Right to Protest in the UK

With David Bailey

The relationship between protest and democracy has gained considerable prominence in public and scholarly debate over the past five years in the UK, as recent legislation - specifically the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 - has fundamentally altered the ‘rules of engagement’ for citizens, police, and the courts. This raises several important questions for democracy and how we understand it, including the possibility for ‘governance through uncertainty’, unequal risks taken by activists, and challenges to established theories of civil disobedience. This project aims to contribute to these important discussions by establishing an interdisciplinary workshop at the University of Leicester to investigate the changing landscape of protest, law, and policing in the UK, and to consider the wider implications for democratic participation and our theoretical understanding of the changing role of protest in democracy.