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.