Standing up for the right to protest

The right to protest is one of the most fundamental rights in a democracy - and the government is determined to undermine it. And you can help defend it - see below.

Over the last 18 months, the Green Party and our allies have campaigned hard to defend the right to protest. 
​
Our Green peers Jenny Jones and Natalie Bennett led opposition in the House of Lords to dangerously repressive new laws aimed at curtailing these rights, and hundreds of Greens used our #ProtestIsNotACrime flatpack to lobby MPs and peers demanding that they defend this crucial right.

Forced measures

Although the Lords voted down some of the worst aspects of Priti Patel’s Policing Bill and Suella Braverman’s Public Order Bill, the government was determined to force through measures that were condemned by a wide range of human rights organisations – and even by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, which said that they “would neither be compatible with human rights legislation nor create an effective deterrent”.

In June, it used ‘secondary legislation’ – in other words, ministerial decree – to reinsert a definition of ‘disruption’ in the Public Order Bill that the Lords had voted against. Jenny Jones then tabled a so-called ‘fatal motion’ that would have stopped this highly unusual and deeply anti-democratic move in its tracks. Shamefully, however, Labour peers were instructed by their party whips not to support Jenny’s motion and the government got its way.

What do these new laws mean?

• ‘Locking on’, a tactic used ever since the Suffragettes chained themselves to railings, can now be punished with six months in prison and/or an unlimited fine, and ‘going equipped to lock on’ can be punished with an unlimited fine.


• Obstructing major transport works such as HS2, or ‘interfering with key national infrastructure’ such as airports, are now punishable by six and 12 months’ imprisonment respectively, or an unlimited fine, or both.


• Police now have powers to stop and search people they think may be carrying items that could be used to carry out a ‘protest-related offence’ (this power was used to arrest anti-rape campaigners before the Coronation, as the police thought that rape alarms they were handing out could be used to disrupt ceremonies).


• New ‘serious disruption prevention orders’ mean that courts can ban individuals from protests if they have previously been convicted of ‘protest-related offences’.


• The police now have the ability to ban any protest on that they feel may cause more than ‘minor inconvenience’ – the draconian power that Jenny’s fatal motion was designed to stop. People defying such bans can now be arrested.​​

Will juries convict?

As Greenpeace and Just Stop Oil activists have been showing, these repressive measures will not stop protesters from standing up against the environmental destruction threatening the future of everyone on this planet. In some cases, juries may even refuse to convict such protesters, as happened in January.

But not everyone will be prepared to risk being arrested, and campaigners will need to come up with imaginative new ways of making sure that protesters’ voices are heard.

What can you do now?

If Labour win the next election, we would hope that they'd repeal the repressive measures. But Keir Starmer has recently indicated that a Labour government would not.

Write now to your Labour MP or Labour parliamentary candidate to ask if they want these extremely dangerous amendments removed and are prepared to stand up for the human rights that underpin our democracy.
You can find your MP at Write to Them.

And there's a template email you can use here. If you have time, do personalise it, using your own words.

---