Sunak Warns UK Protesters of More Powers to Protect ‘Hard-Working Majority’

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during a major speech at Plexal, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London, on Jan. 4, 2023. Stefan Rousseau/PA Media

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has promised tougher laws to stop protesters in Britain from disrupting the lives of the “hard-working majority.”

Extinction Rebellion—sometimes known as XR—was particularly active in 2019 and, following the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, other groups such as Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil emerged, causing chaos to motorists and commuters in London, on the M25, and in other cities across the country.

Last month the Metropolitan Police was criticised after it shadowed Just Stop Oil protesters as they walked slowly along a busy road in southeast London, rather than intervening and arresting the demonstrators.

The Met said it found it difficult to justify arresting the protesters for “unlawful obstruction” under current laws.

Chris Hobbs, a retired Metropolitan Police officer with considerable knowledge of public order policing, told The Epoch Times at the time: “I can’t understand the Met’s point of view but I suspect they have not taken this decision of their own volition. They have probably taken legal advice and have come up with this non-intervention tactic.”

On Monday, writing on the Conservative Home website, Sunak said: “Peaceful protest is a fine British, democratic tradition. But that must be balanced with the rights of everyone else to go about their lives freely.”

He said: “We have been looking at how we can strengthen our laws to provide the police with the clarity they need to stop serious disruption and will come forward with those plans in the coming weeks.”

‘It’s Not Right and We’re Going to Put a Stop to It’

“We cannot and will not have protests conducted by a small minority disrupting the lives of the hard working majority, preventing a mother taking their kids to school or cancer patients attending their hospital appointments. It’s not right and we’re going to put a stop to it,” he promised.

Parliament has already passed the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, which “strengthens police powers to tackle unauthorised encampments,” and is mulling over a Public Order Bill, which would introduce a new offence—punishable with up to six months in prison and unlimited fine—for people who deliberately lock themselves to buildings or objects in order to cause “serious disruption.”

Just Stop Oil protesters conducting a slow march in the Old Kent Road in south London on Dec. 6, 2022. Just Stop Oil

But a Downing Street spokesman said the police could be given even more additional powers to curb Just Stop Oil and other activist groups.

“We want the police to have the requisite powers and that includes ensuring that when people are significantly disrupting the public’s everyday lives, the police can act,” the prime minister’s official spokesman told PA.

The spokesman said that fresh legislation was often required as the activists introduced new tactics and he said, “It’s important we continually look at making sure the police have any powers, and certainly any clarity they need, to act.”

Referring to the walk-slow tactics adopted by Just Stop Oil in the Old Kent Road last month, he added: “We’ve seen protests move to slow walking protests. Obviously the government fully respects people’s right to protest, to demonstrate, and we will always protect that. But equally there needs to be a balance struck on protests that are deliberately designed to inflict misery on the public so they can’t go about their daily lives.”

Last week Extinction Rebellion said it would stop using public disruption methods because they were failing to have an effect.

Just Stop Oil—which wants the government to stop giving licences to new oil and gas extraction—said in November it was pausing protests along the M25 in order to give the government time to reconsider its position.

Just Stop Oil Says 138 ‘Ordinary People’ Sent to Prison

In a statement on its website, posted on New Year’s Eve, the group said 138 Just Stop Oil supporters had been sent to prison and 12 were still behind bars.

It described them as, “138 ordinary, everyday people jailed for nonviolently resisting the government’s death project by demanding an end to new oil and gas.”

The statement went on to say: “By continuing with new oil and gas projects, politicians are committing millions of people to suffer extreme weather events, such as floods, huge storms and prolonged drought. Millions of people will die, many more will be displaced from their homes and entire nations will be destroyed. New oil and gas is an act of genocide.”

Just Stop Oil also warned the government: “Their scorn for us is such that they assume we’ll accept in silence. They have no idea what’s coming. Ordinary people are standing up and using the only power we have: unity, love and courage, poured into acts of civil resistance.”

PA Media contributed to this report.