The conservative government introduced an amendment on Monday allowing the police to preventively arrest people with the intention of participating in a “serious blockage” operation.
by Cécile Ducourieux (London, correspondent)
The British Conservative Government introduced on Monday January 16 an amendment to the public bill order reinforcing the already repressive character of this text, which explicitly aims to hinder the radical but pacifist actions of environmental activists – Rebellion extinction (XR), Just Stop Oil or Britain Insulate -, which have multiplied the blockages of roads, highways or bridges in recent years in the United Kingdom.
The text allows the police to act preventively and to arrest activists even before they have taken action if they have good reasons to think that these people intend to participate in an operation “serious blockage” or a “slow walk” to slow traffic. The amendment was brought to the bill, which has already been validated third reading in the House of Commons and is being examined in the Chamber of Lords. Nothing says that the latter will adopt it without whining: in recent years, the upper room of Westminister has been less right-handed than the Chamber of Commons, in particular on questions of public freedoms.
“The right to demonstrate is a fundamental principle of our democracy, but it is not absolute. A balance must be found between the rights of individuals and the rights of the majority of workers to go about their daily occupations”, said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in a Downing Street statement. Pushed to act by the right of the Conservative Party, which considers climate activists as dangerous agitators without public support, the British government continues to tighten its legislative arsenal.
adopted in 2022, the police, crime, sentencing and short acts already introduced a specific offense, called “public nuisance” authorizing the police to repress the demonstrators making “too much noise” and increasing the sentences for the “obstructions of roads “(can go as far as prison). Without the government amendment, the public order Bill also plans to consider as crimes “blockages” and “interference” with key national infrastructures.
On the front of climate action proper, Downing Street, however, lacks coherence. Admittedly, the executive regularly reiterates its commitments (achieving carbon neutrality in 2050, the objective is listed in the law) but validated in 2022 the issuance of a hundred hydrocarbon operating licenses in the North Sea And even authorized, in December, the opening of a coal mine in Cumbria (north-west of England).
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