Police forces will be granted powers to put conditions on repeat protests, the government has announced. This follows another Palestine Action demo in London which led to over 400 arrests.
Senior officers will be able to consider the “cumulative impact” of previous protests, the Home Office said, which could mean they instruct organisers to hold events elsewhere if a site has seen repeated demonstrations.
Anyone who breaches these conditions will risk arrest and prosecution, it said. The new powers will be “brought forward as soon as possible”, the Home Office said.
While the right to protest is fundamental “this freedom must be balanced with the freedom of their neighbours to live their lives without fear”, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said.
She said large, repeated protests could leave sections of the country, particularly religious communities, “feeling unsafe, intimidated and scared to leave their homes”.
Mahmood said this had been particularly evident within the Jewish community recently.
The home secretary will carry out a review of current protest legislation to “ensure powers are sufficient and being applied consistently”, the government said.
Most of those arrested at protests on Saturday were on suspicion of supporting the proscribed group Palestine Action.
Hundreds of people have been arrested since the group was banned by former home secretary Yvette Cooper in the summer.
Organisers of the protest had been asked to look at their plans following the killing of two men at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue on Yom Kippur – the holiest day in the Jewish religious calendar.
These regular, violent protests are getting too much for the authorities. They have been too much for us for a long time. The streets and public places in Britain are not for the use of protesting about events happening in other countries. Really, they are not, and other democratic countries would say the same thing.
They take the piss. Extremist groups like Palestine Action take to our streets with their flags and indecipherable chants, cause problems for the police, interrupt businesses and leave the mess for the councils to clear-up.
