A new report warns that Britain is undergoing a “deeply troubling transformation” in how it treats political protest as climate activists and pro-Palestine campaigners increasingly face lengthy prison sentences, sweeping legal restrictions and months in jail before trial.
The report, Britain’s Political Prisoners, copublished by researchers at the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice at Queen Mary University of London and the campaign group Defend Our Juries, said the UK has “witnessed an increase in anti-protest powers granted to the police and the courts through legislation” that has “created a significantly more repressive legal terrain for activists engaging in civil disobedience and direct action”.
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It traces the shift from crackdowns on protests by Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter, Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil to more recent prosecutions linked to Palestine solidarity actions, including campaigns targeting British factories operated by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer.
The report, released on Tuesday, found that a combination of new laws, broader police powers and increasingly punitive court tactics has reshaped Britain’s protest landscape since 2019.
The United Kingdom has witnessed numerous mass protests and direct actions by activists to pressure the government to stop selling arms to Israel during its genocidal war on Gaza, in which more than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 40,000 women, children and elderly.
So what does Britain’s shifting stance on protests mean for civil rights, and what’s behind the legal clampdown on climate and pro-Palestine protests?
How Britain’s legal system has changed since 2019
The report painted a stark picture of how Britain’s legal system has changed in response to climate and pro-Palestine direct action campaigns through a mix of new laws, expanded police powers and what campaigners describe as increasingly punitive court tactics. What this means for protesters is longer jail sentences, stricter bail conditions and harsher treatment in the courts than was once typical for acts of civil disobedience, according to the report.
At the centre of that shift are two major laws introduced after waves of demonstrations by groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, two environmental groups that employ nonviolent civil disobedience tactics to pressure governments to address the climate crisis.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 transformed the old common law offence of “public nuisance” into a formal criminal offence carrying a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. This means actions that seriously disrupt the public – such as blocking roads, stopping traffic or shutting down infrastructure – can now lead to far more severe criminal penalties than before because the offence was never previously codified into legislation. Campaigners said the law has given prosecutors a powerful new tool to pursue long prison sentences against protesters.
The Public Order Act 2023 introduced a series of protest-specific offences in May of that year, largely in response to climate protests by groups including Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion, whose actions included blocking motorways, occupying oil terminals and targeting infrastructure projects in an attempt to pressure the government to halt new oil and gas extraction.
Such offences under the act included “locking on”, in which protesters attach themselves to roads, buildings, vehicles or each other using chains, glue or other devices to make removal difficult. The law also criminalised tunnelling, a tactic used by some activists to delay infrastructure projects, and introduced offences for disrupting major transport networks, oil terminals and other nationally important infrastructure.
The legislation also significantly widened police powers whereby officers may now place restrictions on even one-person protests if they are deemed disruptive. Police were also granted powers to carry out stop-and-search operations in designated protest zones without needing reasonable suspicion that someone has committed an offence – a significant expansion of police authority criticised by civil liberties groups.
But the report argued the crackdown extends beyond parliament and into the courts.
One of its central findings is the growing use of civil injunctions and contempt of court proceedings against activists.
Oil companies, arms manufacturers, councils and universities have increasingly obtained court orders banning protests near their sites, the report said.
The report identified contempt of court as the most common route to imprisonment among the 249 protest-related cases it analysed. Contempt of court usually refers to someone disobeying a judge’s order or behaving in a way the court says interferes with justice. In protest cases, it has increasingly been used against activists who ignore injunctions or refuse to follow restrictions imposed during trials.
Because contempt proceedings are handled directly by judges rather than juries, campaigners argued they allow courts to imprison protesters more quickly and with fewer legal safeguards.
Researchers also highlighted what campaigners described as the “gagging” of defendants. Judges have increasingly stopped protesters from mentioning climate concerns, Gaza, international law or their political motivations in front of juries.
Courts have often argued that juries should focus only on whether a defendant broke the law, not on the political or moral reasons behind their actions. Critics said those restrictions prevent activists from fully explaining why they protested in the first place.
Campaigners also said the legal shift reflects a broader political change, driven in part by corporate lobbying under successive Conservative governments and continuing under Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government. They argued that peaceful protest is increasingly being criminalised to protect corporate interests, regardless of wider ethical concerns about the supply of arms to Israel during its war on Gaza or opposing fossil fuel projects linked to the climate crisis.
Perhaps most controversially, the report pointed to the growing use of lengthy pretrial detention. That means protesters being held in prison before they have been convicted of any crime.
According to the findings, many activists spend months on remand awaiting trial while some Palestine Action defendants have been held for more than a year before their cases are heard in court.
In 60 percent of the cases studied, the final sentence handed down was shorter than the time defendants had already spent in custody awaiting trial.
Are lobbyists influencing the crackdown?
Tim Crosland, director of Defend Our Juries, said the findings challenge Britain’s claims of ensuring democratic protections.
“This report strips away the illusion that Britain remains committed to democratic principles,” Crosland said.
“It reveals that peaceful protesters are being jailed in ever-increasing numbers under pressure from the oil and arms industries, the Israeli government and their lobbyists.”
The report pointed to what it described as growing political and corporate pressure behind Britain’s crackdown on protest movements.
Researchers cited reports that parts of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act may have originated in proposals from the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange. According to the investigative news site Open Democracy, Policy Exchange has previously received funding from ExxonMobil. The think tank had earlier published a report titled Extremism Rebellion, which called for new laws targeting Extinction Rebellion activists.
Al Jazeera could not independently verify the links between the think tank and the legislation.
The report further alleged that British officials came under pressure from both Elbit Systems and the Israeli government to take a tougher approach towards Palestine Action protests targeting Elbit’s UK factories.
According to correspondence quoted by the researchers, the British government said in 2022 that it had “expressed our support in recognising the attacks and boycott on Elbit UK”. The report said the issue was later raised directly with then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab during a visit to Israel, where he reportedly “declared that the British government is committed to stopping the attacks”.
Zoe Blackler, founding director of the London events space Kairos, said: “In the face of this clampdown on the right to peaceful protest, we need to come together in solidarity and defiance.”
Which are the cases at the centre of Britain’s protest crackdown?
The report traced Britain’s hardening response to the protests through a series of landmark cases involving climate activists and Palestine solidarity campaigners, many of whom received lengthy prison sentences or spent months behind bars before trial.
Among the most high-profile is the case of the Whole Truth Five, a group of Just Stop Oil activists jailed in July 2024 over a Zoom call discussing plans to disrupt the M25 motorway. The five were convicted of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance and initially sentenced to between four and five years in prison.
The report described the case as one of the clearest examples of the tougher approach now being taken towards protest movements. Campaigners argued the sentences were extraordinary because the activists were punished largely for planning disruptive action rather than carrying it out. Prosecutors relied on conspiracy laws, which allow people to be charged for agreeing to commit an offence even if the planned action never ultimately happens.
Four Palestine Action activists were also sentenced to between 23 and 27 months for conspiring to damage an Israeli-linked arms factory in Wales. Meanwhile, four Just Stop Oil activists received prison terms of up to 30 months over plans to disrupt Manchester Airport despite never reaching the site. A fifth defendant, Noah Crane, spent almost a year in jail on remand before later being acquitted.
Another major case involved the Filton 24, Palestine Action activists prosecuted after a protest at an Elbit Systems factory in Bristol. Some defendants were held on remand for up to 18 months before trial.
After several activists were acquitted of aggravated burglary charges, most were eventually granted bail.
The report said the case raises “serious concerns” that prosecutors used unusually serious charges to justify holding defendants in prison for long periods before trial.
The report also highlighted the Brize Norton Five, activists accused of spray-painting air force planes in protest against Britain’s military links to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. According to the report, the group has remained on remand since August and is not expected to stand trial until 2027, meaning some could spend close to two years in jail before a verdict is reached.
Other cases revealed the growing use of judicial “gagging orders”.
During the retrial of the Filton 6, a separate trial from the Filton 24, the judge barred defendants from mentioning Gaza, Elbit’s role in supplying weapons to Israel and their political motivations for protesting. Critics argued such restrictions make it harder for juries to hear the broader context behind direct action campaigns.
In another case, three Insulate Britain activists were imprisoned for contempt of court after defying a judge’s order not to mention the “climate crisis” or “fuel poverty” before a jury.
Despite the legal restrictions, several juries continued to acquit activists. The report pointed to acquittals involving Just Stop Oil protesters, Extinction Rebellion activists and a hung jury in the first Filton 6 trial as evidence that some jurors remained unconvinced by the increasingly aggressive prosecution of protest movements.
Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty International UK CEO, told Al Jazeera that “the right to protest is being eroded before our eyes.”
“We’re seeing a worrying shift where the state is using remand, sweeping injunctions and contempt proceedings to lock people up or silence them before they’ve even stood trial.
“The broader legal implications here are concerning. It’s not just about one group of activists; it’s about a systemic attempt to shut down dissent, something we’ve been ringing the alarm on for a long time.
“By replacing the presumption of liberty with preemptive legal intimidation, it creates a chilling effect, undermines the rule of law and flies in the face of basic human rights.”
