Loose Women has come under fire after deleting a tweet that questioned whether protests should be banned.
On Tuesday’s show the panel, consisting of Kaye Adams, Denise Welch, Janet Street-Porter and Brenda Edwards, discussed whether disruptive protests were effective.
Referencing how a Just Stop Oil protestor had disrupted the World Snooker Championship by covering a table with orange chalk, they also spoke about how animal rights protestors had been arrested at the Grand National over the weekend.
However, after the show, the programme’s official Twitter page shared a poll that asked people to vote on whether or not ‘protesting should be banned’.
There was an overwhelming response, with 96 per cent of the nearly 15,000 respondents voting no, but within a few hours it had been deleted.
People quickly caught on and called out the show, with one person writing: ‘Where has your poll gone? Not the result you wanted?’
‘Protests should not be banned lol,’ another added.
Under the European Convention of Human Rights, protesting is protected as a human right.
While their discussion on air saw Janet question what the ‘dumb protest’ at the snooker competition had achieved, Jane also added she didn’t know if these sort of protests were having the desired ‘effect’.
Speaking about how she protested as a student, Janet said that she was all for peaceful protests, but had a problem with ones that disrupted the public.
‘What I saw at the Grand National didn’t help the animals at all,’ she said.
Sharing she had never taken part in a protest, Brenda said she supported people standing up for what they believed it, but that this form of activism should stay peaceful.
‘My problem is why choose a snooker game for an oil protest….it’s now brought attention for the wrong reasons,’ she added.
Their views were echoed by Denise, who said she was a ‘great believer’ in protests if they were ‘peaceful and organised’.
‘We need to have boundaries for these protests,’ she said.
Although Jane referenced how the suffragettes’ used measures that weren’t considered peaceful and that if people felt ‘passionate’ about a cause they would resort to headline grabbing acts, Janet said she was proud to have been part of a generation that created and promoted the peaceful sit-in.
She added current protestors were impacting everyday peoples lives and were ‘attacking the people they shouldn’t be attacking’.
Metro.co.uk has contacted ITV for comment.
Loose Women airs weekdays from 12.30pm on ITV.
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