This comes immediately after the
announcement by Just Stop Oil that they're ceasing their disruptive protests. It seems as if Youth Demand intend, or were intending, to pick up from where Just Stop Oil has left off, or at least that the police have reason to believe this is the case.
The legal position, as so often, has to be considered on a case-by-case basis, by the courts rather than by parliament, ministers or the police. On the one hand, there's the protesters' right to freedom of speech and association (European Convention on Human Rights, articles 10 and 11). On the other there's the right of everyone else to go peaceably about their lawful business, which is implied by articles 5 and 8 of the ECHR (Right to liberty and security, right to respect for private life) and also the principle in English common law that you have a right to do everything not forbidden by law).
The arrests were, as I understand it, under
section 78 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which on the face of it seems not inappropriate, at least if the meeting was to discuss and plan how to carry out the sort of highly disruptive activities suggested in the Guardian article.
“Youth Demand have stated an intention to ‘shut down’ London over the month of April using tactics including ‘swarming’ and road blocks,” police said.
“While we absolutely recognise the importance of the right to protest, we have a responsibility to intervene to prevent activity that crosses the line from protest into serious disruption and other criminality.”
Youth Demand certainly have a right freely to assemble and protest, and to plan such protests and assemblies, but that has to be balanced against other people's conflicting rights freely to go about their lawful business, including the right of emergency service workers to attend emergencies, the right of patients to attend hospitals for treatment, and so on, and the courts have to balance these conflicting rights in the least restrictive way possible.
I'm content to leave it up to the courts to decide, on the basis of the available evidence, just as I would be if they had been discussing "swarming" and roadblocks to protest not against fossil fuels and against the Israeli government's possible war crimes in Gaza and elsewhere but against immigration to the UK and against abortion clinics.
ETA
Quakers in Britain says the arrests were the first at a meeting house and "an aggressive violation".
www.bbc.co.uk
bsky.app
www.thetimes.com
uglypolitix.substack.com
