Britain now stifles peaceful dissent like a repressive regime. It’s time to roll back our anti-protest laws

Demonstrators at a protest against the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill, London, 1 May 2021. Photograph: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images

In December 2023 when Stephen Gingell was sentenced to six months in prison for slow marching for half an hour on the Holloway Road in north London, the sentence was considered shocking. Unfortunately, it is far from the exception. In fact, my organisation, Climate Rights International, has spent the past eight months looking into restrictions on climate protests among western democracies and has found that the UK – mostly under the Conservatives – has introduced some of the harshest anti-protest legislation in recent years.

You may remember Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker, who were sentenced to multi-year prison sentences in April 2023 for climbing the cables of the Queen Elizabeth II bridge to object to new oil, gas and coal projects. The three-year sentence imposed on Trowland was, at the time, the longest ever for a climate protest in the UK. But, it has since been surpassed. In July, in a case that made international headlines, five fossil-fuel protesters were sentenced to four- and five-year sentences after participating in a Zoom call about staging climate protests on the M25.

These sentences are longer than those imposed on many of those involved in violent acts during the recent racist riots in Southport. They are the kinds of sentences that western governments routinely denounce when they are imposed on peaceful protesters in places such as Cambodia and Russia. While climate protesters are being sentenced to long prison terms, UK prisons are full to the brim – with the government even releasing some violent offenders early because of overcrowding.

The UK government seeks to penalise climate protesters for absurdly low-level disruption. In 2023, the then home secretary, Suella Braverman, introduced legislation allowing police to stop protests if they interrupt people going about their day-to-day activities “to more than a minor degree”. Arguably, this is the point of protest – a protest that causes no disruption is likely not an effective one. But after Braverman’s changes to the Public Order Act were rejected by the House of Lords, the government pivoted to using regulatory powers to impose the definition that it sought – because regulatory powers receive less parliamentary scrutiny.

A court invalidated the regulations in a challenge by the human rights organisation Liberty, finding that the government had acted outside its powers. “More than minor” is not within the scope of the word “serious”, the court concluded. You would hope that the Labour party would have changed tack since being elected. But in late August, the new home secretary, Yvette Cooper, decided to continue with the prior government’s appeal of that ruling.

Laws have also been changed so that now, protesters who “lock on” to an object, land, or another person with some form of adhesive or handcuffs face up to four and a half years in prison. All they have to do to land that kind of sentence is cause “serious disruption” to two or more people or an organisation. This is more than twice as long as the maximum sentence for racially aggravated assault in the UK. These penalties authorised and being imposed in the UK exceed those we have found in any of the other countries we examined.

We should be alarmed by this: a country that holds itself up as a beacon of the rule of law, bound by international commitments to freedom of expression and the right to assembly, is taking draconian steps to curb protest activities. And the example it is setting is one that will be followed by authoritarian countries eager to justify their own crackdowns on protest.

And yet, these aren’t even the worst or most innovative ways in which the UK has recently cracked down on climate protesters. People can now be prosecuted if their protest veers from its approved route or timing, even for those breaking the rules unintentionally. Violating protest conditions in England and Wales can now land a person in jail for four and a half years – quadruple what the sentence was in 2021.

There’s more. In March 2023, members of Insulate Britain were jailed for seven weeks for contempt for mentioning that their actions were motivated by the climate crisis. The Just Stop Oil defendants were forbidden by the judge in their case from mentioning the climate crisis in their closing statements. Why shouldn’t a jury be told why someone chose to block a road or march in protest before they make their decisions? They are trying to highlight the devastating impacts of the climate crisis and the failure of the government to act. Their reasons for acting and their belief in the imminent threat posed by the climate crisis should be a legitimate factor for judges and juries to consider.

There was also the case of Trudi Warner, who faced contempt charges for standing outside the courthouse during a climate protest trial holding a sign that read: “Jurors, you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience.” While the case against her was dismissed, with the judge calling it “disproportionate”, 11 protesters who held similar signs outside the courthouse during the Just Stop Oil trial in July will face contempt hearings next month.

Whether one likes the tactics of climate protesters or not, peaceful protest – including peaceful civil disobedience – is a basic right. Those engaging in civil disobedience are willing to risk consequences. But, in a democratic society, the laws and their enforcement should be reasonable, and the consequences proportionate.

In more than 10 years of research and advocacy on the right to protest, I have seen how restrictions on that right lead to a stifling of civil society and a government that insulates itself from criticism by its citizens. If the UK wants a healthy democracy, where people can peacefully express their discontent with government policies, it needs to start by rolling back draconian anti-protest legislation and protecting the right to protest.