Ministers are to give police new powers to target repeated protests, aimed particularly at cracking down on demonstrations connected to Gaza, the Home Office has said.
The announcement, made the morning after almost 500 people were arrested in London for expressing support for Palestine Action, a proscribed organisation, could allow police to order regular protests to take place at a different site.
Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, will also look at all anti-protest laws, with the possibility that powers to ban some protests outright could be strengthened.
Speaking on Sunday to Sky News, Mahmood said she believed there was “a gap in the law” that required action, and that she aimed to act at speed.
Under the planned powers, Mahmood will push through rapid changes to the Public Order Act 1986, allowing police to consider the “cumulative impact” of repeated protests. Details will be set out “in due course”, the announcement said.
If a protest has caused what a Home Office statement called “repeated disorder” at the same site for repeated weeks, police would be able to order the organisers to move it elsewhere, with anyone who fails to obey risking arrest.
Mahmood, the statement added, would “also review existing legislation to ensure that powers are sufficient and being consistently applied”, including police powers to ban some protests completely.
Asked on Sky about the plan, Mahmood said: “What I will be making explicit is that cumulative disruption, that is to say the frequency of particular protests in particular places, is in and of itself, a reason for the police to be able to restrict and place conditions.”
This could involve police ordering protest organisers to move the event, or restrict the timescale, she said.
Speaking later to BBC1’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Mahmood denied this was about banning protest: “This is not about a ban. This is about restrictions and conditions that would enable the police to maybe put further time restrictions or move those protests to other places.
“What I’m allowing is for the police to be able to take cumulative disruption into account, and it is important.”
The powers appear to be aimed at both mass pro-Gaza demonstrations, which took place in London and some other cities over a period of weeks, and those held to support Palestine Action.
On Saturday, police arrested about 500 people at the latest such protest. It took place despite ministers, including Keir Starmer, asking that it be postponed following this week’s deadly attack on a synagogue in Manchester.
Mahmood indicated that this was directly connected to the proposed extra powers, saying: “It’s been clear to me in conversations in the last couple of days that there is a gap in the law and there is an inconsistency of practice.”
She continued: “I’ll be taking measures immediately to put that right, and I will be reviewing our wider protest legislation as well to make sure the arrangements we have can meet the scale of the challenge that we face, which is protecting the right to protest, but ensuring that our communities can go about their daily business without feeling intimidated, and also that public order can be maintained.”
Mahmood defended the mass arrests at Palestine Action protests, and the decision to ban the group under terror laws: “People might not like that decision, they might have questions about the way that the anti-terror laws work in this country, but there is no excuse for holding up placards supporting a banned organisation. That will always be met with a police response.”
After Saturday’s protest, the chair of the Metropolitan police federation said officers policing protests in London were “emotionally and physically exhausted”.
Paula Dodds said: “Enough is enough. Our concentration should be on keeping people safe at a time when the country is on heightened alert from a terrorist attack. And instead officers are being drawn in to facilitate these relentless protests.”
The planned new power follows protest-related measures in the crime and policing bill going through parliament, which bans the possession of face coverings or fireworks or flares at protests, and criminalises the climbing of certain war memorials.
