Protest in the UK - protected or restricted?

By Harrison Toovey, Intern at Unlock Democracy.

Protests have always played a vital role in democracy and have led to monumental change in the UK and abroad. Whether it be the Chartist marches, women’s suffrage protests or fox-hunting protests. 

Protests are a fundamental part of all democratic societies, and without this core right, we could easily spiral into a totalitarian state.

But two key anti-protest laws have put our right to protest at risk. These are the Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Act of 2022 and the Public Order Act of 2023. 

These laws established dubious criminal offences, such as possessing objects for tunnelling. These laws also created start-and-stop times for protests and imposed noise limits, adding to government control. With protest-related violence already being illegal, these laws introduce unnecessary restrictions and punishments. 

Is there concern about the future of the right to protest in the UK? 

We conducted a survey asking our supporters to share their views on the state of protest rights in the UK. The survey received 6013 responses.

79% of our supporters are “very concerned” about the future of protest rights in the UK, and 98% are at least “somewhat concerned”. 

Many supporters have flagged issues surrounding potential abuses of power by future governments, with one survey responder saying that “If we lose the right to protest, an authoritarian government has the green light for control”. 

Others felt that we were losing our right to protest, with another saying that “Our right to peaceful protest makes the UK the envy of much of the world. To deny us that right is to deny what it is to be British”. 

The right to protest is a core British value.  Many countries without democratic rights look up to the UK as a model for what they aspire to be. 

Draconian anti-protest laws should be removed

By their very nature protests are designed to be disruptive - whether that’s a group of residents holding a protest to save a local library or farmers marching in London to oppose changes to inheritance tax. 92% of our respondents believe  that these laws should be repealed.  

People tend to support peaceful but disruptive protest if it is on a topic they agree with or relate to. This Demos study shows that people support industry strikes, including within the NHS and education, more favourably than other less effective protest types such as sit-ins, despite the inconvenience they may cause.

These new laws would have stopped numerous successful historical protests. 

For example, the anti-fracking protests in 2020 used blockades to stop the drilling, and these delays allowed for legal challenges to develop and for the process to be deemed unlawful: operations ended. 

The fuel protests from 2000-2005 used tactics such as blockading fuel depots and disrupting motorway traffic also by occupying lanes and travelling slowly. They did this to freeze fuel duty, and succeeded. 

Their methods however would have been illegal under the current law with the legislation giving authorities power to to restrict protests that are causing serious disruption to essential services and infrastructure, meaning that similar action now could result in more criminal charges.

The Greenham Common Peace protests that lasted for 20 years would have also been illegal. 

The success of that protest in removing US nuclear weapons from the base and garnering large amounts of domestic and international awareness and support would have been thwarted.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in 2023 that “I've spent a lot of my life fighting for human rights. We need to make sure they are absolutely foundational when it comes to anything that we do in government”. 

Yet no changes have been made, even though Ministers should be actively repealing these laws based on their statements in opposition.

How could this change help the government?

Repealing the repressive aspects of the 2022 and 2023 protest laws could be an excellent opportunity for the government to regain the trust of its backbenchers, as well as gain some cross-party support. The Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, both support improvements in human rights protections. 

There has recently been a large backbench rebellion over benefit cuts. If this government were to repeal authoritarian anti-protest clauses, it could serve as an opportunity to win back support among those who believe that the party is not being progressive enough.

What do people want to tell the current government about protest rights?

We asked our supporters what messages they wanted to send to the government regarding protests, with supporters urging Labour to “Attack the causes for the protest, not the protesters”, and saying that "We employ you. You work for us, not against us”.

They are concerned by the lack of action from the government, with others asking Labour to fix the system to stop abuses of power, and one respondent saying that “Peaceful protest is the bedrock of a democratic society. People need to be encouraged to express their feelings, even if they are not popular”.

In a democracy everyone should be equal, and all voices should be heard, even when we disagree with them. Without the right to protest we are at risk of becoming a tyrannical nation that embodies everything we oppose.

These anti-protest laws must be repealed. They contradict the fundamental values of our democratic society and contribute to democratic backsliding.  

Most alarming of all, they provide a legal framework which a future authoritarian government could abuse to impose a totalitarian regime.