There is a comforting story we like to tell ourselves about democracy. We vote every few years, we grumble in between, and if something really matters we take to the streets, wave a placard, make a bit of noise and hope our protests are heard. Orderly enough, passionate enough, British enough.
But quietly, and with remarkably little public understanding, that story is being rewritten.
Over the past few years, the UK government has steadily expanded public order legislation, most notably through the Public Order Act 2023 and related changes. These are not dry, technical tweaks, despite how they are often presented. They change the practical reality of protest in this country – who can do it, where, how often, and at what personal cost.
And the implications are broader, and closer to home, than many people realise.
At the heart of these changes is a new obsession with “serious disruption”. The term sounds reasonable enough. None of us enjoy being late for work because a road is blocked, or missing an appointment because a protest has brought transport to a halt. The government argues that the balance between the right to protest and the rights of everyone else has tipped too far.
But look more closely, and that balance begins to feel less like a set of scales and more like a thumb pressing firmly down on one side.
The police’s powers have now been widened
The law now criminalises a range of protest activities that were previously lawful, including so-called “locking on”, interfering with transport or infrastructure, or causing disruption that authorities believe could be serious – even if it hasn’t happened yet. Police powers to impose conditions on protests have been widened, as have stop-and-search powers linked specifically to protest activity.
Perhaps most strikingly, individuals can now be subjected to Serious Disruption Prevention Orders. These can restrict where someone goes, who they associate with, and whether they can attend future protests at all – not because they have committed a violent offence, but because of their past involvement in protest deemed disruptive.
A shift in how dissent itself is treated
This is not just about dealing with people gluing themselves to roads. It marks a shift in how dissent itself is treated.
That shift becomes even clearer when we look at how the definition of “key national infrastructure” is being expanded. Traditionally, this term covered obvious essentials: roads, railways, airports, energy networks. Things that keep the country physically running.
Now, under proposed regulations linked to the Public Order Act, life sciences infrastructure – including animal testing laboratories – is being brought into the same protected category.
In practical terms, this means protests outside animal testing sites could be treated in the same legal framework as protests that interfere with airports or power stations. Peaceful demonstrators could find themselves facing harsher penalties, tighter restrictions, or pre-emptive policing measures simply for being present in the “wrong” place.
Supporters of the change argue this is about protecting medical research, public health, and national resilience. Critics argue it stretches the concept of “national infrastructure” to the point where it begins to shield private, controversial activities from public scrutiny.
And that is the crux of the unease many people feel, even if they haven’t quite put their finger on it yet.
These laws do not ban protest outright. Instead, they narrow it, condition it, and burden it with risk. Protest becomes something you are allowed to do – if you do it quietly enough, briefly enough, and in a place that does not inconvenience anyone with power.
But protest, historically, has never worked like that.
Meaningful protest has always been disruptive
From the suffragettes to trade unionists, from civil rights marches to anti-war demonstrations, meaningful protest has almost always been disruptive. It has made people uncomfortable. It has interfered with business as usual.
That was the point.
The danger of the current trajectory is not that Britain suddenly becomes an authoritarian state overnight. It is subtler than that. The danger is a slow chilling effect, where ordinary people decide it is simply not worth the risk.
Worth the possibility of arrest. Worth the legal uncertainty. Worth the chance of being barred from future protests because you once stood in the wrong place at the wrong time.
When protest is reframed primarily as a problem to be managed rather than a right to be protected, participation dwindles. Dissent becomes something done by a shrinking, increasingly marginalised group, rather than a shared civic tool.
And this matters even if you have never attended a protest in your life.
Democratic rights are not like gym memberships, there for the keen and ignored by everyone else. You do not have to use them regularly for them to be valuable. Their power lies in the fact that they exist at all – that when something crosses a line, collective action is possible without fear.
Voting isn’t always enough
Voting remains essential. But voting alone has never been enough. Elections happen every few years; decisions that shape our lives happen daily. In the long stretch between ballot boxes, protest has always been one of the ways the public reminds those in power that consent is ongoing, not automatic.
What the expansion of public order law risks doing is quietly redefining dissent itself. Not as a democratic safeguard, but as a nuisance to be controlled. Not as a right, but as a conditional privilege – one that can be withdrawn if it becomes too loud, too persistent, or too effective.
A protest that causes no disruption is not a protest. It is a suggestion. And suggestions are easily ignored.
The danger here is not chaos in the streets. It is silence. A future in which people decide it is safer to stay home, easier to scroll past injustice than to stand beside it, and wiser to grumble privately than to speak publicly.
Democracy does not usually disappear in a single dramatic moment. More often, it fades – trimmed back in the name of order, tidiness and convenience – until one day we realise that the right to be heard has been reduced to a tick in a box, and a voice that arrives only when it is invited.
And by then, making a noise may already count as disruption.
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