To feel uneasy about how quiet everyone is about this happening?

Yanbu.....all slipping through quietly....1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World on the horizon. You will have to show a vaccine passport to clear your throat soon...

Yabu simply because it is not quiet. There are articles mentioning this even in newspapers abroad.
People are talking about it everywhere

YABU. One, because there are several threads about this already, two, because people have the right not to care, and most importantly, all this does is protect innocent people from having their lives disrupted.

People will still be allowed to protest! They will just have to do it in a way that doesn't intimidate or otherwise inconvenience people who are not protesting and are just trying to go about their business. There's nothing wrong with that idea.

If it makes a protestor think twice before supergluing themselves to a train, good. If it makes organisers think through their plans more carefully to ensure they get their message across peacefully and safely, great. If it gives authorities the power to lock up people who feel their right to cause trouble and smash property outweighs the rights of others to feel safe, fantastic.

Frankly, if you can't persuade people with calm discussion then perhaps your argument is not as strong as you think it is.

All this bill does is tip the scales slightly, to make them a little less in favour of mob rule.

@skirk64 they've done a really good job on you.

YANBU at all. See also the "war on woke" (eg appointment of new BBC head, protecting statues), attacks on judicial review and human rights, downgrading of the role of parliament, arrogation of HVIII powers... all accompanied by flags and nationalist rhetoric. It is scary how quickly we get used to it.

Yanbu - protest is meant to disrupt it would be ineffective otherwise.

People like Skirk will continue to defend these changes until there is something they want to noisy protest about in the streets. Whatever that is they feel strongly about. Then suddenly the rules will be "unfair!".

Can anyone outline what the new laws actually DO? I've been Googling and can't really understand.

People will still be allowed to protest!
Only if the police and govt deem it acceptable. The police are given a huge amount of discretion, and the govt gets power to make further changes to the law by decree rather than in parliament.
Look at how the abysmally drafted covid regs (issued by Matt Hancock using his delegated powers and not debated in parliament) were used to squash the vigil at Clapham Common.

I ask my sister what people would do if they didn’t have court system (like Buck v. Bell since no one protested against this) to fight for their human rights.... she said they would protest.

Any and all protest will now be subject to the Police and Govt deeming it 'Acceptable'. THEY get to decide what is acceptable. And change that.

It's terrifying.
Greater penalties for toppling a statue than being raped.
Hate speech (including in your own home) Bill enacted in Scotland. Only it specifically excludes women.
We are going backwards and quite quickly too.

Frankly, if you can't persuade people with calm discussion then perhaps your argument is not as strong as you think it is.

This is such utter, utter bollocks. You only have to have even the most sketchy knowledge of history to realise the utter stupidity of this statement. You, PP, are the kind of person who one day calls for protesters to be arrested, only to later enjoy and benefit from the rights their blood and fight won you. If you don’t think people should fight for rights then I suggest you tear up future ballot papers and have your name removed from any property deeds you own.

skirk64
Emily Pankhurst would be turning in her grave. How utterly sad your post makes me feel.

I've lost the plot

Has this gone back to the drawing board - I thought I heard on the radio that it had?

YANBU.
I find it chilling.

YANBU

I’m really concerned about this OP, but very few of my circle seem aware of the bill - I was posting stuff about it on SM last week and most of the responses were things like ‘What, really?’ and ‘Why didn’t I know about this?’ Others thought the measures must be covid related and time limited (which is exactly why the government is pushing them through now; the timing isn’t random - indeed, I think the legislation had been brought forward). Most of my friends are educated professionals - doctors, teachers, lawyers - who would generally have a fairly good awareness of current affairs.

I think, a year into the pandemic, people are ground down, emotionally exhausted and have limited bandwidth for anything that isn’t Covid. Many have stopped paying attention to the news for their own MH - we can’t live permanently in fight or flight mode, and there’s only so much doom and gloom people can take. Again, the government knows this.

The restrictions are also being pushed through as part of a raft of measures, many of which will have popular (or at least populist) support. So they’ll see the ‘headline’ measures - things like tougher sentences and tighter rules around bail - and think ‘Ah, that sounds good’

The vague wording of the bill also means that many people won’t grasp just how draconian the anti-protest measures are, particularly those (most people) who don’t habitually attend protests. They won’t get that literally anything that potentially causes annoyance to anyone can mean that the protest is banned. Even if it’s just a single person protesting. This isn’t just about people blocking roads and glueing themselves to Tube trains. Short of entirely silent, stationary gatherings it’s difficult to see how any large scale protest can happen under this legislation (at least, any protest that runs counter to the government’s own agenda). By their very nature protests are loud and disruptive - otherwise no one would notice them.

Finally @skirk64’s post illustrates perfectly how some people will never accept the need for peaceful protest in a functioning liberal democracy. Same goes for strikes. Whether it’s due to ignorance of the political and historical context, authoritarian tendencies or just a low tolerance for any kind of inconvenience or disruption to their lives, some people just don’t get it. As the pandemic has highlighted, a surprising number of people are pretty accepting of authoritarianism, and many sadly just won’t care.

Greater penalties for toppling a statue than being raped.

The only time in recent memory I remember seeing several top figures within the British government visibly and genuinely angry at a social “injustice” of any kind was after some people had dumped a statue of a long deceased slave trader in a river.
Funny who we choose to represent us.

Also - the Home Secretary (whoever that is at the time) can CHANGE THE RULES about what types/methods of protest aren't allowed without having further parliamentary scrutiny.

Even Theresa May thought that might be going a bit far (although she still voted for it)

I find it a worrying slide into dictatorship

@skirk64, you do realise, don't you, that if this law had been on the statute book early in the last century, the chances are that we as women wouldn't have got the vote - or at least not until other countries shamed us into it? What rights are you happy to go without in the future because there is no way of preventing the government from taking them away?

skirk64 The voice of sense and reason but the left wing woke folk on here aren't interested in either.

Temps "As the pandemic has highlighted, a surprising number of people are pretty accepting of authoritarianism, and many sadly just won’t care."

I didn't want to raise it but now someone else has...I think given that people have actively welcomed authoritarianism, there's not much will to fight it,

Perhaps future generations will fight to get freedom back, that'll be a very bloody revolution.

I'm not UK-based, read about this recently and am genuinely shocked. It would influence me in deciding to move back.

So...the suffragettes, the miners, anti-war protesters.... all criminals? If this law passed in a country in the Middle East a few years ago MPs would be expressing their concern about democracy in the region. I honestly don't understand how there hasn't been more fuss and can only blame the media in some ways: this should be front page news, debate about it should be in the headlines, and people should be protesting against it while they can, and I suspect would be if it weren't for COVID. Its a really unbelievable piece of legislation.

The voice of sense and reason but the left wing woke folk on here aren't interested in either.

Mumsnet woke? This place drips with racism, it couldn’t be woke if it tried.