Thursday 11th January 15.00-16.30 (EET)
Mass protest and direct action has seen a resurgence in Britain in recent years. Large numbers of people have vigorously contested police racism and misogyny, state inaction on the climate crisis, deaths at the border and in detention camps, and, most recently, the government’s support for the war on Gaza.
Successive right-wing governments have pursued increasingly authoritarian responses to this wave of discontent, heedless of the wider impact on civil liberties. Draconian new laws – notably the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 – have been introduced to restrict protest rights, while protesters are increasingly vilified in political discourse and in the media.
Joseph will discuss the landscape of dissent in Britain, setting it in the context of the history of British policing, its ongoing crisis of legitimacy, and the broader right-wing radicalisation of British politics. The talk will also offer insight into the growth of authoritarian policing and dispersed webs of criminalising legislation across Europe.
The lecture and discussion will be hybrid (on-site and online) in format, and the on-site event will be followed by a reception.
We kindly request you to register your intention to attend online or on-site at the University of Helsinki:
https://forms.gle/sY8GEiM1SLDKYbgB8
Joseph Maggs is the Vice-Chair of the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), an anti-racist think tank based in London. He is a grassroots organiser, legal researcher and writer, and has previously worked and volunteered across a wide range of human rights and migrant justice organisations, including Liberty and SOAS Detainee Support.