Does the UK need new laws to ban marches and protests about foreign governments' actions abroad?
UK police can already impose conditions or ban specific marches under the Public Order Act 1986 if they risk serious disorder, as seen with the 2026 ban on the Al Quds Day march linked to Iran. Recent laws like the Crime and Policing Act 2026 and National Security (State Threats) Act 2026 grant more powers against disruptive protests, face coverings, and foreign state-backed groups. Large pro-Palestine marches since 2023 have sparked debate over antisemitism, cumulative disruption, and free speech limits.
44 Opinions
We should be strengthening freedom of speech and protest not weakening it.
To ban any sort of peaceful protest is to limit free speech. To ban peaceful protests against anything unlawful is to limit free speech. Allowing people who feel strongly about ANY issue to protest peacefully is a fundamental democratic right.
Currently the law is fine, very one sided though, more laws will just extend our2 tier laws
The laws already exist. They just need to be applied fairly, to all protests dependent on circumstances.
British money and resources should not be wasted on protests of this nature.
If we live in a free society we have to be able to express our feelings & views both privately and publicly within the law whether we like what we're hearing or not.
The UK is all that matters if people are worried about heathen lands afar they are potential traitors and need to be brought back into line!
No, people must be free to demonstrate and to forward their ideas. But, we must be much more robust about the standards of behaviour required at these times. Particularly, property damage and vandalism should be recompensed in full by the perpetrators.
It isn’t the right to march/protest but enforcement of same & proportionality. Not acceptable to have week on week of disruption by terrorist supporting foreigners who don’t respect our laws. The despotic Mayor Sadiq Khan runs a corrupt regime where his Political bias is directly translated into Policing. The Police battered by years of siege from hard left & infiltration by Common Purpose do not do their legal duty without bias. The Palestinian marches are a case in point.
The existing Public Order offences already have a great deal of latitude. That, it seems, is a blessing or a curse, depending on your viewpoint on any individual case. But there's the rub: the weasel words in the legislation are the fertiliser from which Two-Tier Policing grows. And also the cause of the smell...