These new laws that were used to arrest everyone for any Republic protests

[Father Dougal]

I'm saying that there's a good chance credible intelligence was used due to the fact a small minority of protestors were arrested.

The left have continually state the powers are used to suppress protests and that was the intent.

The powers used, as you claim, are nothing more than extensions of current law to cover the changes in protesting tactics and have clearly not been used to suppress lawful protest.

if police across the UK were using these powers, how come so few across the whole of the UK were arrested?

Or perhaps more likely maybe the mistake they made was discussing and agreeing locations and plans with the police.

The police perhaps then used this info to be waiting for them to arrest them and seize the vans with the placards in when they arrived at the agreed location.