Britain, 1992: a year dominated by the Maastricht treaty and the country’s spectacular withdrawal from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.
But documents released last week from the National Archives suggest that some in John Major’s government had detected a far more troubling threat to British sovereignty than Europe – the country’s burgeoning rave scene. Newly declassified Home Office memos reveal how the department scrambled to make good on a Tory manifesto pledge to clamp down on illegal gatherings.
A huge new age traveller festival at Newtown in Powys in July 1992 was one of many gatherings throughout the year that alarmed Number 10.
In one memo Mark Adams, Major’s private secretary, explained that “the prime minister is concerned to ensure that all appropriate measures can be taken to prevent such incidents”, and questioned why the police had not used controversial “turn-back” powers last deployed in the miners’ strike.
A Home Office official responded that “policing of any incident is entirely a matter for the chief officer”. She explained that police only stepped in after they “received intelligence that thousands of ‘ravers’ – people normally resident in towns and cities who join groups of travellers for all-night ‘raves’ involving loud music and flashing light effects – might try to join the occupation”.
The official added diplomatically: “The use of turn-back powers is very controversial and there was considerable criticism of police action to turn back striking miners during the course of the last dispute.”
In contrast to the Home Office’s glacial response, the Department of Social Security won plaudits from Major for quickly clamping down on benefits paid to new age travellers.
The urgent need for government departments to take action following the Powys gathering was made clear in subsequent memos from Number 10, which had become concerned that another mass event was rumoured to be taking place in Hampshire in mid-August. By December, following a summer of gatherings, the Home Office had succumbed to Downing Street pressure and pledged new laws to clamp down on the underground music scene.
A Home Office official explained that the department was drafting a bill “to give the police new powers to deal with – and to prevent – raves of the type seen at Castlemorton Common (in Worcestershire) and elsewhere. These are a new and distressing phenomenon which, at present, are largely beyond the reach of law.”.
The resulting Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 gave the police the powers to clamp down on persons “attending or preparing for a rave” at “which amplified music is played during the night”.
The act defines music as “sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats”.
