We can't risk another 'one we got away with' when Trump comes calling

The Herald Scotland

3 days ago

The 2005 G8 summit was anticipated to draw some of the largest protests ever seen at such an event. In anticipation, thousands of officers had been extensively trained in crowd and riot control at the long-since abandoned Law Hospital in South Lanarkshire during the previous year. Everyone I know who undertook that training still describes it as among the best they ever received.
There is no question this was the biggest security event ever to face Scottish policing – and arguably one of the most significant peacetime security challenges ever faced across the UK. You can't bring together the presidents of the United States, Russia, and France, the chancellor of Germany, and the prime ministers of Canada, Italy, Japan and the UK under one roof without inducing sweaty palms among those tasked not only with keeping them alive but ensuring they come to no harm whatsoever.
Read more by Calum Steele
When the stakes are at their highest, every politician suddenly remembers that policing is the nation's number one priority. Any hint of being unable to guarantee the safety of the world's leaders would be devastating to national pride and credibility. A four-, five-, or six-hour wait at A&E is suddenly reduced to a policy footnote.
As the summit began, it quickly became clear that highly organised protestors were pushing the police to their limits. Demonstrations and attempts to shut down the A9, coupled with repeated efforts to breach the security cordon, had every Chief Constable calling for reinforcements from the officers left behind to hold the fort. The urgency became undeniable when the outer cordon was breached on the afternoon of July 6, prompting the rapid deployment of a Chinook full of riot police to push protestors back.
July 7 was always a significant date for me as I awoke early to get ready for what was shaping up to be a very different kind of birthday; little could I have imagined just how. The mood from the previous 12 hours pointed to an adrenaline-fuelled day ahead. Everyone was convinced that, buoyed by their successes of yesterday, the protestors of today would be even more resolute and that violent clashes were looking likely. Doubts were beginning to creep into the minds of those on the ground about whether they could hold the lines.
The terror attacks that commenced just before 9am on the London Underground, and an hour later in Tavistock Square, saw an immediate shift in focus from Gleneagles to London. Tony Blair briefly addressed the nation with the full G8 leadership standing behind him in a show of solidarity before he returned to Downing Street.
Protests and disorder instantly ceased as the scale of death and devastation became apparent. Quite simply, everyone went home. The summit itself petered out. While few would admit it publicly, the 7/7 attacks spared policing in Scotland from what could have been a global humiliation. In classic police parlance: 'That was another one we got away with.'
The police service in July 2005 was just over 16,000 strong; on paper approximately 300 fewer officers than are in Scotland today. But that is a hugely misleading comparator as, with very few exceptions, the police service of two decades ago had minuscule numbers of officers who weren't fully deployable, and even fewer who were on long-term sick. Today's police service carries some 1,250 of the latter and an almost equivalent number of the former.
Specialist public order officers are now concentrated in smaller teams, narrowing the skillset across the wider service. The strength and depth of response teams that made up so much of the contingent support for large-scale deployments are now a shadow of their former selves — with a much diminished and less experienced rump in their stead.
The last time there was mass training for major events was at Law Hospital over 20 years ago. Since then, training has declined to the point of being more conceptual than practical. Today's service is more preoccupied with the diversity statistics of who boards a Chinook rather than whether they could actually fill it.
The scene in Tavistock Square, central London, after a bomb ripped through a double deck bus on July 7, 2005 (Image: PA)
The visit of Donald Trump to Scotland in 2018 came as police numbers had just started to slide and were some 1,200 higher than in 2005. Whilst few would argue the then (and now) President of the United States is perhaps one of the most polarising to have held office, the scale of the police operation to safeguard his security was a fraction of that required for G8. Despite having more officers to call on and less onerous security demands, there was a major security breach as a Greenpeace paraglider managed to fly to within a few feet of the President before disappearing into the depths of the Ayrshire hills. This was yet another 'we got away with it' moment.
With another Trump visit expected in the coming weeks, his security team will undoubtedly review both the 2005 and 2018 breaches and ask hard questions about the guarantees Scotland can offer. The police's whitewashing on the impact of reducing numbers may work domestically but they simply can't carry the day. Like it or not, the safety of a US President is a matter of higher national importance than managing protests that may accompany his presence. Police Scotland will need more than a lucky break or a tragic distraction elsewhere to rise to the challenge.
We all have to hope that, if for nothing else other than national pride, trust, and confidence in our police service, they are able to do so — as betting on a third 'we can get away with it' would be a very risky strategy indeed.
Calum Steele is a former General Secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, and former general secretary of the International Council of Police Representative Associations. He remains an advisor to both.