Britain still has free speech – as Steve Bray has shown loud and clear

As Stop Brexit Man wins his legal case to continue (very loudly) protesting, Sean O’Grady replays the Westminster fixture’s greatest hits

Steve Bray, known to most as the “Stop Brexit Man” after his years-long noisy campaign against Britain’s departure from the European Union, has won his latest legal case.

He has been cleared of failing to follow a police order, namely to stop being quite so loud in the environs of parliament. Westminster Magistrates’ Court, in quiet deliberation, agreed with Bray’s arguments that he has the right to protest at any given level of decibels.

Deputy District Judge Anthony Woodcock said Bray “admitted that he is ‘anti-Tory’ ... He believes his is an important message to disseminate. He needs the volume that he uses to get the message across from Parliament Street to the Palace of Westminster.”

After nearly a decade as a fixture on the streets and public spaces around Whitehall – and too divisive and annoying to be termed a “national treasure” – Bray has at least become a part of Britain’s constitution…

How did he end up in court this time?

By offering a supposedly inappropriate musical accompaniment to then prime minister Rishi Sunak’s entry into the House of Commons on 20 March 2024. It was not a legal argument, but Bray justified blasting the Darth Vader theme in the general direction of the Palace of Westminster on the grounds that Sunak is a Star Wars fan (a matter of public knowledge and not in doubt). When he followed up with The Muppet Show theme during Prime Minister’s Questions, police confiscated his loudspeakers.

Steve Bray can be heard around Westminster (AFP/Getty)

Officers had previously issued Bray a map of permitted areas for his protests, using a Westminster Council by-law. But that was no match for the amateur human rights lawyer. He told them the map was inaccurate and, as an obiter dictum, that the officers could “stick it where the sun don't shine”.

If authorities now choose to appeal this week’s judgment, the arguments could go all the way to the European Court of Human Rights (which, let’s face it, he’d enjoy … though in his absence, Westminster would be a bit more tranquil.)

What does it mean for protests?

It proves that, contrary to what Elon Musk and JD Vance claim, free speech is alive and well in Britain – loud and clear.

Is everyone pleased by the court ruling?

By no means. A price of (extremely loud) free speech is disruption to anyone working or living in the area, who must endure a racket which, like a bad busker knocking out Oasis, could be viewed as a form of torture.

In court, Bray apologised to those affected. Lee Anderson, the Tory/Brexit Party/Reform UK MP who sometimes had testy exchanges with Bray, condemned the judgment: “As well as being a public nuisance, Steve Bray is also known as a sponging parasite who relies on dimwitted do-gooders to subsidise his lifestyle. I suspect Bray is probably a person of interest to the HMRC, as are many others who scrounge an existence through political campaigning. It is time for transparency and people like Bray should publish all their donations just like a charity has to. I suspect he has trousered hundreds of thousands of pounds. It’s about time he spent some of it on new clothes and toiletries.”

Anderson provided no evidence for his claims, and his arguments did not address the legal right to say things that Reform UK might not like.

What are Steve Bray’s greatest hits?

Plenty of D:Ream’s “Things Can Only Get Better” as Labour came closer to power, while Liz Truss had to compete with Kaiser Chiefs’ “I Predict a Riot” during appearances in Downing Street in her brief premiership. Most notably, Yakety Sax – used on The Benny Hill Show – eradicated any vestigial dignity during Boris Johnson’s resignation statement.

Where do we go from here?

Protest and survive. Bray’s case adds to the corpus of legal protections for awkward dissent. Brian Haw, the man who spent about a decade living in a tent on Parliament Square in protest against the Iraq war, similarly survived numerous legal attempts to dislodge him. In 2005, then home secretary David Blunkett drafted an act of parliament apparently specially designed to end Haw’s small and untidy encampment; the attempt failed because someone failed to make the legislation retrospective.

Squares and streets around Westminster have always been the scenes of marches, protests – and the odd riot – and will continue to do so. For Steve Bray, things can hardly get better; he’ll be fine now –unless Lee Anderson ever gets to be home secretary.