04/01/2021
The long standing anarchist newspaper Freedom alerts LGBTQ campaign groups along with any form of protest organization that the government is planning on tightening laws on public freedom of assembly and protest in 2021. This follows inflammatory remarks by the highly authoritarian Home Secretary, Priti Patel, in which she described environmental activist groups such as Extinction Rebellion as “criminals” and a high ranking police officer describing Black Lives Matter protestors as “thugs”. The police monitoring group Net Pol takes up the story, saying that reforms to Public Order legislation will be attempted by the government in the New Year. More powers will be proposed to Parliament to give police powers to impose limits and timing demands on demonstrations, and wording of laws tweaked with a view to making it easier to classify disruption to public life as “significant” and illegal.
