On July 18 1912, as the British prime minister Herbert Asquith and Irish nationalist leader John Redmond travelled along Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street) in Dublin in an open carriage, a suffragette protester, Mary Leigh, threw a hatchet at Asquith. The hatchet missed him but grazed Redmond’s ear.

Asquith went to Dublin to make a speech on Home Rule in the Theatre Royal, so a number of English suffragettes followed him to disrupt his visit.

The group included Gladys Evans, who tried to burn down the Theatre Royal. Mary Leigh and Evans both got five years. They went on hunger strike, but that’s another story.

Fast forward to 2024 and a founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion got five years for blocking the M25 and four other protesters got four years, the longest sentences handed down for peaceful protest in British legal history.

Seamus Culleton case should be raised directly with Donald Trump - The Irish News view

Cormac Moore: Frank Stagg and the power of the hunger strike in Irish history

Now, there’s a helluva difference between throwing a hatchet at the prime minister or attempted arson of a theatre and blocking traffic on a motorway.

The sentences caused widespread condemnation. The UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, Michel Forst, attended the trial and afterwards issued a statement.

“Today is a dark day for peaceful environmental protest in the UK. This sentence should shock the conscience of any member of the public. It should also put all of us on high alert on the state of civic rights and freedoms in the United Kingdom.

“Rulings like today’s set a very dangerous precedent, not just for environmental protest but any form of peaceful protest that may, at one point or another, not align with the interests of the government of the day.”

The sentences came after an avalanche of repressive laws passed in Britain in recent years, clearly designed to criminalise protest. All the legislation and its promoters begin by saying how democratic protest is an essential part of society and should be facilitated. They then proceed to ensure the opposite.

The influential legal reform charity JUSTICE produced a report on January 8, ‘Striking the Balance: Protest Rights and Public Order’. In it they point out that “in just four years, successive governments have introduced a cascade of offences and police powers that dramatically lower the threshold for criminalising peaceful protest, erode vital human rights protections and create widespread confusion for the public, police and courts”.

They list the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, the Public Order Act 2023 and the Crime & Policing Act 2026, all of which give the police extra powers to halt or inhibit protest including making noise – yes, incredible – and carrying items such as glue, cable ties and bike locks. The police can also arrest people for refusing to remove face covering.

People naively thought that when Labour was elected in 2024, led by, altogether now, a renowned human rights lawyer, they might repeal or water down some of the more draconian features of the Conservative legislation. Far from it.

Furthermore, Starmer’s government, like the Conservatives, has politicised the new powers in the various acts, starting with the misuse of the Terrorism Act 2000 to outlaw Palestine Action as part of what is in effect Starmer’s government’s anti-Palestinian bias: For Yvette Cooper, criminal damage falls under the heading of terrorism. The result is confusion and inconsistency in policing.

The evidence is that many of the public don’t buy this repression. Last week a jury acquitted or failed to reach a verdict on six people charged with aggravated burglary and grievous bodily harm (including fracturing a policewoman’s spine with a sledgehammer) in a plant the protesters claim was making equipment Israel uses in Gaza.

This was the very incident Cooper referred to repeatedly to justify banning Palestine Action as a violent terrorist group. At least 2,500 have been arrested for protesting at Cooper’s decision, which now goes to the Court of Appeal after the High Court ruled it unlawful.

Magistrates and judges have tried to insist that courts and juries can’t take into consideration the motives of protesters, just whether their actions are criminal.

In 2024, eleven people were arrested for holding signs outside a court saying: “Juries have the absolute right to acquit a defendant according to their conscience.” The case was dismissed, with the judge saying the same sign is displayed in the Old Bailey.

Most this repressive legislation and government abuse applies only to England and Wales, though the Terrorism Act and part of the Crime & Policing Act apply here. Nevertheless, it has a wider effect. It destroys Britain’s credentials as a liberal, humane state.

Cooper’s call last week on China to release democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai on humanitarian grounds carried no weight with the Chinese aware of Britain’s inhumane treatment of Palestinian protesters inside jail and outside.

Pot, kettle. It used to be otherwise.

If you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article and would like to submit a Letter to the Editor to be considered for publication, please click here.

Letters to the Editor are invited on any subject. They should be authenticated with a full name, address and a daytime telephone number. Pen names are not allowed.

© The Irish News