Liberty just won back our right to protest in the UK

The Labour government has dropped its second appeal of a High Court ruling. Human rights group Liberty challenged it in the High Court in May 2024, the law change gave the police ‘almost unlimited powers’ to restrict protest. It did so through lowering the bar for police action against a protest from a ‘serious disruption’ to ‘more than a minor disruption’.

This latest ruling found that the previous Conservative government acted unlawfully in using executive powers to sharply tighten protesting restrictions in the UK.

Under such an overreach, police have arrested hundreds of protestors including climate and pro-Palestine activist Greta Thunberg.

‘Henry VIII powers’

In June 2023, the then-Conservative government used secondary legislation, known as Henry VIII powers, to unlawfully change the protest regulation. Secondary legislation shifts power to the executive because the law changes face less parliamentary scrutiny and cannot be amended.

Indeed, the Home Office estimated that its lowering of the threshold would increase police intervention in protests by 50%.

But a year later the High Court agreed with Liberty’s legal challenge that the government cannot make such a change under executive powers.

The Labour government then sought to appeal the ruling on behalf of the Conservatives. After that troubling development, Liberty defeated the government first in the Court of Appeal in May 2025 and now again in June, with the Labour government dropping a second appeal, after continuing the Conservative agenda against protests.

“Fundamental” to democracy

Akiko Hart, Liberty’s director, said:

Our ability to make ourselves heard is fundamental in a democracy and must be protected. This Government has finally seen sense and this backdown is a step forward for the right to protest after years of attacks by those in power.

But while this case dragged on, the police used these regulations to funnel protesters into the criminal system. Justice now needs to be served for anybody wrongfully arrested or convicted under these laws that should never have existed in the first place, and the Government must urgently review every case.

Whether it’s austerity, an aggressive foreign policy, privatisation, deregulation or the right to protest, Labour have continued the Tory programme almost line by line. The mantra of ‘change’ at the election was anything but.

Featured image via Unsplash/Dylan4photography