This is a highly dangerous escalation of the government’s attempts to remove the human right to protest and another dangerous step towards a Fascist state.
Now, the government is bringing back its Public Order Bill, yet a further attack on everyone’s right to protest and ability to challenge the many injustices we face on an almost daily basis.
Parliament will vote on the Bill on Monday 17 October, giving MPs the chance to scrap some of the Government’s worst anti-protest proposals.
In a functioning democracy, it’s vital we can all stand up to those in power. Successive governments have tried to caste anyone who attempts to challenge them as deviants.
Earlier this year, the new Policing Act gave police more powers to shut down protests. And now the Government’s Public Order Bill further threatens to criminalise anyone who takes to the streets for a cause they believe in.
Its dangerous anti-protest proposals include:
- Protest banning orders that can be issued even if you haven’t committed an offence. They can include electronic tagging and stop you going to particular places, meeting certain people, and even using the internet in certain ways.
- A new offence of ‘locking on’ – attaching yourself, another person or an object to anything else. This could mean anything from using superglue to weighing down balloons to linking arms.
- Expanding stop and search – which is already disproportionately used against Black people – to allow police to stop and search people and vehicles for, and then confiscate, any items that could be used to commit a protest offence n matter how innocent the item.
- If these plans sound familiar, it’s because the Government tried to include them in the Policing Act just nine months ago. They were rejected by the people and thrown out of Parliament.
Immediately trying to get them through again is a desperate attempt to hide the Fascist Tories from accountability for their actions. Never forget that when Mayor of London Johnson purchased water canon to use on protesters.
Please urgently email your MP this weekend and tell them to protect the fundamental right to protest.
Liberty suggest the following text-:
As your constituent, I’m asking you to please vote for amendments that limit the Bill’s dangerous and discriminatory anti-protest measures.
Protest is a fundamental right. It has a long and proud history in the UK. But in its current state, the Public Order Bill risks criminalising anyone who takes to the streets for a cause they believe in.
PROTEST BANNING ORDERS
The Bill will create ‘Serious Disruption Prevention Orders’, which are simply Protest Banning Orders.
They will allow a court to ban a person who has taken part in two or more protests in a five-year period from carrying out any protest-related activities. They can include draconian electronic tagging to monitor and surveil people, and can stop people from going to particular places, meeting certain people, and even using the internet in certain ways.
It will be a crime to breach an Order, with punishment of imprisonment, a fine or both – but a person will not have to have actually committed an offence to be given one.
An Order can last between a week and two years, but there is no limit on the number of times it can be renewed.
Protest banning orders are an attack on community organising and a gross violation of people’s basic rights, breaching rights to liberty, privacy, free expression and association.
And the police are also unsupportive, previously stating that banning orders “unnecessarily curtail people’s democratic right to protest”.
Amendments 1 and 2 in the name of Sir Charles Walker MP will remove these Orders from the Bill. Please vote in favour of amendments 1 and 2.
‘LOCKING ON’
The Public Order Bill will make ‘locking on’ a criminal offence. This is when a person attaches themselves, another person or an object to anything else. It will be an offence if it is ‘capable’ of causing ‘serious disruption’. So, a person locking on will not actually have to cause any disruption at all to commit a criminal act. And the punishment is imprisonment, a fine, or both.
The word ‘attach’ isn’t defined in the Bill, so can cover more or less anything from using superglue to weighing down balloons to linking arms.
It is set to criminalise a wide range of acts that have led to society progressing and advancements in people’s human rights – from the campaign for women’s voting rights to disabled rights activists chaining wheelchairs to traffic lights to raise awareness of benefits cuts.
It will also be a criminal offence to ‘be equipped for locking on’. Having an item that ‘may be used in the course of or in connection’ with locking on by any person – not necessarily the person in possession of the item – could make you liable for a fine.
Amendments 3 and 4 in the name of Anne McLaughlin will remove these new offences from the Bill. Please vote in favour of amendments 3 and 4.
STOP AND SEARCH
The Public Order Bill will also expand both suspicion-based and suspicion-less stop and search powers. Police will be able to stop and search people and vehicles for any item that could be used to commit a protest-related offence, and then confiscate it.
These powers are so broad that the police could confiscate almost any protest-related item – including placards – and in some cases effectively stop a demonstration before it even begins.
The racist harms of stop and search are well known. Black people are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched by police than white people. The powers in this Bill will make racist and discriminatory policing worse, resulting in more traumatic and dangerous interactions with the police.
Stop and search should be rolled back, not expanded.
Amendments 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 will remove these proposals from the Bill. Please vote in favour of amendments 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15.
Protest is a fundamental right in a democracy. Please vote to protect it.
