{"id":20317,"date":"2025-04-14T22:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T22:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/20317\/"},"modified":"2025-04-14T22:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T22:14:09","slug":"britains-stop-brexit-man-acquitted-by-judge-over-his-musical-protests-outside-parliament-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/20317\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain’s ‘Stop Brexit Man’ acquitted by judge over his musical protests outside Parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 An anti- Brexit<\/a> activist who has spent years mounting a one-man protest outside Britain\u2019s Parliament won a court victory on Monday against a police attempt to pull the plug on his musical activities.<\/p>\n

A judge in London cleared Steve Bray<\/a>, known as \u201cStop Brexit Man,\u201d of failing to comply with a police order to stop playing amplified music in Parliament Square on March 20, 2024.<\/p>\n

Bray, 56, came to prominence in the years after Britain\u2019s 2016 vote to leave the European Union by bellowing \u201cStop Brexit\u201d near television reporters during live broadcasts while wearing a top hat in the blue and yellow of the EU flag.<\/p>\n

More recently he has taken to playing satirically tinged songs before Parliament\u2019s weekly Prime Minister\u2019s Questions session, including the theme from \u201cThe Muppet Show\u201d and Darth Vader\u2019s theme from \u201cStar Wars.\u201d He blasted \u201cThings Can Only Get Better\u201d outside 10 Downing St. while then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called an election in May 2024.<\/p>\n

Bray, who represented himself during his trial, argued that the music was part of his \u201cfundamental right to protest,\u201d and Deputy District Judge Anthony Woodcock agreed.<\/p>\n

Handing down a not-guilty verdict at Westminster Magistrates\u2019 Court, the judge said Bray believes he has \u201can important message to disseminate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow he chooses to express those views is a matter for him,\u201d the judge said, noting that \u201clampooning the government through satire is a long tradition in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the verdict, Bray said that \u201ctoday is a very important day, not just for us as protesters, but for everybody\u2019s freedom of expression and their right to protest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRegardless what side of the fence you\u2019re on, whatever your protest is, this is a victory for you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 An anti- Brexit activist who has spent years mounting a one-man protest outside Britain\u2019s Parliament…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[13217,13215,802,748,30,2000,299,5187,1699,4179,4884,2003,13216,5112,12623,16,15,11654,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-20317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-activism","9":"tag-anthony-woodcock","10":"tag-brexit","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-courts","13":"tag-eu","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-european","16":"tag-european-union","17":"tag-general-news","18":"tag-great-britain","19":"tag-law-enforcement","20":"tag-protests-and-demonstrations","21":"tag-rishi-sunak","22":"tag-steve-bray","23":"tag-uk","24":"tag-united-kingdom","25":"tag-united-kingdom-government","26":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114338625158671847","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}