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. 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, the Public Order Act 1986 allows the police to place restrictions and conditions on protests. These powers were strengthened by part 3 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and part 10 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026.

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

The Crime and Policing Act 2026 also introduced new criminal offences of concealing your face at a protest, climbing on war memorials and possessing pyrotechnics at a protest. These came into force on 29 June 2026.

What other rules can apply to protests?

Businesses and organisations can apply for court orders against protesters to stop them from engaging in protests that affect their operations.

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

There are several 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.

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 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, the Public Order Act 2023, and the Crime and Policing Act 2026 have increased police powers 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. In its legislative scrutiny of the Crime and Policing Act 2026, the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) said:

This is the third piece of primary legislation changing the law on public order on which the JCHR has reported in less than five years. Given the importance of free expression and free assembly to a healthy democracy, the Joint Committee on Human Rights is concerned by the volume of recent change to the law on protest.

In response to the committee’s report, the government said that:

[…] recent legislative changes have been essential to address evolving protest tactics causing significant disruption to vital services and threatening public safety. New measures respond directly to operational gaps identified by law enforcement agencies, and to better balance the rights of protesters against the rights of others to go about their daily business without disruption or alarm.

The government established the Independent Review of Public Order and Hate Crime Legislation in December 2025, which is chaired by Lord Macdonald of River Glaven KC, a former Director of Public Prosecutions. The review will examine whether the law on public order and hate crime “remains fit for purpose” and “whether thresholds and safeguards are right and effective”. It will make recommendations to the Home Secretary.