Kill the Bill protests have returned to the country as activists pick up where they left off last spring.
The Government has faced incredible pushback for its Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (PCSE) since it was first drafted as a response to Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion demonstrations.
The Bill is intended to give the police more power to make protests less disruptive to everyday life but many feel it is hindering the right to protest itself.
Things quietened down for a while, as the bill went through its bureaucratic governmental stages, but an upcoming vote on Monday has sparked action again.
Demonstrations took place in London, Bristol, Coventry, Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Plymouth and Cardiff on Saturday.
In London, many hundreds marched from Holborn towards Parliament Square in Westminster, chanting ‘kill the bill’ and carrying banners reading ‘defend the right to protest’ and ‘we will not be silenced’.
Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti told the crowd: ‘This right-wing, authoritarian Government used to encourage pro-Brexit demos and statue defenders when it suited them.
‘This Government bangs on about free speech and whinges about cancel culture. It talks a good game about China and Russia and every other place in the world where fundamental rights are under attack.
‘But … free speech is a two-way street. And do you know what? The ultimate cancel culture, it doesn’t come with a tweet – it comes with a police baton and a prison sentence for non-violent dissent.’
Extinction Rebellion member Sue, 62, said she is worried about the bill restricting what she believes are effective forms of protest – such as tying herself to another activist.
She said: ‘So many of the the freedoms that we have in this country have been gained through protest.
‘Not through just people being quiet about it, and people in power deciding that they’ll give freedoms to people, but because people have come out on the streets and made a noise and made a protest.
‘And I want to still be able to do that, I want my children to be able to do that.’
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also addressed the London crowd, saying the bill ‘disempowers us all’.
He said: ‘If the right to protest is restricted, if you have to seek police permission to do anything, well, where does that lead to?
‘It leads to every protest becoming a conflict about having the protest, rather than what the protest is about.
‘So we ended up endlessly defending things instead of demanding things. This sense of disempowerment is designed to have a depressive effect, particularly on young people.’
The PCSC bill is a wide-ranging piece of legislation that will give police new powers to impose conditions on non-violent protests which are deemed too noisy or a nuisance.
The bill also proposes to increase the maximum penalty for those who destroy or damage a memorial from three months to 10 years.
It will give police greater ‘stop and search’ powers and new powers to ‘tackle unauthorised encampments’ which could affect Gypsy and Traveller communities.
The House of Lords added to it with amendments in November, proposing the criminalisation of obstructing major transport works.
It cleared the House of Commons by 365 votes to 265 in July and will be put to the House of Lords on Monday.
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