The Government is planning to hand police new powers to shut down protests before any disruption begins.
The government said it would be laying an amendment to the public order bill to toughen its crackdown on “guerilla” tactics
The move follows questions from police chiefs over what constituted legitimate protest
The changes introduced today will give police officers absolute clarity over when they should step in.
In practice, this will mean that police will not need to wait for disruption to take place and can shut protests down before chaos erupts
They will not need to treat a series of protests by the same group as standalone incidents but will be able to consider their total impact and will be able to consider long-running campaigns designed to cause repeat disruption over a period of days or weeks
The announcement has upset Civil liberty campaigners and protest groups
Shami Chakrabarti, the Labour peer, said the prime minister’s plan was “very troubling” adding
“The definition of what counts as serious disruption is key to this bill because it is used as a justification for a whole range of new offences, stop and search powers and banning orders. If you set the bar too low, you are really giving the police a blank cheque to shut down dissent before it has even happened,”
Rishi Sunak said:
“A balance must be struck between the rights of individuals and the rights of the hard-working majority to go about their day-to-day business.”
