By William Downs

What are the current protest laws in the UK? An individual’s right to freedom of expression and assembly are protected by Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is enshrined in UK law. Together, the Articles safeguard the right to peaceful protest. However, these rights are not absolute, and the state can implement laws that restrict the right to protest to maintain public order or to protect the rights and freedoms of others. In the UK, several pieces of legislation provide a framework for the policing of protests. The Public Order Act 1986 provides the police with powers to place restrictions and conditions on protests. These powers were strengthened by part 3 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. The Public Order Act 2023 established several criminal offences in relation to protest, including causing serious disruption by locking on, being equipped to lock on, causing serious disruption by tunnelling underground, obstructing major transport works and interfering with key national infrastructure. There are several other criminal offences that could apply to a person’s conduct during a protest, despite not being offences that are specific to protests. These include wilful obstruction of a highway, public nuisance, and aggravated trespass. What other rules can apply to protests? There have been several examples of businesses and organisations applying for court orders against protesters to stop them from engaging in protest activity that affects their operations. The Public Order Act 2023 also gives the Home Secretary the power to request injunctions against protesters, though at the time of writing this provision has not been brought into force. Part 2 of the Public Order Act 2023 created Serious Disruption Prevention Orders (SDPOs). SDPOs are civil orders that enable courts to place conditions or restrictions on an adult (such as restrictions on where they can go and when) with the aim of preventing them from engaging in protest-related activity that could cause disruption. Breaching an SDPO is a criminal offence. How have protest laws changed? In recent years, the government has initiated major legislative reforms in response to concerns about peaceful but disruptive protests. The Public Order Act 2023 and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 introduced new measures aimed at giving the police increased powers to respond to protests targeting major roads, transport networks, and other infrastructure. Taken as a whole, these reforms have increased the police’s power to intervene in disruptive protests, introduced a range of new protest-related criminal offences and increased penalties for people involved in organising and carrying out disruptive protests. This legislative agenda has been controversial and attracted strong opposition from campaigners who have questioned the compatibility of reforms with human rights legislation. For example, the Joint Committee on Human Rights said that the combined measures in the 2023 and 2022 acts would likely “have a chilling effect on the right to protest in England and Wales” (PDF). The government said that its legislation aimed to “protect the public and businesses from [the] unacceptable actions” of “a small minority of protestors”. It said that existing human rights legislation provides appropriate safeguards for the right to protest (PDF) and that the police and prosecutors will continue to be responsible for acting “compatibly with an individual’s Convention rights” when making any decisions about arrests and charges. What further changes are expected? If it becomes law, the Crime and Policing Bill 2024-25 will introduce further measures aimed at restricting certain behaviours at protests, including creating new offences of possessing pyrotechnics, climbing war memorials, and concealing identity. It would also allow the police to impose conditions on protests planned to pass sites of religious worship. In October 2025, the government announced it would introduce legislation that would allow the police to place conditions on protests that, due to their regularity, have a “cumulative impact” of disruption. This would replace legislation previously introduced via statutory instrument in June 2023 that was quashed following judicial review. The government said it would also review legislation “to ensure that powers are sufficient and being consistently applied.” 

London: House of Commons Library, 2025. 70p.