A LONE protester was arrested outside the Tory Party conference in Manchester after holding up a small sign saying “Priti fascist.” 

The incident, which took place on Tuesday, has sparked outrage from campaigners, who described the arrest as an attack on freedom of expression and a sign of “growing intolerance towards dissent.” 

Liam Geary Baulch, 28, from Manchester, held up the small cardboard sign in Peter Street as Home Secretary Priti Patel announced plans to criminalise protest groups in a speech to delegates. 

Mr Baulch said that within 30 seconds of holding up the placard it was confiscated by police for “offensive language.”

“When I asked to have my property back, I was arrested for breach of the peace,” he said.  

“As Priti Patel laid out her crackdown on protest inside, I was in the back of a van for simply standing alone with a piece of cardboard. If anything I’m more convinced now that this sign is the truth.”

After bundling Mr Baulch into a van, officers later released him.

Greater Manchester Police claimed that he had behaved “aggressively” towards an officer and was arrested to “prevent further breach of the peace.” 

But police monitoring group Netpol co-ordinator Kevin Blowe said today that officers had threatened Mr Baulch with arrest in an attempt to “unlawfully intimidate him into moving on.”

“This is a blatant denial of his rights to freedom of expression and assembly and a sign of the growing intolerance towards dissenting voices that challenge the government,” he told the Morning Star. 

“We are genuinely alarmed about how much worse this will become when the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill becomes law.”

During her speech, Ms Patel announced new measures to crack down on protest as part of the policing Bill. 

They include increasing the maximum penalty for blocking motorways and preventing campaigners with a “history of disruption” from attending demonstrations. 

Human rights groups have condemned the plans, saying they resemble a “protest banning order” and constitute a “chilling erosion of our freedom of expression.”