As the Guardian reports this morning:
Police are to be given powers to shut down protests before any disruption begins under Rishi Sunak's plans for a public order crackdown, which aim to prevent tactics such as “slow marching”.
Sparking outrage from civil liberties campaigners, the government said it would be laying an amendment to the public order bill to toughen its crackdown on “guerilla” tactics used mainly by environmental protesters.
New legislation proposed by Suella Braverman is already draconian: a person could be issued with a five-year control order under it to prevent them protesting. Now the crime is to be extended to planning protest.
George Monbiot is good on this. I share this video made before these new powers were proposed again. I was made last November. This is fascist control in action. The video in the tweet should be live:
Public Order Bill: The Most Repressive Legislation of the Modern Era @GeorgeMonbiot pic.twitter.com/A1IXOlAYEX
— Double Down News (@DoubleDownNews) November 18, 2022
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This has troubling parallels with Clara Mattei’s depiction of how Mussolini’s fascists clamped down on Italian workers in the inter-war years.
I’ve got to say that those who say history doesn’t not repeat itself are either liars or don’t know their history.
The long term war of ideas has been between capital and those who create the value in capital. And now in addition to that fight, is the fight to protect our lives by protecting the planet from capitalist short-termism.
That too it seems is something that is to be denied to us.
People should be free to protest against whatever they like, providing that it is does not impinge on the rights of others.
We have seen too often how these environmental protests have a major impact on the rights of thousands of ordinary citizens just going about their ordinary business, as well as the resulting disruption to business and the economy.
Maybe the government has gone too far with this bill, but something has to be done.
I’m sure you’d be saying the same if you were being disrupted in this way?
Ah, so the right of protest exists so long as no one notices?
Please try not to be stupid when commenting here
And at the same time please understand that most of the rights you enjoy resulted from someone protesting
Don’t be silly!
Protestors do NOT have a right to impinge on the rights of others, yet that is exactly what has been happening recently.
You seem to suggest that the rights of the (minority of) protestors trump the rights of the (majority of) other citizens?
Your analogy about protesting and my rights fails at the first hurdle.
Sorry, but this is crass
Of course protestors have a right to infringe on others rights in some way E.g. by making noise, getting in the way, saying things disagreed with, etc.
Almost all human activity infringes others in these ways. Just walking down the street can
To claim no infringement is allowed is to say no action is permitted
You make your fascism clear
Please don’t call again
The whole point of protesting is to make others aware of the issue and its importance. Doing that without having some effect on the rights of others is impossible.
Before Xmas I had a meeting at the European Commission. One of the participants (a senior Commission official) observed that action in terms of high energy prices had been slow to non existent because of a lack of demonstrations. The politicos did not feel their power threatened & thus did little.
The exception was Germany where liquified nat gas terminals were built at record speed (& with zero in terms of environmental permitting) because even the German politicos could see their grip on power threatened if there was no gas/no heating in DE this winter.
The question is: tory imbeciles will go ahead with these laws. Working on the basis of a change of gov, will Liebore repeal them? Given their current track record, I rather doubt it.
Democracy, dying with a whimper. Unions will be next.
The point is, unless people “notice” that there is a climate crisis, nothing is going to change. The government pretends they are “tackling” the problem for example by sweet words at COP 26 which have been subsequently completely ignored in the fact that new oil gas exploration is being permitted in North Séa, a new coal mine in Cumbria, and talk of bringing back fracking in the UK. No wonder people are hopping mad, havn’t the government seen footage of the fires in Australia, California,Greece, you name it, or the floods in Pakistan or in our own Severn and Wye valleys? Good grief, what are we coming to drifting into disaster without a word of protest!
We live in a screwed up country. There will be people who will be treated as criminals for protesting in order to make lives better yet those in charge can lie, make decisions that cost lives, have second (or more) jobs that pay significant sums etc. and it feels like it is treated as ‘move along, nothing to see here’
Craig
Unfortunately, cognitive dissonance theory holds that when presented with contrary, solidly founded, evidence, many people will have their original unfounded beliefs strengthened. they will also react strongly against the messenger! The view that “protesters have gone too far” etc is unfortunately rooted strongly in this ‘conservative’ mindset (not restricted to Tory voters at all BTW) and is fully understood, and exploited, by emergent fascists like the current government (whose primary concern is to load the bank accounts of their donors, owners and themselves).
The tory MP on Politics Live has just said there is nothing wrong with slow marching as long as it’s not by Just Stop Oil.
I read this a couple of weeks ago and it seems appropriate.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jan/12/uk-risks-being-listed-as-a-human-rights-abuser-human-rights-watch
Unfortunate timing to give police unfettered powers – when yet another of their number turns out to be a serial criminal. a police state? Have heard some police say they re not happy with this.
Presumably Labour wont oppose effectively.