'Close to a police state': campaign groups condemn protests report

Protest groups have condemned a long-awaited report into their activity that recommends a review of undercover surveillance of activists and making march organisers pay towards the cost of policing.

- Damien Gayle, Rajeev Syal, Daniel Boffey

Lord Walney, the former Labour MP John Woodcock, whose 292-page report is entitled "Protecting Democracy from Coercion", calls for a curb on activities including a blanket ban on face coverings at protests and making it easier for businesses to claim damages from protesters who cause disruption.

Questions remain over whether the report's 41 recommendations will ever reach the statute books after both government and Labour sources declined to commit to any of its findings.

Human rights organisations and environmental groups said the recommendations - which include a review of whether undercover surveillance is being used to police public order will weaken democracy.

Areeba Hamid, the co-director of Greenpeace, issued a warning of the implications of Woodcock's controversial proposals. "Applying the review's recommendations would be a sure-fire way to weaken British democracy and bring us as close to becoming a police state as we've ever been," she said.

Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, the human rights lawyer and author, said:

"There is nothing new or enlightened or helpful in the project of bringing people together in polarised times."

The report also call for: