At the same time as we applaud the suffragettes and the likes of Peter Tatchell, Britain is losing the right to protestMark Borkowski is a crisis PR consultant and authorWe must ask ourselves: how would the heroic suffragettes or the remarkable Greenham Common women be regarded if active today? The answer is simple: they would be locked up. Just as they were locked up then. A century ago, women chained themselves to railings, set fires, endured prison and changed the world, and we celebrate their victories without thinking too hard about their methods. Yet today’s laws would criminalise them on sight.Last month, the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, wore a commemorative sash celebrating the suffragette struggle. Yet this is the same Yvette Cooper presiding over an age of repressive laws and mass arrests. It’s a paradox: we laud the rebels of the past while shackling the rebels of the present.Mark Borkowski is a crisis PR consultant and author. His BBC Radio 4 Archive on 4 documentary, Outrage Inc, airs on 23 August Continue reading…