Where are the coronation protests on Saturday?

Nationwide protests are expected to take place during the coronation of King Charles, and Camilla, the Queen Consort on Saturday, with a heavy police presence planned for central London.

Several planned protests have been announced but the police are also on the eye out for people who plan to disrupt the main event.

The police have said they will have an "extremely low threshold" for protesters who can expect "very swift action".

Some 11,500 police officers will be on duty on Saturday and 10,000 military personnel taking part in the ceremony.

Anti-monarchy group Republic has announced a large protest to coincide with the coronation.

They reacted with anger when they were sent an official letter warning of the government's new anti-protest powers.

Republic has plans for 1,700 people to protest in Trafalgar Square on Saturday, but Graham Smith, CEO of the group, has said it will be "lighthearted" and is not planning any disruption.

But, the Mail on Sunday has reported police are concerned that protesters are plotting to disrupt the event by throwing rape alarms at horses in the procession.

King Charles and protests

In early April the royal couple faced a small protest outside York Minster for the annual Royal Maundy service – Charles's first since taking the throne.

A handful of demonstrators carrying signs reading #NotMyKing were present alongside the much larger crowd who was there to greet him.

According to local reports, the 20 or so demonstrators were booed by those around them.

Charles did not respond to the protest as he greeted the Dean and Archbishop of York at the door to the cathedral.

The protest outside York Minster was not the first experienced by Charles since becoming monarch in September.

This might seem unusual given the widespread popularity of the late Queen Elizabeth across the UK and the Commonwealth.

Historically, however, there has been some debate for centuries about the role the Crown should play in British life.

On 17 March, a new youth group called ‘No More Royals’ staged a protest at Windsor Castle, during which they stepped over the rope that separates the area visitors are allowed to enter in the King’s Bedroom and took a series of photographs on the bed.

In one image the young couple kiss, and in another they pose together reading a copy of Prince Harry’s memoir Spare.

The group’s Twitter account explains that their manifesto involves attempting to “usher in a new era” and listing their dissatisfaction at the state of life in the UK.

“It’s 2023. What the f**k is going on in this country? We have to choose between heating our homes or putting food on the table, while the ‘king’ plans a multi-million-pound pageant," they said.

Polling data shows that younger people are generally less keen on the Windsors than the rest of the population, and that Charles’s popularity has yet to reach the heights of his late mother’s.

Equally, across the 14 Commonwealth nations that still have the British monarch as their head of state, there is rising republican sentiment.

However, republicanism is by no means a universal value in the UK, with 64% of respondents in a January YouGov poll still preferring to keep the monarchy.

The pressure group Republic, which advocates for the abolishment of the UK's constitutional monarchy, has seen the ascension of a new monarch as an opportunity to ratchet up its campaigning.

They have protested against the King during an engagement to Milton Keynes, where he was marking its new city status, and in Colchester when the King and Queen Consort also celebrated its change from town to city.

Most recently, there was a protest outside Westminster Abbey alongside the annual Commonwealth Day service.

Attempted eggings of the new King have taken place twice since he took the throne, in the first instance – which took place during a visit to York – Charles was praised for not reacting to the egg, which only missed him narrowly.

The second incident happened in Luton, and the person responsible was reported to have been arrested on suspicion of common assault.

Despite this, according to a Freedom of Information request obtained by the Daily Express, the Met Police has "not recorded a noticeable increase in protests against the monarchy" since September 2022.

What has the reaction been?

Some of the protests launched last September in the immediate aftermath of the Queen's death were criticised for taking place during the period of mourning.

However, the arrest of peaceful demonstrators by police also sparked some alarm with civil rights group Liberty calling it “very worrying to see the police enforcing their broad powers in such a heavy-handed and punitive way to clamp down on free speech and expression”.

The Metropolitan Police subsequently released a statement saying: “The public absolutely have a right of protest and we have been making this clear to all officers involved in the extraordinary policing operation currently in place and we will continue do so.”

Previously speaking to Yahoo, former MP Norman Baker noted that: “It’s perfectly legitimate in a democracy for people to object to people in positions of power; that's part of what democracy should be about. There’s a long tradition of that in this country.”

Watch: Charles and Camilla's controversial love story