Rights to Travel and Protest under attack! Deadline midnight 4th March

I am advised that the consultation on strengthening police powers against Gypsies and Travellers is due to close at midnight on Wednesday 4th March. Many people from within and without the travelling community have grave concerns about the criminalisation of their choice of lifestyle that these new powers could result in. Not only that, having looked at the consultation, it appears to me that any such new legislation could be deployed against peaceful protesters conducting a protest on land upon which they are trespassing, by criminalising the act of trespassing itself. This would have serious ramifications, for example, if we need to act nonviolently to protest about new extractive projects in the county.

My understanding is that many police forces are not in favour of these strengthened powers, believing that the existing law is sufficient. George Monbiot wrote an excellent piece for The Guardian on the subject earlier this year: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/15/tresspass-trap-law-land-travelling-people-rights

I suggest that should you be minded to respond that you do so via this link, rather than on the gov.uk site, because as George points out, the questions are rather sneakily constructed: https://www.gypsy-traveller.org/campaigns/how-to-respond-to-government-plans-to-strengthen-police-powers-against-gypsies-and-travellers/

If it helps, my rather hastily submitted free text on the matters was this: ‘These proposals are unnecessary. Police already have more than enough powers to deal with this so-called ‘problem’. It is also of great concern that the additional unnecessary powers could be deployed against other groups as well, including peaceful protesters, which would be yet another attempted assault on our human rights and on the values of our liberal democracy. Our society should be inclusive, not devisive, and should continue to allow people to choose alternative lifestyles if they so wish, and to enable the exercise of our rights to protest peacefully as enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.’