Labour are being accused of being “worse than the Tories” with the new government crackdown on protests.
The Home Office announced on Sunday that it would be granting police forces new powers to put conditions on repeat demonstrations.
That means if a protest has taken place at the same site for weeks on end and caused “repeated disorder”, officers could force organisers to hold the event elsewhere.
The Home Office said anyone who breaches these conditions risk arrest and prosecution.
It comes after the Met Police arrested nearly 500 people at protest against the proscription of the Palestine Action group in London on Saturday.
The march went ahead despite calls from the government and the police for the protests to be postponed out of respect for Thursday’s deadly synagogue attack in Manchester where two people were killed.
Home secretary Shabana Mahmood said current legislation is also being reviewed to make sure it is being applied fully.
Mahmood said: “The right to protest is a fundamental freedom in our country. However, this freedom must be balanced with the freedom of their neighbours to live their lives without fear.”
She added: “Large, repeated protests can leave sections of our country, particularly religious communities, feeling unsafe, intimidated and scared to leave their homes.
“This has been particularly evident in relation to the considerable fear within the Jewish community, which has been expressed to me on many occasions in these recent difficult days.”
Speaking on LBC, the home secretary defended the new measures and insisted it was a good use of police time.
She said: “I have no truck with this argument that suggest that police resources are better deployed elsewhere, enabling mass criminality by people who have a political point to make.”
LBC presenter Lewis Goodall said that human rights organisations are starting to accuse Britain of “showing authoritarian tendency” by arresting people for doing nothing more than “holding up placard”.
She replied: “What Britain is doing is making sure the law of our land is maintained.
“It is not ‘holding up a placard’, and I really must pick you up on that, Lewis, in holding up a placard, you are breaking the law because you are supporting a proscribed organisation.”
Not many others felt the same way, though.
Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson, Max Wilkinson, said: “People spreading antisemitic hate and inciting violence against Jews are getting away with it, and we fear the government’s approach will do nothing to tackle that while undermining the fundamental right to peaceful protest.
“The Conservatives made a total mess of protest laws and left us with the worst of all worlds – wasting police time arresting people for legitimate peaceful protest, while letting others get away with inciting violence. I fear Labour seem to be following them down the same path, instead of properly reforming these powers to focus on the real criminals and hate preachers.”
Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn, who used to be Labour leader, described the crackdown as a “disgraceful assault on the right to protest”.
Many other critics also compared it to the Conservatives’ enhancement of police powers during their time in office, and claimed Labour were “giving the incoming Reform government everything they could wish for”.
