The TUC meeting in Brighton supported the motion below on Wednesday. The General Secretary Paul Nowak did add the qualification that the right being defended was that of peaceful democratic protest. It remains a welcome voice in the effort to resist an increasingly authoritarian society

EM1 Defend the right to protest, defend democracy

Carried motion

Received from: UCU

Congress notes that:

i. we are witnessing an alarming attack on the right to protest in Britain, inaugurated by Tory legislation in 2022 and 2023

ii. there has recently been a serious escalation in this authoritarianism, widely condemned by leading human-rights organisations. Such escalation has included:

–    the Metropolitan Police’s unprecedented imposition of stringent restrictions on every recent national march for Palestine

–    the increasingly lengthy custodial sentences given to climate justice protestors

–    the political prosecution of four leading organisers of the Palestine Coalition which oversees the national marches

–    the home secretary’s abuse of anti-terrorism legislation to ban a non-violent, direct action group, persecute opponents of this move and target peaceful activists

–    the government’s pursuit of the Crime and Policing Bill, which would further empower the police to restrict mass protest.

Congress believes that:

a.  these attacks on the right to protest seriously endanger democracy

b.  worsening authoritarianism ultimately threatens trade union freedoms

c.  especially with the far right on the rise, a Labour government should be defending basic human rights and democratic norms, not imperilling them.

Congress resolves to:

1. write to the prime minister, the home secretary and the mayor of London, reflecting the ‘believes’ clauses, conveying our unified opposition to all aspects of this worsening authoritarianism

2. demand, in such a letter and in a public statement, an immediate end to attacks on the right to protest and, specifically, an end to the punitive, political use of sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act by the Metropolitan Police

3. support campaigns defending the right to protest.

Mover: University and College Union
Seconder: National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers