Quakers warn Parliament over protest crackdown
Quakers have warned a parliamentary committee that sweeping restrictions on protest are putting British democracy at risk and preventing people from acting on their faith.
Paul Parker, recording clerk of Quakers in Britain, gave oral evidence on Wednesday, 15 April, to the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
The committee is examining whether the government has struck the right balance between public safety and the right to protest.
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If the only protest we are prepared to tolerate is protest that no one notices, what exactly are we protecting
- Paul Parker
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His appearance came just one day after MPs voted to approve new protest restrictions in the Crime and Policing Bill, the third piece of anti-protest legislation in recent years.
The bill restricts demonstrations near places of worship, creates new offences around face coverings, and requires police to consider the "cumulative impact" of repeated protests.
Parker gave evidence alongside Akiko Hart, director of Liberty, Raj Chada, a solicitor specialising in protest cases, and Andy Cooke, the former HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary.
Parker told the committee that for Quakers, protest is an expression of faith, not a political choice. That faith, he said, is now being suppressed.
He read testimony from an NHS paramedic who said new laws had caused them to self-censor, and from a person with a chronic illness who said fear of arrest now kept them away from protests altogether.
The government had penalised protesters as a whole rather than tackling individual bad actors, Parker said.
"If people are turning up at a protest and behaving in ways that are not acceptable, deal with them," he said. "Do not roll it all together and conflate different things."
Parker also warned the committee that the protest crackdown is part of a "peeling away of opportunities for the public to hold the executive accountable."
"If the only protest we are prepared to tolerate is protest that no one notices, what exactly are we protecting? It is just a performative version of democracy."
He described how two Quakers had driven their mobility scooters to stand vigil outside a mosque during the 2024 riots.
The same two people have since been arrested five times for sitting silently in Parliament Square holding placards and have now been charged with terrorism charges.
"I invite you to hold those two facts in tension," Parker told the committee, "and ask yourselves whether we have that line in the right place."