May 2026: HXR doctor, former BMJ Editor, law & English Professors discuss how legislation is repressing our rights to nonviolent protest

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Whether Mahatma Gandhi actually said this or not matters less than the fact that it accurately describes the stages through which many nonviolent civil disobedience movements progress.

In 2024 Michel Forst, the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention said “The repression that environmental activists who use peaceful civil disobedience are currently facing in Europe is a major threat to democracy.”

Today nonviolent civil disobedience movements in this country would definitely appear to be in stage 3 – the fight – as they face a torrent of repressive legislation, and Justice Secretary David Lammy tries to remove our age-old right to trial by jury.

So, what is going on and what can we do about it?

Listen or watch here as Professor of English and climate activist Jason Scott Warren, former Editor in Chief of the BMJ Dr. Fiona Godlee, psychiatrist, HXR member and writer Dr. Lynne Jones OBE, and Emeritus Professor of Criminal law and Justice Richard Vogler discuss these questions.