Protests are an essential way for people to make their voices heard. Liberal Democrats are fiercely opposing the new Protest Crackdown Law and will be voting against it this evening.
As you may have noticed, this Conservative Government
doesn’t like to be challenged.
Just look at how angry and red-faced Boris Johnson gets at
Prime Minister’s Questions every week. Just listen to how often Ministers rail
against lawyers and the courts, because judges sometimes rule against them.
Just remember how they refused to do interviews with journalists who might dare
to ask difficult questions.
MPs vote today on Priti Patel’s Protest Crackdown Law
And now comes their latest attempt to silence any opposition
to their policies, as MPs vote today on Priti Patel’s Protest Crackdown
Law – or, to use its official title, Part 3 of the Police, Crime,
Sentencing and Courts Bill.
The new law would, if passed, give the police new powers to
clampdown on protests if they are noisy. It would also create a new criminal
offence of “intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance”, punishable by
up to ten years in prison.
Causing someone “serious annoyance” could land you in prison
for up to ten years.
And what counts as “public nuisance”? Anything that causes
anyone “serious annoyance”. Yes, really. That’s what the Bill says. Causing
someone “serious annoyance” could land you in prison for up to ten years.
When she introduced this new law in Parliament, Priti Patel
rightly said that “The right to protest peacefully is a cornerstone of our
democracy”. She said the Government would always defend it. Except, apparently,
if your protest makes any noise or annoys anyone. And really, what good would a
protest be if it didn’t?
Such a draconian crackdown on protests is completely
unacceptable.
Such a draconian crackdown on protests is completely
unacceptable. It’s unnecessary, because the police already have powers to
deal with protests that go too far – as police chiefs themselves have said. And
it’s frankly un-British.
The right to peaceful assembly and protest is a fundamental
human right, and it has always been a crucial part of our democratic
society. Look back to any of the big strides of social progress we’ve made
throughout our history, and you’ll usually find that it started with people
protesting for change.
The freed slaves who joined with Quakers, Anglicans and many
others to protest for the abolition of the slave trade more than 200 years ago.
The suffragettes who fought heroically to secure votes for women. The marches
against hunger and unemployment a century ago that helped pave the way for the
expansion of the welfare state after World War II.
Protests are an essential way for people to make their
voices heard. Noisily if necessary.
Protests are an essential way for people to make their voices
heard. Noisily if necessary.
In 2003, two million people marched against the Iraq War –
I’m sure to the annoyance of Tony Blair, at the very least. In 2005, 200,000
people formed a human chain around Edinburgh to call on world leaders to make
poverty history. In 2019, tens of thousands turned out to protest the state
visit of Donald Trump, a man not known for having a particularly thick skin.
And let’s not forget the protestors I have disagreed with
over the years. Against the hunting ban or in favour of Brexit, for example. I
may have disapproved of what they were protesting about, I may even have been
annoyed by them on occasion, but I will defend to the death their right to
protest peacefully for what they believe in.
It is part of this Conservative Government’s broader
assault on the rule of law.
The Protest Crackdown Law would seriously undermine that
crucial right, and lead to people being unnecessarily criminalised simply for
exercising it. It is part of this Conservative Government’s broader
assault on the rule of law and Tory Ministers’ anti-democratic attempts to
suppress any challenge to their power.
That’s why my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I are fiercely
opposing the new law and will be voting against it this evening. I very
much hope that principled MPs from all parties will join us, and defend
everyone’s right to protest peacefully, noisily – and even annoyingly.
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