Police Bill is Not About Law and Order – It’s About State Control

London: Tucked away in the government’s 300-page police, crime, sentencing and courts bill, are various clauses which will have serious implications for the right to protest. The bill seeks to quietly criminalise “serious annoyance”, increase police powers to restrict protests, and give the home secretary discretion over what types of protests are allowed.

It is striking that such an enormous bill had its second reading less than a week after it was published and was only allocated two days of debate. It appears that the government had hoped to pass it quickly and without fanfare, but instead the introduction of the bill coincided with the fallout from the police response to the Sarah Everard vigil and ultimately sparked in Bristol the very thing it sought to limit: protests.

Clauses 55 and 56 of the bill will make it easier for the police to impose conditions on marches and static protests, removing the distinction between the two. Where before, protests would have to threaten serious public disorder to warrant certain restrictions, under this bill police could intervene merely if the protest was noisy enough to cause a person in the vicinity “serious unease”.

Further, the range of conditions that may be imposed would be increased. Where before police could only rule on the place, duration and number of persons attending a protest, under this bill, the police would be able to impose any condition they thought necessary. As Liberty, the civil liberties organisation, points out, this would give the police the power to ban static protests altogether.

Read more: Joshua Clements, Guardian, https://is.gd/dodjtF