The right to freedom of speech is fundamental in any democratic society. However, the partial criminalization of peaceful protest under the new Public Order Act now stands as a threat to these rights. With new powers afforded to the police under the Public Order Act, fear of gaining a criminal record will deter people from exercising their democratic right to protest.
Coronation arrests
During the Coronation of King Charles, 64 onlookers were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to ‘disrupt the event’. These were carried out on the basis of very little evidence; luggage straps were misconstrued as ‘lock-on’ devices and innocent bystanders were picked from the crowd simply for looking suspicious.
These events highlighted the ambiguity of the new Public Order Act, which gives the police the power to stop, search, and arrest anyone whom they might suspect of merely intending to cause a ‘public nuisance’.
This threatens two core components of British democracy: freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest. Anyone can now be arrested and detained simply for participating in organised, peaceful protest if it can be loosely interpreted as having the potential to be ‘disruptive’.
As all successful protests must be somewhat disruptive – as this is what guarantees the most publicity – this ultimately means that no protest is safe in the eyes of the law.
Hence, pedestrians simply stood idle on the side of the street and protestors carrying tied-up placards constituted a public nuisance and thus a criminal act on the day of the coronation, precipitating arrests.
Public Order Act offences
Although charges were only brought upon four of the protestors, suspicion-less stop-and-search powers mean that the police can now search anyone they like for protest-related items. If you are found to be carrying anything ranging from straps, tape, padlocks, or even rape alarms, you could be found guilty of committing an offense.
Similarly, those who have organised or participated in multiple protests deemed disruptive may be subject to an SDPO. This will prevent people from meeting certain people in certain places and from organising protests online.
The new legislation and the events of the coronation has sent a clear message to the British public that there are too many risks involved today with peaceful protesting.
The villainization of protest
The image of protest has already been tainted in the public imagination. Protest groups such as Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil are routinely villainized in the right-wing press as being little more than radical ‘extremists’ just out to cause public nuisance. Meanwhile, even Home Secretary Suella Braverman has deployed derogatory terms such as ‘eco-warriors’ in describing them.
Now, any member of the British public risks being painted with the same brush of ‘extremism’.
Even if charges are not brought upon you, merely being pictured getting arrested can have the capacity to ruin your professional reputation. In the contracts of many professionals are articles that stipulate that any worker who has brought their employer into disrepute will be committing a disciplinary offense and be at risk of being fired.
The jobs of otherwise ordinary hard-working people will therefore be at-risk if they participate in organised protest. At a time when many are struggling to pay their bills during a cost-of-living crisis, this is a risk that many simply won’t be willing to take.
Fear will therefore rule people’s desire to speak up and make a stand against the issues that matter most to them, stunning them into silence.
With ‘ordinary’ working people more reluctant to participate in peaceful protest, those who persist in protesting will increasingly come to conform to the media stereotype of ‘eco-mob’ extremists.
Starved of wider public support that all campaigns need for success, protestors will only be pushed to take more extreme action to gain the publicity they need.
The future of peaceful protest
In the short term, this will heighten public animosity towards organised peaceful protests. In the long term, this will set off a dangerous vicious cycle of increasingly disruptive protest, public uproar, and further government legislation to crack down on protests.
The very legitimacy of peaceful protest as a democratic right is therefore under threat. It is gradually coming to be seen as less a human right of the majority body politic, and instead more the subversive tactics of minority extremists.
With the bulk of the population either scared into non-participation or whipped up into a frenzy, the way is consequently being paved for further infringements on the right to protest in which the government can claim that it is the will of the public that they do so.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has already come out to defend the MET police’s handling of the coronation arrests, stating that it was the ‘public’s will’ that disruption be minimised.
We must therefore alert ourselves to the ways in which ostensibly democratic means can be used for essentially undemocratic ends. We must work to repeal this legislation at the soonest possible juncture, or this will only be the beginning of the stripping away of our right to protest.
Words by Stephen Maloney
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