“Fuck ’em and their law”: How Margaret Thatcher’s anti-rave legislation inspired The Prodigy’s most rebellious song

Posted On May 26, 2025May 26, 2025

There were two sure-fire ways to upset Margaret Thatcher in the 1990s. The first was to go to a football match, the second was to go to a rave. Thatcher despised both Manchester United and The Prodigy in such equal measure that she passed legislation which stopped people from going to see either. However, as always seems to be the case with music, the pioneers found a way to rebel. 

The legislation passed was the Criminal Justice Act 1994. Under section 63 of the act, laws were set out that defined a rave and prevented people from attending them. The definition itself was pretty insulting to the genre and showed the clear lack of touch that government officials had when it came to culture.

“This section allows police officers of at least the rank of superintendent to give directions for individuals to leave land where a rave is taking place,” it read, “Including those who are preparing to attend or waiting to attend.” A rave was defined under the act as “A gathering on land where amplified music is played during the night, particularly music characterised by repetitive beats.”

Why did Thatcher do this? Well, again, it’s because of how out of touch she was. Rave music is famously apolitical. People gather and dance to music; there doesn’t need to be an agenda attached. In fact, as far as music is concerned, it’s one of the purest forms of escapism. However, Thatcher and her government didn’t see that. All they saw was the fact that with a phone call and a speaker system, thousands could be gathered in one area on short notice, and she was terrified by the potential political ramifications of that. 

“Rave was more about unity,” said former raver Gavin Watson. “And, unlike other scenes, there weren’t really any faces from the scene for society to grab on to and scapegoat, which must have been frustrating for the government and media at the time. Because it was kind of this big, inclusive faceless mass, I also feel like the social pressures that got people seeking a release from rave did a lot of good things to make the racial divide less of a divide.”

The underground rave scene was notoriously hard to disrupt because it was, as the name suggests, underground. People were still happily attending raves without worrying too much about the ramifications of what would happen if they were caught. The whole movement was born out of innovation and rebellion, so when this law was passed, what would you expect the movement to do other than innovate and rebel?

So, the movement itself wasn’t political, but politicians made it political when they tried to interfere. Merely attending a rave was suddenly a middle finger to authority, and with that feeling now embedded in a number of artists and ravers, that rebellion was soon reflected in the music being made.

In 1994, The Prodigy released the album Music For The Jilted Generation. It was an anti-authority album, and the highlight of it came in the shape of the song ‘Their Law’. The only lyrics throughout the hardcore track was “Fuck ‘em and their law,” which perfectly personified the feeling amongst ravers at the time. While The Prodigy have never been one of the most political bands on the planet, their hand was forced by backwards legislation, and the result is some of their most hard-hitting and rebellious music.

The band are arguably one of the most famous rave-influenced musical outfits on the planet, but their impact only represents a sliver of the movement as a whole. This form of music had power in its escapism, so much so that people loved attending raves to forget about the Britain that Thatcher had spearheaded for so long. The legislation she passed in a bid to prevent these raves was misguided, and there was no chance that the public would give up their form of escapism because of a law passed by the very people they were trying to escape. The legislation was widely ineffective, or as The Prodigy put it: “Fuck ‘em and their law.” 

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