Britain wants to make it easier to suppress environmental protests

– Our right to protest is fundamental, especially at a time when we have a cost-of-living crisis, a climate crisis and our public health care is on its knees, Yasmin Ahmed of Human Rights Watch told CNN.

Climate resistance should be controlled

The purpose of the Public Order Bill is to give additional powers to the police to take action against political protests deemed to disturb public order. As motivation, the government cites actions by groups such as Extinction rebellion, Just stop oil and Insulate Britain. “We cannot allow protests by minorities to disrupt the lives of ordinary citizens,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in a press release on the government’s website.

The government wants to make it a crime to lock oneself to objects or infrastructure and form a human chain to prevent being taken away by the police. They want to handcuff individual activists deemed particularly disruptive and open up the possibility of searches of unsuspecting people.

With changes to the Public Order Bill, the government wants to lower the threshold for what can be considered a “serious disturbance”. The government writes that the police do not have to wait for unrest, but can cancel the protest early. This should be possible through holistic assessments of specific groups, individuals or campaigns based on past behaviour.

No inhibitory effect

Andrea Brock is a lecturer in international relations at the University of Sussex and researches repression against the climate and environmental movement.

– We need to understand the public order bill in relation to other new laws such as the anti-strike laws and the police bill, he tells Dagens ETC.

The Police Bill is a summary of the much criticized legislative package of the Police, Crime, Punishment and Courts Act, which, like the Public Order Bill, restricts the right to protest. This led to the “Kill the Bill” movement, with riots in Bristol in March 2021, after which the most controversial parts of the bill were voted on in the Upper House of Parliament. The government, says Andrea Brock, is now making a new effort to get these proposals into the Public Order Bill.

He does not believe the bill will stop the protests.

– The government sees protests everywhere. In a way, this new amendment can be seen as a sign that the protests will be successful. I think this is undesirable for the government. This law will not stop people from protesting, it will make protestors more creative in choosing their means. We’re in the middle of a climate catastrophe, and that’s why people are protesting.

The public order bill was voted on in the lower house of parliament in October and will go through the upper house for a vote later this year.