ABSTRACT
Scraton regards the passage of the 1986 Act as a clear indication that Britain is an authoritarian state. The authoritarian state thesis is a theory of social change: it asserts that the state has become more authoritarian in recent years. Any attempt to compare the 1986 Act with the existing law is hampered by the rather confused state of the common law and the plethora of statutes that may have a bearing on public order. The revival of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875 during the miners' strike, after a period when it too went largely unused, shows the scope that might be afforded to the agents of an authoritarian state by such legislation. The existing law contained offences of an "archaic nature and remarkable breadth" that were repealed by the 1986 Act, limiting thereby the potential scope of public order law not the action of an increasingly authoritarian state.
