Tightening the Public Order Bill
The government has shown great confidence in its ability to get the controversial Public Order Bill through the House of Lords as it introduced an amendment to broaden the definition of ‘serious disruption’.
The argument from the government is that this will grant the police greater “flexibility” when dealing with troublemakers but such ‘flexibility’ is effectively a carte blanche when it comes to dealing with protests.
Even by those standards, the full extent of the proposals are something to behold:
Police will be able to shut down protests before any disruption even takes place.
Police can consider the total impact of a campaign across a number of protests instead of treating them as standalone events.
Police will be able to take into account the disruption caused by long-term campaigns that occur over a period of days and weeks.