In the 1970's the government had problems with the unions striking, and in the 1980's Thatcher had problems with the Miners striking, people protesting about the Poll tax and people rioting in many cities in the UK.
In response to these demonstrations and protest, she passed legislation removing many of the rights of citizens to protest - something that had always been taken for granted as a basic right in this country. From that point on, anyone protesting without asking permission from the council and the police in advance, and paying for any police presence needed to patrol the protest, would be arrested for causing a "breach of the peace". Few people know about this, and it is still denied in official circles when questioned, but it remains the fact.
As a consequence of this loss of the ability of people to properly protest if they were unhappy with the government, the government began to feel more able to pass more unpopular legislation because no one would protest against it. As time went by, fewer and fewer people tried to protest and just gave up on trying to voice their opposition to whatever the government did.
When the government got involved in the Iraq war, this was so unpopular with the people that several million people all protested at once, but still the government ignored them. This seemed to destroy the last of the resistance of people to be bothered to do anything anymore.
Now, even if anyone can be bothered to protest about anything, it is more likely than not that all that will happen is that they will be arrested and get a criminal record with breach of the peace.
How do I know this? Simple... I tried to mount a one-man, sit-down, silent protest about the Iraq war when it first started. I was very careful not to be yelling slogans, but to sit quietly, out of the way of the main thoroughfare, so that I wasn't making any obstruction or bothering anyone unless they actually chose to walk over to me to take notice of my protest. As the hours went by, several police men came up to me at various intervals, each saying that they were just checking up on me and that I was ok to stay there if I wanted to. However, the next morning, two police officers approached me, apologised to me for having to do this but insisted that they were under direct instructions from their chief to remove me and my protest, arrest me for breach of the peace (despite the fact that several other police officers had said that I was ok with what I was doing) and take me to the police station. They explained that they didn't like having to do so, but they had been instructed to do so because their boss wasn't happy about the embarrassment I was causing to the council and they wanted all protests taken off the streets ASAP.
Nowadays any protest is frowned upon as a waste of time, as the government won't listen anyway and protesters are simply dismissed as trouble makers and not to be taken seriously. This is a real shame because this country used to take pride in the fact that we were free to protest if we didn't like something and that the government would listen to the people if they did. We have become a beaten down, apathetic, under-the-thumb people that deserve what we get - a government that doesn't listen to the people and couldn't care less if people don't like what they do.