'The current government now faces a clear choice between allowing its dire consequences to play out under its watch, or do something to prevent it'

Campaigners have released a letter from over 90 environmental and human rights groups calling on the Government to reverse the Tory’s draconian crackdown on peaceful protest in the UK.

Signatures of the open letter include Greenpeace UK, Amnesty UK and Liberty, who are asking for a meeting with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to begin the reversal of the previous Government’s legislation affecting protest. 

It comes in the aftermath of the unprecedented sentencing of five Just Stop Oil protesters to a collective 21 years in prison, which sparked serious concern including from a UN representative about the UK’s obligations under human rights law.  

Described as a “low point in British justice,” the protesters received the harshest jail terms yet for climate activists in the UK for their role in planning a non-violent disruptive protest that affected the M25 in London for four days in 2022. 

Now 92 civil society organisations have warned against the “steady erosion of the right to protest” and urged the government to intervene and “reverse the crackdown on peaceful protest.”

The letter highlighted protest as a “vital safety valve for our democracy and an engine of social progress” drawing attention to the vital rights secured in history by direct action, such as votes for women and the right to a work-free weekend.

“The responsibility for it lies firmly with the previous administration – but the current government now faces a clear choice between allowing its dire consequences to play out under its watch, or do something to prevent it,” the letter said.

Cited in the letter are the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 described as strategic “gagging laws” imposed by the Tory government.

Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward

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