in 1968, this article shows how police officers, civil servants, and politicians emphasised the continuation of ‘traditional methods’, a term that functioned as a way of situating public order policing within an idealised image of a uniquely English policing tradition, with an appeal to historical continuity that aimed to convey legitimacy and construct consent.