This trades council believes that the Tories’ Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is an attack on the democratic right to protest, falsely and hypocritically justifying these restrictions on Covid
We note that:-
• the government factsheet on the Bill explains that it will “strengthen police powers to tackle non-violent protests that have a significant disruptive effect on the public or on access to Parliament”
• Under this proposed legislation we face a fine of £2,500 for not following police restrictions over how we conduct our protests.
• Effective protest that is considered a “public nuisance”, will now be a statutory offence rather than a common law offence.
• The police will have the power to assume protesters have knowledge of conditions set on a protest, making it easier to convict for ‘breaches’ of their undemocratic restrictions.
• The Home Secretary will have the power, through secondary legislation, to define “serious disruption to the activities of an organisation”.… Read on ...