Laws designed to stop eco-zealots including Just Stop Oil from causing chaos could be torn up by Labour, leaked proposals say
- Labour believes suspicion-less stop and search at protests, a leaked dossier said
Laws designed to stop eco-zealots from causing chaos could be torn up by Labour, according to leaked proposals.
Party policy chiefs have recommended it changes some new police powers that deal with demonstrations.
According to a dossier, leaked to website LabourList, Labour believes the Government should remove measures such as suspicion-less stop and search at protests.
The Public Order Act 2023, which passed into law earlier this year, let police search for and seize items ‘made, adapted or intended to be used in connection with protest related offences’ such as lock-on devices without need for suspicion.
It followed protests by groups such as Just Stop Oil (JSO), with its demonstrators known to attach themselves to objects.
Activists from Just Stop Oil (JSO) block the Embankment outside New Scotland Yard with lock-ons and by glueing themselves to the road on October 14
Laws designed to stop eco-zealots from causing chaos could be torn up by Labour, according to leaked proposals
An amendment to Labour’s draft policy platform says it believes the measures ‘should be removed by the Government now’.
It adds that Labour in government ‘would seek to change these provisions’ but does not commit to remove them.
Last night, a Tory party spokesman said: ‘Labour’s plans would undo all the work this Conservative government has done to give police the power to get those who seek to disrupt our lives off the streets.
‘Labour should stop taking policy ideas from their Just Stop Oil funding backers.’
Labour has accepted £1.5million over several years from JSO funder Dale Vince but denies he has influence on policy.
Last week leader Sir Keir Starmer criticised the group, saying it should ‘just stop’.
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