AN MP has described the Tory backbenchers as “snowflakes” after the government passed a bill to introduce new restrictions on protest rights.

In the early hours of Tuesday, MPs voted to reinstate the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which contains a raft of measures aimed at overhauling the criminal justice system.

These include plans to give police in England and Wales more powers to impose conditions on non-violent protests judged to be too noisy and causing “intimidation or harassment” or “serious unease, alarm or distress” to the public.

However, Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced criticism after MPs from all parties made clear their frustration at the proposals.

Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown Lloyd Russell-Moyle said: “The Government didn’t like the Black Lives Matter protests when tens of thousands of young people went onto the streets for racial equality.

“They were embarrassed by the anti-Trump demonstrations during his state visit, they despised the one million people that marched to try and stop Brexit, so we are here with a Bill that tries to make the snowflakes opposite feel better.

“Because that is frankly what they are – the Secretary of State is a snowflake, his backbenchers are a snowflake.”

Jesse Norman, a Conservative former minister, said it was “unfortunate” the government was bringing forward noise-based restrictions on protests when people in Kyiv, Ukraine, are “dying for their beliefs and for the rights of freedom of speech and of association”.

He said: “No case has been made, no serious case have been made, that this is a real and genuine problem. The minister has conceded I think, and one understands why that it is not like abuse except in the tiniest minority of cases and therefore one has to ask the question, whether the justification is adequate for the measure.”

Tory former minister Steve Baker said he had “considerable concerns” over the restrictions as he encouraged colleagues to “get in that rebel lobby” to tell the government “actually, this is going too far on noise”.

The division list showed Mr Baker was the only Conservative MP to rebel as the noise restriction proposals were reinstated by a majority of 50.