Chris Nineham on the government’s acceptance that protest law has been abused

The government has quietly accepted that the police have been using unlawful powers in their treatment of protestors since 2023. It has decided not to appeal a decision won in court by the civil-rights organisation Liberty that Suella Braverman’s implementation of public-order law was wrong.

This is not surprising. Braverman imposed an arbitrary decision that ‘serious disruption’ should be interpreted as any that was ‘more than minor’. This was always ridiculous. It was also extremely illiberal because it gave the police almost unlimited powers to condition or ban protest as all protest causes some level of disruption.

The police did indeed use it in the most draconian way. It meant that every one of the national Palestine demonstrations had control orders slapped on them, often because of the risk of ‘serious disruption’. It meant protestors were refused routes because of alleged disruption to shops and local communities and even to people’s access to car-parking spaces.

The lower threshold for police enforcement resulted in hundreds of arrests and convictions of protesters. Liberty is now rightly calling on the government urgently to review all of these cases.

Braverman’s move has now been judged unlawful in two courts because she used a statutory instrument (SI), designed to clarify law, actually to change it and make it more severe. This is the first time an SI has been used in this way and all five judges involved ruled this to be an abuse. It is a disgrace that a Labour government should have gone along with this in the first place.

Now that Liberty’s appeal has shone a light on what has been happening, the government is trying to walk away quietly. However, when Labour won the election last year, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper decided to continue with Braverman’s appeal against the first high-court decision. As she well knew, while that appeal was pending, the police continued to use Braverman’s absurd interpretation to crack down on protest.

As public opinion shifts dramatically in favour of the Palestinians and the protests in support of Palestine grow here and around the world, the attempts to criminalise the movement look more and more cranky. Nevertheless, the right is continuing its campaign. Liberty’s victory is being met by calls for primary legislation to give police more powers. We should welcome this decision, but expect more attacks on our rights.