On 15 February 2003, the UK’s largest ever anti-war protest took place. A million people took to London’s streets to demonstrate against the imminent invasion of Iraq, an invasion for which British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George Bush had failed to secure backing from NATO, the European Union, or the UN Security Council. Blair and Bush went ahead on 19 March 2003, and in November the same year, Bush made a state visit to Britain and, undeterred by the failure of earlier anti-war demonstrations, some 100,000 – 200,000 protestors took to the streets. On 26 April 2022 the British government successfully pushed through the Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Bill, new legislation which will potentially ban effective protest in England and Wales. Handing more power to our leaders, this bill has been described as a move towards autocracy. Politicians supposedly act on our behalf. If they’re ignoring the protest of hundreds of thousands, or quashing demonstrations before they begin, we need to be asking them why.
