Your leader (The Guardian view on policing dissent: Johnson plays politics with protest, 15 March) rightly notes: “Whatever pieties the government cloaks its proposals in, a partisan systematic reduction in civil liberties is a very dangerous thing for democracies.” Indeed, the words used by the home secretary and government spokesperson in defence of the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill, and of police action at the vigil, come straight from the PR coaching manual used by President Putin and his like in Hungary, Hong Kong, Myanmar and far too many places round the world.
Frank Land
Totnes, Devon
• The government’s welcoming of Hongkongers fleeing a repressive regime now seems rather ironic. They may be a little surprised to find that they have no right to protest here either.
Rachel Meredith
Long Marston, North Yorkshire
• Is it not likely that the bill is being introduced now in time to curb the inevitable protests from fishermen, farmers and other workers when the full extent of Brexit problems becomes evident?
Denis O’Connor
Otley, West Yorkshire
• In 2008, David Davis MP triggered a byelection in his Haltemprice and Howden constituency so he could fight it on the single issue of civil liberties. This week, he meekly voted for a bill that seeks to undermine the right to demonstrate. What happened to him in the intervening 13 years?
Rosalind Mitchell
Glasgow
• The proposition in the policing bill that there will be repercussions where action that is deemed to cause “serious annoyance” prompts me to wonder If I can take action against the government, who are very seriously annoying me.
Tony Roberts
Penwortham, Lancashire
