CIVIL liberties campaigners are urging MPs to reject “unprecedented and draconian” anti-protest laws due to return to Parliament tomorrow.

The Public Order Bill, which enters its next stage in the Commons on Tuesday, would see protesters jailed for up to six months for “locking-on” to people, objects or buildings as well as new criminal offences for interfering with “national infrastructure” such as oil refineries. 

Protesters could also be hit with serious disruption prevention orders (SDPO) and be subjected to wider stop-and-search powers. 

On Sunday, Home Secretary Suella Braverman announced further powers which she hopes to add to the Bill to crack down on tactics used by climate activists, particularly those used by Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion. 

This would give secretaries of state the power to apply for injunctions in the “public interest” where protests are causing or threatening “serious disruption or a serious adverse impact on public safety.”

The move has been criticised by climate activists and human rights groups. 

Liberty’s policy and campaigns officer Jun Pang said: “Expansive civil injunctions are already being used with growing and alarming frequency to clamp down on direct action tactics, with a wider chilling effect on the right to protest.
 
“We are concerned that these clauses further blur the line between the civil and criminal law, by effectively giving the secretary of state new powers to intervene in protests and criminalise those who participate in them. 

“They effectively enable the government to create public order offences as and when they like, which can result in people being fined or imprisoned.”

MPs are hoping to deal a series of blows to the proposed legislation on Tuesday with a series of amendments that would scrap the plans for protest-banning orders, the creation of a new offence for lock-ons and the expansion of new stop and search powers. 

Ahead of the debate, Liberty urged MPs to scrap the proposed legislation, warning that the measures risk creating a “hostile environment for people standing up for what they believe in.”

The SDPOs have sparked particular alarm with Liberty describing the new powers as “unprecedented and draconian.”

The orders can be imposed on people who have taken part in two or more protests in a five-year period and could include limits on who people can speak to, their internet use and requiring them to be fitted with a GPS tag. 

Ms Pang warned that the powers would “drastically expand the surveillance, criminalisation and punishment of protesters, including those who have merely been to two protests in the last five years and never been convicted of a crime.”

The return of the Bill comes as Just Stop Oil supporters climbed to the top of the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge on Monday morning, forcing police to close the bridge. 

The activist group has said it will not be "intimidated" by Ms Braverman's anti-protest laws.

"We will not be stopped by injunctions sought to silence nonviolent people," the group said in a statement.

"These are irrelevant when set against mass starvation, slaughter, the loss of our rights, freedoms and communities."