Police powers: Protests

What are the current protest laws in the UK?

An individual’s right to freedom of expression and assembly are protected by Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is enshrined in UK law. Together, the Articles safeguard the right to peaceful protest. However, these rights are not absolute, and the state can implement laws that restrict the right to protest to maintain public order or to protect the rights and freedoms of others.

In the UK, several pieces of legislation provide a framework for the policing of protests. The Public Order Act 1986 provides the police with powers to place restrictions and conditions on protests. These powers were strengthened by part 3 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.

The Public Order Act 2023 established several protest-related criminal offences, including causing serious disruption by ‘locking on’ (attaching oneself to another person, an object or to land), serious disruption by tunnelling underground, obstructing major transport works and interfering with key national infrastructure.

There are several other criminal offences that could apply to a person’s conduct during a protest, despite not being offences that are specific to protests. These include wilful obstruction of a highway, public nuisance, and aggravated trespass.

What other rules can apply to protests?

There have been several examples of businesses and organisations applying for court orders against protesters to stop them from engaging in protests that affects their operations. The Public Order Act 2023 also gives the Home Secretary the power to request injunctions against protesters, though at the time of writing this provision has not been brought into force.

Part 2 of the Public Order Act 2023 created Serious Disruption Prevention Orders (SDPOs). SDPOs are civil orders that enable courts to place conditions or restrictions on an adult with the aim of preventing them from engaging in disruptive protest-related activity. Breaching an SDPO is a criminal offence.

How have protest laws changed?

In recent years, the government has initiated major legislative reforms in response to concerns about peaceful but disruptive protests.

Taken as a whole, the reforms under the Public Order Act 2023 and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 have increased the police’s power to intervene in disruptive protests, introduced a range of new protest-related criminal offences and increased penalties for people involved in organising and carrying out disruptive protests.

This legislative agenda has been controversial and attracted strong opposition from campaigners who have questioned the compatibility of reforms with human rights legislation. The Joint Committee on Human Rights said that the combined measures in the 2023 and 2022 acts would likely “have a chilling effect on the right to protest in England and Wales” (PDF).

The government said that its legislation aimed to “protect the public and businesses from [the] unacceptable actions” of “a small minority of protestors”. It said that existing human rights legislation provides appropriate safeguards for the right to protest (PDF) and that the police and prosecutors will continue to be responsible for acting “compatibly with an individual’s Convention rights” when making any decisions about arrests and charges.

What further changes are expected?

If it becomes law, the Crime and Policing Bill 2024-26 will introduce further measures aimed at restricting certain behaviours at protests, including creating new offences of possessing pyrotechnics, climbing war memorials, and concealing identity. It would also allow the police to impose conditions on protests planned to pass sites of religious worship.

It could also allow the police to place conditions on protests that, due to their regularity, have a “cumulative impact” of disruption. This would replace legislation previously introduced via statutory instrument in June 2023 that was quashed in 2025 following judicial review.

In December 2025, the government launched a review of protest legislation “to test whether the law remains fit for purpose, assess whether thresholds and safeguards are right and effective, and recommend reforms that improve consistency, protect rights and reassure affected communities.” It said it would report in February 2026.