The right to protest on the environment must be restored – Inside track

Five years ago, I reflected on the role that civil disobedience and protests have played in the environmental movement and the worrying direction of travel prompted by the backlash to Extinction Rebellion. What has happened since September 2020?

Well, unfortunately, that worrying trend has continued, with governments curtailing our ability to challenge and protest about their policies or inaction. This is undermining our democratic rights as citizens, in some cases resulting in peaceful environmental protestors being handed lengthy and disproportionate custodial sentences.

Punishing people for acts of conscience, holding placards or peaceful assembly is having serious consequences. The more governments shrink the space for civil society to question its actions, the more our democracy lurches towards autocracy. It puts the UK at odds with UN institutions and conventions, threatening our credibility on the international stage.

Perhaps, most significantly, the government’s actions have had huge impacts on the people who have been convicted under recent anti protest laws, as well as suppressing the voices of those who want to protest but are cowed by fear of what might happen to them.

But all is not lost, as campaigns to address the unjust treatment of protestors show no sign of diminishing and protests continue on important issues. The UK government has a chance this autumn to reset its approach and repeal the draconian laws and convictions that took place under its predecessor.

What is the state of play on protest laws and rights?
The previous Conservative government initiated major legislative reforms in response to concerns about peaceful but disruptive protests that targeted major roads, transport networks and other infrastructure.

In the last parliament, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 increased police powers to intervene in disruptive protests and introduced harsher penalties for people involved in organising and carrying them out.

Civil liberties groups criticised the legislation and questioned its compatibility with laws that protect human rights. Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights also raised concerns and said that the combined measures were likely to “have a chilling effect on the right to protest in England and Wales”. The UN’s Human Rights Committee said that the legislation “imposes serious and undue restrictions on the right of peaceful assembly” and called on the UK to change the law and ensure that people who assemble to protest peacefully are not prosecuted and punished for exercising their rights.

The previous government maintained that it fully supported the right of individuals to engage in peaceful protest but said legislation was needed to address the serious disruption caused by a small minority of protestors, singling out activity by Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain.

Given the role that strikes and worker mass movements have played in Labour’s history, there were hopes that a Labour government would sympathise with the right to protest.

However, despite an early rallying cry from the attorney general on the importance of upholding human rights and mechanisms to hold the executive to account, the government has chosen instead to further degrade the right to question its policies. It has done this more subtly than the Conservatives, although there are signs that some ministers want a more bullish approach. This reflects its approach to MPs’ objections in parliament where it has taken a hard line on backbench rebellions on environmental and social issues.

We are breaching international laws
In January 2024, I met Michel Forst, the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, on his first visit to the UK to gather evidence. He reminded me that the right to peaceful protest is a basic human right and an essential part of a healthy democracy.

He can take measures to protect anyone experiencing, or at imminent threat of, persecution, penalisation or harassment for seeking to exercise their rights under the Aarhus Convention. This gives us the right to access environmental information, participate in environmental decision making and access justice when challenging environmental decisions.

The UK supports the convention but is not complying with it in several ways. In September 2024, the government published a call for evidence, seeking views on how it could bring the UK’s policies into compliance with the convention. Its response is awaited.

Following his visit, the special rapporteur expressed serious concerns about the “increasingly severe crackdowns on environmental defenders in the United Kingdom.” That he chose to visit and focus his attention on the UK is deeply troubling.

He highlighted the treatment of people participating in peaceful protest activities, and the increasingly severe crackdowns on environmental defenders. He was alarmed by how people were being treated by the UK justice system and the media and worried by the regressive laws passed by the last government.

The government has said it supports him in his role but considers the issues he has raised to be outside the scope of the Aarhus Convention and his mandate, and counter to UK law (no doubt the laws he highlights as ‘regressive’).

How can the government put it right?
The UK government should urgently review the laws and sentencing guidelines causing the conditions the special rapporteur describes in his letter. These include unfair and disproportionate custodial sentences, lengthy remands in prison, severe bail conditions and extended curfews.

It should also not follow the path recommended by the previous government’s adviser on political violence, who published a report calling for some environmental groups to be relabelled “extreme protest groups” and subjected to stringent restrictions like those applied to terrorist organisations.

The government’s decision not to appeal a Court of Appeal ruling which found some of the previous government’s anti-protest laws were unlawful is welcome. But it should now  act immediately to scrap the laws in question.

The government should also swiftly bring the UK into compliance with the Aarhus Convention and learn the lessons from the mistakes of the previous government; particularly, it should engage the public when new laws are being drafted that could significantly impact on the environment.

It should also halt the erosion of people’s rights in other areas, including on judicial review, public consultation on major infrastructure projects and the removal of elected representatives from key planning decisions.

The environmental sector was built from protest and activism. We have a responsibility to defend the rights that enable us to fight for better environmental protections for the good of all people and nature.