I attended a small protest near Parliament this morning, in defence of one of our most basic democratic rights: the right to protest.

It is astonishing, even terrifying, that this fundamental right is under threat. But the Government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill would severely curtail our right to protest, threatening jail sentences of almost a year for those who break this new law. 

It is one of the most draconian pieces of legislation proposed by a Government which is also trying to curb voting rights, strip individuals of their right to citizenship without even telling them and threaten the independence of the regulator that oversees fair play at elections.  

If this doesn’t look like a corrupt clique manipulating the rules so that it stays in power, I don’t know what does.

Our socially-distanced protest next to the Houses of Parliament – and organised by the Green Party – rallied by the statue of the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst who, like thousands of women like her, campaigned and protested for the right to vote.

One of the key tactics of the suffragettes was chaining themselves to railings – a form of protest celebrated by public body, Historic England, for its creativity.

The Home Secretary, who’s previously used the courage of suffragettes for her own political purposes about Brexit, now wants to criminalise protesters who adopt their methods. You couldn’t make it up.

Her bill would make it an offence to lock on to railings or anything else. It would ban any protest that might ‘interfere’ with ‘nationally significant infrastructure’ such as roads, railways or printing presses.

Under these powers, climate protests against airport expansion could be criminalised. Remember the promise Boris Johnson once made that he would lie down in front of the bulldozers to stop a third runway at Heathrow? Under this bill, that could earn him almost a year in jail.

Priti Patel has made no secret of her intention to target climate activists with this bill. Anyone trying to draw attention to the greatest crisis facing us all and the Government’s failure to take appropriate action faces a long jail sentence. Even the producers of Don’t Look Up didn’t come up with that idea. 

For a protest to be prohibited, it only needs to cause ‘serious annoyance’ or ‘serious disruption’. A loud hailer or chanting could be enough to shut down a demonstration. The way we are heading, only Trappist monks will be allowed to protest.

The bill would ban any protest that might ‘interfere’ with ‘nationally significant infrastructure’, such as roads, railways or printing presses

These sweeping restrictions come with hugely expanded police powers, which could allow them to stop and search people or vehicles if they suspect they’re on their way to a protest, or if they’re carrying items like placards, banners or loudhailers.

These are dictatorial powers that would remove some of our most basic democratic rights and freedoms. They would enable the Government, or future governments, to turn the UK into a police state. The role of the police should be to protect citizens’ basic rights, but they’re being handed powers to crush those rights.

No wonder more than 700 legal scholars and 350 charities have called for the bill to be scrapped.

If this were happening in any other western country, we would be warning about democracy being undermined. Other countries see the risk facing us: the front page of the New York Times this week warned that Britain was being set on the road to autocracy.  

This would be bad enough. What makes it worse is that many of the most draconian aspects of the bill have been introduced by the Government in a series of last-minute amendments which were slipped in at a late stage, after the bill had completed its passage through the Commons, in a cynical attempt to avoid parliamentary scrutiny.

Because they’ve not been debated in the House of Commons, if a majority of the Lords vote against them, these specific Government plans would be stopped in their tracks. It is absolutely critical that Labour peers join the coalition of other opposition and crossbench peers and do so. 

This is about more than defeating a deeply illiberal bill. This is about protecting democracy. The right to protest is not a gift of the government in power, it’s a fundamental right.   

This Government is trying to attack the rights of anyone to demonstrate and protest in support of any cause they believe in. It is trying to stifle dissent, evade scrutiny and entrench its own powers. That is why it is so important that we resist this bill.  

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