SUELLA BRAVERMAN’S bid to hand herself powers to apply for precautionary injunctions to crack down on protests are “Orwellian, anti-freedom and anti-democratic,” MPs warned yesterday.

Opposition politicians raised the alarm yesterday afternoon over the Home Secretary’s last-minute amendment to her Public Order Bill, which was passed the final stages in the Commons.

The proposal gives secretaries of state the power for the first time to apply for injunctions against anyone who might carry out a protest that could cause “serious disruption” to key infrastructure, prevent access to “essential” goods or services or have a “serious adverse effect on public safety.”

A separate proposal also gives police powers to arrest those who break such an injunction. This differs from the current law which only allows private persons and local authorities to apply for injunctions.

Opening the debate in the Commons, Policing Minister Jeremy Quinn said that the new powers were needed as “we know injunctions can play a major role in restraining some of the tactics deployed,” by groups like Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil.

But Green MP Caroline Lucas warned that the powers could result in ordinary people being arrested for going about their daily business.

“I don’t think it is an over-exaggeration to say these powers are Orwellian, anti-freedom, anti-human rights and anti-democratic,” she told MPs.

MPs from across the political divide, including Tory backbenchers, lambasted the Bill, which will now move on to the House of Lords. Announcing his intention to vote against the Bill, Tory MP Charles Walker said the proposals were “as unconservative as our budget of a few weeks ago,” saying that he wanted to “nail a stake through the heart of this nonsense.”

Plans to introduce serious disruption prevention orders, which could see protesters banned from attending demonstrations, subjected to surveillance and tagged with GPS trackers, are “appalling” and “leave me absolutely cold,” he said.

Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy warned that the “fundamentally flawed” Bill would “exacerbate racial bias and discrimination” in policing and the criminal justice system.

She called for there to be a requirement for an equality impact assessment of the Bill, highlighting particular concern about proposals to massively expand stop-and-search powers, including without reasonable suspicion.