UK accused of undermining democratic rights with climate protest crackdown

Britain’s crackdown on climate protest is setting “a dangerous precedent” around the world and undermining democratic rights, the UK director of Human Rights Watch has said.

Yasmine Ahmed accused the Labour government of hypocrisy over its claims to be committed to human rights and international law.

Ahmed said: “We’re at a stage where we’re talking about the … dangerous hypocrisy of what the UK government is saying and doing, and also the fact that the international community and the UN have [raised] and continue to raise the alarm about how this UK government responds to protest, and in particular climate protest.”

In the UK “laws criminalising protests undermine democratic rights”, the NGO says in its latest annual world report, published on Thursday, adding that in the past year “the UK continued to crack down on and criminalise climate protests”.

New powers granted to police by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 have had the effect of undermining “free speech, peaceful assembly, and democratic rights in the UK”, the report says.

The cumulative effect of the laws, which newly criminalised or introduced harsher penalties for a range of protest tactics, as well as giving police greater discretion about when they can intervene in protest, has made taking part in climate activism increasingly risky, with the effect that fewer people are willing to risk the legal consequences.

Ahmed said: “They have introduced laws which mean that the circumstances where the police can interfere and stop protesters are now much more expansive than they were.

“So for example, lowering thresholds around what is considered serious disruption; introducing noise level thresholds and disruption levels around noise; introducing orders that, before any crime has actually been committed, essentially prevent protesters from being able to engage with others that may be involved in protests, [from] engaging online; and then also changing penalties [for some offences] from what would have been fines to now possible imprisonment.

“So what you now have is laws which essentially mean that the thresholds of when protests can be stopped and interfered with are now much lower.”

The effects of the crackdown have been severe. In total 34 activists taking part in climate protest were jailed in 2024, according to Tim Crosland of Defend Our Juries. In July, five supporters of the Just Stop Oil campaign were jailed for four and five years – the longest sentences ever imposed for non-violent protest actions – for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance after they spoke on a video call about a direct action protest on the M25 motorway.

Those sentences came shortly after the election of the Labour government, led by a former human rights lawyer, following what HRW described as “more than a decade of backsliding on human rights” by its Conservative predecessors.

But rather than changing course on protest rights, it had doubled down on the previous government’s approach to civil liberties, even to the extent of appealing over a legal decision won by human rights campaigners against some of the most draconian powers introduced in the Public Order Act, said Ahmed.

“It’s setting a very dangerous precedent that a country like the United Kingdom, [which is] speaking about the right to protest internationally, [which is] committed to human rights and international law, and has placed the environment as a central pillar not only of its domestic policy, but its international policy … is willing to defend these laws,” she said.

The Home Office has been contacted for comment.