In 1848, the Chartist Movement presented a petition to Parliament, demanding that all adult men, regardless of social position, be given the right to vote. This was not the first time it had presented its petition to Parliament. Indeed, this was the third and final time the petition would be roundly rejected.

On this occasion, the movement had planned to hold a demonstration on Kennington Common and march to Parliament. However, their procession was banned by the government, and the petition was presented by a small delegation instead. Shortly after, posters were published around London, taking issue with ‘large meetings’ in the capital and elsewhere. ‘Notice is hereby given’, the posters read, ‘that such meetings are illegal and that all necessary measures will be adopted to prevent any such meeting taking place’. In that year alone, as many as 85,000 special constables were sworn in – and thousands more soldiers were deployed – to try to quash the demand for suffrage.

The Chartist Movement had been crushed, but their legacy lived on in a series of legislative reforms. By 1918, all men over 21 were granted the right to vote, alongside property-owning women over 30. It wasn’t until 1928 that all women were granted the same franchise as men. This, too, was brought about by protestors who showed immense courage in the face of state repression. Over the course of the suffragettes’ campaign, more than 1,300 people who supported women’s right to vote were arrested, all with the backing of Home Office ministers who routinely urged the police to punish those who had been protesting on the streets. Indeed, in 1918, the Home Office banned a demonstration celebrating the passing of the Representation of the People’s Act, saying that ‘the holding of a demonstration would be very undesirable’.

Today, governments will celebrate these legacies of protest. In doing so, they conveniently omit the price protestors paid for their bravery. Suffrage – male and female – was not just a victory for those who had campaigned. It was a defeat for all those who stood in their way. There is a reason that this reality of state repression is ignored. Armed with a more sanitised version, modern politicians can ignore a fundamental truth: the rights we enjoy today were not given – they were fought for, and won. Indeed, if it were not for chartists and suffragettes protesting for their rights in an elected parliamentary system, most MPs wouldn’t be here today. It is ironic, then, that many now spend their time complaining about people exercising their right to protest.

For the past twenty months, hundreds of thousands of people – of all faiths and none – have demonstrated against the appalling loss of human life in Gaza. They have witnessed unconscionable levels of pain and suffering. And they have demanded an end to their government’s shameful complicity in crimes against humanity.

The government could, if it wanted to, end all arms sales to Israel. It could cease its military cooperation through the use of RAF bases and supply of intelligence. It could stop granting endless impunity to a nation whose leader is wanted by the ICC. Instead, the government has found a different way of dealing with the growing demand for peace: suppressing those who have the audacity to oppose genocide.

The latest proposals to proscribe Palestine Action represent the desperate cries of a draconian government trying to shield itself from accountability. They are as absurd as they are authoritarian – and expose the government’s attempts to disguise what violence really looks like: the mass murder of Palestinians that these protestors have the audacity to oppose.

These proposals are an escalation of the government’s increasingly draconian assault on our democratic rights and civil liberties. Earlier this month, John McDonnell and I were told that the Metropolitan Police were dropping its charges against us, following a Palestine demonstration in January. We were part of a small delegation of speakers wishing to peacefully lay flowers in memory of children in Gaza who had been killed. Two fellow protestors, Chris Nineham and Ben Jamal, are still facing charges of breaching the Public Order Act.

Home by home, hospital by hospital and generation by generation, we are not just witnessing a war; we are witnessing a genocide – one being livestreamed all over the world. Today, the death toll in Gaza exceeds 61,000, and at least 110,000 people – one in 20 of the entire population – have been severely injured. It is those who have aided and abetted these crimes who should face justice, not those who have the humanity to try and stop them.

Crushing dissent is not an act of strength. It is a sign of weakness. In the words of the human rights group Liberty, the Prime Minister’s former workplace, ‘protest isn’t a gift from the State – it’s our fundamental right’. If you believe in women’s suffrage, you believe in the right to protest. If you think our children deserve a liveable future, you believe in the right to protest. If you believe that LGBT+ people deserve to live in freedom, you believe in the right to protest.

Government ministers may pay lip service to the freedoms we now enjoy, but they should ask themselves whether the protestors of the past would be thrown in jail if they were alive today. They should remind themselves that it was protestors who laid the foundations of our democracy. And, as they throw their support behind this authoritarian assault on the right to protest, they should ask themselves: where would they be today without it?