An Extinction Rebellion protest in Parliament Square in 2019

MIKEL Arteta defended the right to protest last week after hundreds of fans demonstrated outside the stadium over the club’s shock Super League plan.

The Arsenal manager said supporters, who had let off flares and chanted against US owner Stan Kroenke, had behaved rationally and were “free to express their feelings”.

It was a very basic and obvious message that people should be allowed to create a commotion about a common cause.

But under terms of a new Bill going through Parliament, police would have been able to stop the demonstration based on a single complaint, while imposing heavy fines. Unions, campaign groups including Sisters Uncut and environmental groups like Extinction Rebellion will be heading to a “Kill the Bill” rally in Trafalgar Square on Saturday.

It is one of dozens of coinciding demonstra­tions expected to draw tens of thousands of people across the country against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

The bill is being put forward in direct response to the Extinction Rebellion climate change protests that brought London to a standstill twice in 2019, and the Black Lives Matter protests last year.

It will significantly increase the powers of the police to stop legitimate protests if officers consider they are causing a “disruption” to businesses or “distress to bystanders”, while increasing penalties protesters may face.

The Bill specifically targets Roma, Gypsies and Travellers. Legal experts say it may violate international human rights by for the first time allowing the home secretary to decide which protests can be outlawed.

Its clauses are deliberately vague, leaving decisions up to “discretionary interpretation by the police”.

Sandy Nicoll, a Unison rep at SOAS University of London, said: “I’m concerned because there’s a clear threat to the kind of action we as trade unionists take.The ability for us to disrupt activities is pretty much what we do. We don’t just have pickets, we have festivals and protest rallies. They could now be totally illegal.

“Under this, the threshold for them will be in the hands of PC Plod. If you think back to Extinction Rebellion, they were thinking that legitimate civil disobedience and disruption was a way of focusing attention on the threat to the climate.

“That would be clearly illegal now. It goes further, it attacks the vulnerable – Roma travellers – and there is an extension to stop and search powers. We must have rights to be able to walk the streets without being picked on by police.

“But a single complaint could be enough to put you on the wrong side of the law. There is very little comeback if you overstep the mark, there is such a low threshold of evidence required.”

Last year, the Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said that “ever since the first large-scale Extinction Rebellion protest” she had been engaging with government about possible reforms to “enable the police to deal better with protests where people are not primarily violent or seriously disorderly but … had an avowed intent to bring policing to its knees and the city to a halt…”

The Labour party was originally abstaining in the House of Commons.

But following criticism of police tactics at the vigil for Sarah Everard, the young woman from Brixton abducted and killed by a serving police officer, the Opposition is now voting against it at a second reading due later in May.

“This is no time to be rushing through poorly thought-out measures to impose disproportionate controls on free expression and the right to protest,” said David Lammy, Labour’s justice spokesman.

National Education Union joint general secretary Kevin Courtney, a former Camden NUT rep, said: “This Bill affects you if you want to have an impact. This is a huge step in the wrong direction for our country. It’s right to resist it.”

l Groups are expected to meet in Trafalgar Square for the Kill the Bill rally on May 1 from 11am.