Understanding Your Protest Rights Under the Crime and Policing Act 2026

The 2022 and 2023 ‘reforms’ to public order law have seen an unprecedented expansion of state power in relation to the policing of protests. A change in government has not reversed the proliferation of protest related offences. In April 2026, the Crime and Policing Act 2026 (‘CPA 2026’) received Royal assent, granting police forces a new arsenal of powers with which to further restrict the right to protest. These protest related offences, under Part 10 of the Act, came into force on 29 June 2026.

The most controversial new power is a new ‘duty’ imposed by section 165 of the Act on senior police officers to consider the ‘cumulative’ effect of repeat protests when deciding to impose limits and restrictions on a march or assembly under section 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 (‘POA 1986’). What this means is that a senior police officer must consider the overall impact of both past and future demonstrations in the same area when deciding what conditions to impose on the demonstration. If the officer is satisfied that the aggregate impact of all demonstrations past and future would amount to a ‘serious disruption’ of the life of a community then they can prohibit the march entirely, even if the individual march on its own would not constitute a serious disruption to the life of the community.

The Metropolitan police have tried to restrict protests on the basis of cumulative disruption even before the introduction of this legislation. A famous early attempt was the Metropolitan police’s use of section 14 POA 1986 to impose a condition on all assemblies related to Extinction Rebellion’s ‘Autumn uprising’ of 2019, which constituted multiple assemblies and processions throughout London. This was successfully challenged in R (on the application of Baroness Jones and others) v The Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis [2019] EWHC 2957 (Admin). The Divisional Court held that separate gatherings divided by time and distance could not be aggregated into single assembly for the purposes of the POA 1986, even if co-ordinated by an umbrella organisation. The effect of considering the cumulative effect of protests means that your right to protest is affected not by what you have done in your demonstration, but what others have done in the past and others will do in the future, even if they are completely different campaigns led by completely different organisations. Baroness Chakrabarti famously called this a ‘rationing’ of the right to protest. The victory in Jones led to the discontinuation of criminal proceedings against hundreds of protesters. Secondary legislation brought in by Suella Braverman in 2023 which reduced the threshold for police to intervene in protests also included cumulative impact provisions, but these were also quashed by the Divisional Court in 2024.

This principle has now explicitly been reversed by the current government, allowing senior officers to engage in precisely the ‘rationing’ of the right to protest warned of, with the power to turn off the tap if they determine that the right to public assembly has been ‘used up’ in a certain area.

Other protest related powers introduced by the Act include:

• A new offence of concealing your identity during a protest.
• A new offence of protesting outside the home of a politician or a public office holder
• A new restriction on protesting outside a place of religious worship.

The legislation forms part of a general legislative and judicial trend to recast protest not as a fundamental democratic right but as disruption and collective harm. This is framed by a state media discourse which increasingly sees disruptive protest as criminal conduct carried out at the expense of ‘ordinary people’ and indicative of ‘police failure.’ While it has never been more important to exercise rights to free speech and assembly, it is more important than ever to understand the rapidly evolving law on protest, which has seen more change since 2022 than in the last 30 years.

If you require legal advice or representation in relation to protest‑related matters, our Civil Liberties & Human Rights solicitors can assist. We advise individuals and organisations on the Crime and Policing Act 2026, public order offences and police powers, and provide clear guidance on your rights and options. Please contact our civil liberties team to discuss your situation. Call 0330 822 3451 or request a callback.