A barrister who claims he was threatened with arrest for holding up a blank sign has said “peaceful” protest must be allowed.
Paul Powlesland, 36, from east London, travelled to parliament on Monday afternoon with “a blank piece of paper”.
He alleged that a police officer told him he risked being arrested if he wrote “not my King” on the paper.
The altercation, which was partially filmed, has sparked fierce criticism online with some describing the threat of arrest as “authoritarian conduct”.
Since the proclamation of King Charles III, a number of arrests have been made and protesters were moved on in London, Scotland and Oxford.
Powlesland, who was protesting about free speech, revealed that the altercation had helped turn him into a republican.
He told Good Morning Britain: “I think we need to draw a clear line between disrespect for mourning of the Queen and the protesting of Charles’s accession. That’s the clear divide.
“I wasn’t outside Buckingham Palace, I wouldn’t have gone outside Buckingham Palace, because that’s where people are mourning.
“I was outside parliament, the centre of our politics, where someone has proclaimed himself King and said that I’m his subject.
“I think I get a chance to at least make my opinion about what I think about that in very polite terms.
“We need to allow people to protest peacefully the political accession of a monarch.”
Asked why he was protesting, Powlesland replied: “I did it for free speech reasons, I believe actually [that] as precious if not more precious than the monarchy is the real beautiful web of freedoms and civil liberties that we’ve built up here over centuries.
“We’d be very wrong to begin to sacrifice those in this kind of moment. I would say as well actually, I wasn’t a republican before last week.
“I intellectually thought the monarchy was a bit of a weird idea, but actually practically, like I’m sure most people in this country, I thought ‘well it works’.
“I really love the Queen, I found the idea of the Queen a kind of reassuring presence.
“I’m now a republican because of what I’ve seen over the last week.”
Powlesland said the memory and respect for the Queen was being used to very quickly bolster King Charles’s credibility as the new monarch.
“I think that’s actually quite cynical,” he added.
“He’s coming in saying ‘I am now your King, you’re my subject’ and I think people should have a right to say ‘I disagree and I don’t want you to be’.”
In the video recording outside parliament Powlesland can be heard asking the officer: “Why would you ask for my details?”
The police officer replied: “I wanted to make sure you didn’t have bail conditions...”
The officer added: “You said you were going to write stuff on it, that may offend people, around the King. It may offend someone.”
Powlesland said the officer told him he risked being arrested if he wrote “not my King” on the paper.
Legal author the Secret Barrister wrote on Twitter that the officer had misinterpreted the Public Order Act, adding: “Unless the sign if threatening or abusive, no offence is committed. Being merely offensive is not an offence.”
Scotland Yard has insisted that the public have the right to protest and all officers are being reminded of this throughout the ongoing operation.
Other protesters have been arrested in Scotland and Oxford.
Ruth Smeeth, chief executive of Index on Censorship, said the arrests were “deeply concerning”.
She added: “The fundamental right to freedom of expression, including the right to protest, is something to be protected regardless of circumstance.”