Against the Law

One of Britain’s leading barristers argues for a world in which the law should play a smaller part in all our lives.

Understanding the main political projects of our times, and their plans to expand or shrink the law, is the first step towards achieving greater equality and averting climate disaster.

Since 2016, Britain has been ruled by populists, who promise to expand democracy and shrink the law by taking back power from the European Union. Yet what these populists have actually done in power is institute a vast increase in new laws, made by ministers and not Parliament, regulating every aspect of our lives.

This move of promising less law while actually expanding it, has been characteristic of our lives for forty years, ever since the neoliberal counter-revolution. Every year, new criminal offences are created; new regulations are introduced. 

Renton’s book dares us to imagine a world in which workers are winning, and ecocide treated with the urgency that it deserves. These changes can only come about, he argues, if the movements of the oppressed choose to disengage from the law."Renton is one of the most consistently interesting and imaginative political writers in Britain today, and this eloquent attack on the repressive legalism common to populists and neoliberals alike is one of his best yet." - Owen Hatherley, author of Red Metropolis

"Renton’s experience as a barrister and historian shines through in a learned, and eminently readable, account of the structure of law and the daily business of the Courts." - Liz Davies, barrister and Vice-President Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers

“Meticulously researched and convincingly argued, Renton urges us to quit seeking liberation through legislation, instead wield our collective power for change.” - Grietje Baars, Reader in Law & Social Change, City University

“A cogent, compelling argument that the pursuit of justice requires breaking with the hegemony of law.” - Paul O’Connell, Reader in Law, SOAS

All police and prison abolitionists should read this book... it is a timely and sharp intervention, reminding us that laws are not only oppressively enforced but are themselves be a tool of control.” - Shanice Octavia McBean, activist with Sisters UncutDavid Renton is one of Britain’s leading social justice barristers. His clients have included Occupy protesters and blacklisted trade unionists. He writes regularly on law and justice for The Guardian and The London Review of Books.