The government is planning to make important changes to the law that will restrict the right to protest when lockdown restrictions ease.
CND and London CND oppose this new planned legislation, and joined the national #KillTheBill protest on May 1st in London. After gathering in Trafalgar Square from midday, we marched past Buckingham Palace then through Victoria, past the Department for Education and the Home Office, and finally across the river to Vauxhall Gardens.
About the bill
The police, crime, sentencing and courts bill would give the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, powers to create laws to define ‘serious disruption’ to communities and organisations, on which police can then rely to impose conditions on protests. As the Netpol Kill The Bill Coalition statement explains:
The Bill intensifies police brutality against Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, and criminalises their way of life.
The Bill gives the police the power to criminalise protests for being “noisy”, disruptive or “annoying”.
The Bill uses ‘protecting’ women as a cover to expand police powers and increase custodial sentences. These measures are not sufficient to prevent violence, and are troubling considering police officers’ implication in cases of violence against women.
The Bill expands stop and search powers, which are already regularly used to harass and terrorise young black people.
The Bill will silence the calls for justice by families of those whose loved ones have died at the hands of the police.
The Bill makes those at the sharpest edge of state violence even more unsafe – including migrants, sex workers, Disabled people, and racialised communities.
But in a victory for protestors, the next stage of the bill has now been delayed until later in the year after huge opposition. This protest aimed to increase the pressure to scrap the bill altogether.
What now?
Our ability to campaign against nuclear weapons is only as strong as our democratic freedom to dissent and protest. We must continue to stand firm against the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill.
CND signed an open letter to the Home Secretary and Justice Secretary with other organisations highlighting our concerns, and you can express your opposition to the Bill by signing the Netpol petitition here:
