Both the increase in privately owned public spaces (POPS) and new state regulations are limiting opportunities to exercise one of our basic rights: the right to protest.
In this extract from her new book Officious, Josie Appleton outlines the rise of the tick-box, tut, tut state and the threat it poses to civil society.
Across England, local councils are banning young people from public space.
Police now have free rein to create “dispersal zones” in public areas, allowing them to ban people for anything from street drinking to acting in a suspicious manner.
Laws which ban leafleting in city centres are destroying performance arts and an age old British tradition.
Laws handing sweeping new powers to police and private security to restrict access to public space are extinguishing the diversity of civic life.
What does it mean for justice in Britain when criminal offences that were once tried in a court room are now dealt with on-the-spot, with the supposed 'offender' unable to argue their case?
A new report, "Leafleting: A Liberty Lost?", finds that councils are cracking down on leafleting by local groups such as arts organisations and the WI - yet are increasing spending on their own council leaflets
Leaflets have long lain at the heart of local democracy. This great liberal tradition is now under threat, not now from King or Church, but from the unexpected quarter of local authority environmental officials.
Is activism dead – or is it blooming?
