The second reading of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill passed the House of Commons last night with a majority of almost 100. This is despite the fact that as Ian Dunt noted on politics.co.uk:
The bill puts the power as to whether a protest can be held entirely in the hands of the police.
More worryingly, he noted that:
And yet even this benchmark was considered too high. So the bill also gave the home secretary the power to change the legal meaning of the term “serious disruption” by statutory instrument — effectively sidestepping parliament. In future, if Priti Patel or one of her successors decides that a protest was legal but they still wanted rid of it, they could simply unilaterally change the law.
Our human right to protest (because that is what it is) is now entirely handed over to Priti Patel, whose permission we will now now seek first, presuming this Bill continues its passge in similar fashion.
This cannot end well. I was interested to note this in my inbox yesterday:
I've been a member of the RSPB since I was a boy, when quite literally in short trousers, as was normal back then. I have never seen it as especially radical. But it is noting, quite appropriately, that nature smetimes needs defending, and quite noisily. Under the proposals being made that will not be possible.
I take this seriously. It will surprise no one that I have a lot of symptahy with Extinction Rebellion. I will be open about the fact that I have advised them when they have asked for help. I also support Black Lives Matter. So you might say I am one of those who would, of course, oppose this Bill. But when the RSPB does too the government has got something seriously wrong.
Protest is about the right to be heard when that is not possible in any other way.
And yes, protest is about being unreasonable in pursuit of a course of action as yet not popular, because by defintion if it was popular protest would not be required.
But history notes that the process of change is almost entirely dependent upon protest.
History also shows that protest does not wait for permission. Last Saturday night also showed that.
So what the Tories are doing here is setting themselves up for conflict. And that is very unwise. Protest that cannot happen peacefully invariably ends up as protest that happens violently.
I am not, and never will be, an advocate of violent protest. I never want to see that happen. But it will if this Bill progresses. That is inevitable. And the Tories must know that.
So what is their game? What are they trying to achieve with this Bill? Is it that they simply want to create the opportunities to suggest that there is a need for ever more oppressive crack down on opposition? And will they deliver on that? This seems the likelihood to me, with them playing very strongly to a right wing audience that they think will back them all the way on this.
No government has ever, eventiually, survived such a strategy. Tyranny of this form always, eventually, fails. But the price of opposing it can be very high. The cost in terms of ruined and even lost lives can be horrendous. And that is where I fear we are going.
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The problem I have with Extinction Rebellion is that they want to subvert democracy even more than the current government. They want governments to simply implement pronouncements of some randomly selected Citizens’ Assembly. If you don’t make it through the random selection your voice is neutered.
This is where the Green New Deal can help. Extinction Rebellion would have no reason to be.
Strangely enough, my new tory MP does just that. Anyone who puts anything on his facebook page that he disagrees with is banned from writing any more on his facebook page, thus having their voices neutered. He then tells his acolytes that everyone agrees with him. If there hadn’t been violent protests half the population would still not have a vote.
I find it sinister that this was passed in the commons the same day that he announced an increase in nuclear weapons. CND hasn’t gone away.
The RSPB started out in 1885 as the Plumage League, campaigning against the enormous trade in feathers for millinery. As far as I am aware, mostly being well behaved Victorian middle class women, they limited themselves to letter writing, pamphlets and meetings, and it took several decades to achieve the passing of the Importation of Plumage (Prohibition) Act 1921. By that time the trade was very much smaller than it had been.
But yes, if the government is being opposed by conservative bastions like the RSPB and the National Trust, you start to wonder where they expect to find support.
From people like J Bhattacharya it would appear.
I am not a magician, unlike you who can make views appear out of thin (cyber) air.
I heard a minister say that there were already sufficient remedies for those with political objections to Government actions. I beg to differ. I have sent five emails to my MP over the last eight years, I have yet to receive a reply to four. The one that was answered did not address the topics I raised it simply regurgitated the party line. Nor was the reply from the MP but from a functionary on his team. This same MP did not attend one public meeting during the last election campaign.
If I try to obtain data to consider and inform a rational decision any FOI request is likely to be refused as were 45% of requests in the first three months of 2018. This compares with 26% in 2010. Nor can I rely on a transparent Government who illegally withheld details of 500 Covid contracts. Apparently it is morally and ethically acceptable to befriend middle eastern despots as long as they buy weapons from us to prosecute a war that often targets civilians, schools and hospitals. The same people sanction assassination but that is regarded as an internal matter that shouldn’t interfere with trade. It is equally acceptable to seek trade agreements with asian regimes who stand accused of genocide and employing the slave labour of unapproved religions.
If however I choose to protest these abhorrent and immoral positions I will find myself liable to a ten year prison sentence because protest is ‘annoying’. Well, Ms Patel, you may well find that I become a source of severe sub-lumbar discomfort if you carry on.
They are not going to be able to imprison us all
“What are they trying to achieve with this Bill? ”
….. in simple terms the toryscum believe that it will help them crack down on demos & indeed it will. Then with no outlet there, people/serfs/peasants will take other action, another law, more reaction, and slowly but surely domestic terrorism will emerge, politicians will become “legitimate” targets because ….. toryscum do not & never have liked dissenting voices that change things …., it’s their way or the highway.
I noted on Euractiv that 120 year ago, the Uk dominated the globe. Decline has been rapid and for around 100 years of that decline the UK has been run by…. tyoryscum governments of varying types. Clearly this is the end game and it would seem that the “stupid party” is happy to destroy the UK & England – all with the “best of intentions”. Still, with a congential liar & professional moron such as Patel what do you expect.
Let’s hope with the third reading of this draconian bill the opposition parties will get their act together and vigorously put the anti-human rights aspects to the fore (it clearly contravenes international human rights law) and get some Tories who are concerned with civil liberties (David Davies?) and others to see sense.
I just watched PMQ’s to see how the handsome well coiffured GKH, making suckers of anyone left, would find a way of rubber stamping this new Riot Act.
Nauseatingly. He made it clear he was the bovver boy for the State for 5 years so he could be relied on to ease it through while making some ‘careful now’ set ups for Bozo to knock over the ropes.
The absolute disgraceful naming of perpetrators of rape of minors and the sentences they received!
One needs to know the context of the Bozo’s current baby mama – PR exec and minder appointed to cater to the clowns needs – personal history as a ‘‘victim of rape’ by a now notorious modern day mass rapist with still unrecognised total number of victims – to get a grasp of how The GKH is lending a helping hand to this notorious Act. Which is designed to keep the future serfs down and locked in our own parishes, never to look our betters in the eye or topple their statues and let them get away with their Droit du seigneur. to rape at will.
They have declared war upon us, at home, as they have been doing to defenceless ’natives’ across the globe forever. We are being visited with the imposition of Civilisation as these far flung innocents have always been.
How do we like these chickens coming home to roost?
The lesson to be learnt from these historical VICTIMS of our centuries old imperialism is how to resist-organise and yes fight! To regain the freedoms that we have been suckered into giving away through our acceptance of decades of Downtonised propaganda.
This PM, This Leader of the Opposition, This Speaker are the culmination of 50 years of recapture of the levers of state and laws.
They are no more than any group of thugs that ever took control of a government.
I need a shower.
It’s simple.
The Tories are fascists so they look to find ‘enemies within’ everywhere – turning interest groups against each other (how about grouse shooting land owners against the RSPB for example).
It’s divide and conquer all over again – a mass distraction burglary of our future. It’s Tim Snyder’s ‘eternity politics’.
Lessons? Well look at the USA during the Vietnam war and the mobilization of the ‘silent majority’ – those people who thought ‘my country right or wrong’. It split the country for years and some say it still does.
Fascists then use the ‘silent majority’ as a flag of convenience something to hide behind as they get on with ruining everything (think about what Nixon did to the US health system during this time).
The uncomfortable truth is that out there in the real world, there are everyday people who will disagree with the RSPB, BLM, ER etc., and the Tories have no problem utilising them for their own ends.
Agreed
Tim Snyder is horribly right on this
Divide and conquer is the Tories tried and trusted tactics and it has worked (sadly).
Craig
All of this is true, but when our so called FPTP democracy, election after election gives the Tories power on about 30% of the total vote and most of that is the vote of reactionary, right wing little Englanders, I struggle to see things changing any time soon. The Tories have perfected the art of keeping hold of power, the next boundary changes will give them even more English seats. Once Scotland gets independence it is game over for democracy in rump UK unless the opposition unite in some way to put up just one candidate in each seat against the Tory dictatorship. Even then it will be hard to win. If Labour continue to believe the fiction that we are a two party system they deserve the eternal role of official opposition which is all they will get. The scraps off the democratic table fed to them by Tory toffs.
I’d go so far as to say that some kind of cross-party cooperation is essential for a party other than the Conservatives to get back into government any time soon. Some sort of electoral pact between Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP, and the Greens could enable them to form the next majority, enact some sort of PR (I don’t really care which one – it is an ecumenical matter), and then held new elections immediately. That could reshape UK politics forever, and make sure we have governments that represented a broad majority of opinion and not just one minority view.
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/how-the-2019-election-results-could-have-looked-with-proportional-representation/
In December 2019, the Conservatives won 43.6% of the votes, but that gave them 57.8% of the seats.
Labour won almost as many seats as votes – 32.2% of the votes gave 32.0% of the seats.
But the Lib Dems and Greens won 11.5% and 2.7% of the votes, and only 1.7% (11) and 0.2% (1) of the seats. They should be somewhere near 70 and 10.
Given their geographical focus, the SNP did well: 3.9% of the votes turned into 7.6% of the seats in Westminster.
And then we’d likely have a few smaller parties – such as the Brexit Party, and the UUP who won no seats.
Sadly, I think they are all too busy fighting each other (and often enemies within) to see and win the bigger prize.
I agree that this has to be our hope
And that hope will likely be dashed