My old friend Prem (Lord) Sikka posted this Tweet last night:
Lords voted 154-68 to let Tory govt change the Public Order Act through the back door, Unprecedented.
Our freedoms to protest gone; police have carte blanche, no accountability.
Labour peers told to abstain on Jenny Jones' motion. I voted for it.
We have a police state.— Prem Sikka (@premnsikka) June 13, 2023
The vote in question was to block changes in the Act that will now allow police the sole discretion to decide when a demonstration is likely to cause a nuisance or not, and so be permitted or not.
The Greens in the Lords planned a blocking motion that would have blocked this.
The LibDerms supported it.
So did many crossbench peers.
The Bill could have been blocked.
But Labour said it was not its job to block government legislation in the Lords, and so they abstained - letting the Bill pass.
As a result, we now have a law that only permits protests with the permission of the police.
The police are institutionally racist. They are misogynistic. They are notoriously right-wing. And Labour gave them the power to determine the right to protest.
No wonder Prem was furious. So am I.
Two polls:
Should the police have the sole right to decide if a protest is permissible?
- No (97%, 817 Votes)
- Yes (1%, 8 Votes)
- Please just show me the answers (1%, 6 Votes)
- I don't care (1%, 5 Votes)
- I don't know (0%, 2 Votes)
Total Voters: 838
Loading ...And:
Now the police control the right to protest do we live in a police sate?
- Yes (84%, 649 Votes)
- No (8%, 65 Votes)
- Please just show me the answers (5%, 40 Votes)
- Don't be silly (2%, 19 Votes)
- I don't care (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 773
Loading ...
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Hmmm………..it seems to me that we are being prepared for a new sort of normal. So, they’ve essentially de-politicised one of the most political acts we can carry out – protest!!
A would call that new sort of normal the ‘containment state’ – it is used to maintain the status quo, hold back progress, retard debate.
We have a Laboured party who obviously see the political advantage of having this sort of control allowed or not by the police. That’s a new level of cynicism for me by them.
Maybe they’re thinking about curbing the BREXITEERs, anti-abortionists and fuel lobbyists/demonstrators slowing down motorways next them hike VAT fuel? It would be nice to think that that is the motive.
But looking at the challenges we now face, I think we are heading into a sort of grim ‘put up or shut up’ orthodoxy – a society where compliance is expected, where issues cannot be raised and more importantly, social movements to support them will be potentially supressed if we let them.
Bad news.
We’ve been being prepared for this already to some extent by IDS and his Universal Credit, which weaponises debt to keep claimants off-balance, forever chasing their tails, and its job search, which punishes claimants with destitution if they don’t engage with an obviously fruitless 35 hours weekly job search, instead of leaving them with time on their hands in which they might do something constructive.
One wonders why Liebore did not support the motion. I’d suggest that Liebore, under Starmer and his central committee, are authoritarian. In evidence I cite this rather good article by Harris (apologies – also posted in a diff part of the blog):
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/11/labour-opposition-power-keir-starmer-party
All the evidence suggests that they are authoritarian &, as such, will look upon these new police powers as something useful for the future. If they get into gov, & don’t deliver, & people get unhappy, they can easily supress dissent.
“But Labour said it was not its job to block government legislation in the Lords”…………a patent lie of course, but we already know that Starmer and co are congenital liars on most subjects. In this respect they are identical to the vile-tories. So there we are a Police State and ta-da …….a quasi-one party state complete with voter supression.
I’ve just been reading about it on Labour Hub. Hard to believe that labour say it’s not up to them to block government legislation in the Lords. What are they they for?
The government put it through sneakily in a statutory instrument, without a vote in the commons. It’s the first time the government has done that.
If all labour lords had gone with Prem Sikka and lost the labour whip, so what? They can’t be kicked out of the lords. An MP can lose his job but a lord can’t.
The list of signatories to this letter is interesting to read. Even the Quakers signed it.
https://labourhub.org.uk/2023/06/14/lords-vote-to-further-curtail-the-right-to-protest-labour-abstains/
And still after this ignorant people will vote for Starmer. It’s a bit like watching them repeatedly bang their heads on a brick wall till they pass out! This country fought two World Wars against fascists now they vote for a police state!
Starmer’s Labour has now got ‘form’ on Civil Liberties – bad form, entrenched by this shabby piece of hypocritical, pseudo-constitutional posturing and Lammy’s admission that in goverment they will not repeal even the earlier version of these repressive measures.
The only reasonable conclusion one can draw is that Starmer’s regime is happy to inherit and profit from them – and, given the dreadfully dictatotrial style of his ‘leadership’ within his own party, that bodes very ill for us all.
Last point. Even if the police were innocent of all the opprobrium you quite understandably heap on them – this is a rank bad law, passed in the most undemocratic way and should be condemned as such. No police force in a true democracy should have such powers – but, then, does ‘U’ K count as one?
Typical of vile Starmer. I’ve probably posted this before, certainly on Facebook and Twitter, but SKS is unutterably vile!
He & his RW fanatics – the close circle Starmerites, and the swivel-eyed cult-followers, the Starmerrhoids (a moniker I invented – though others probably came up with it independently – as describing “a pain in the arse & potentially dangerous to health”) are a “clear and present danger” to democracy, decency and the rule of law – as this preposterous abstention proves. Bugger Parliamentary rules, let’s have meaningful action!
James IV of Scotland was defeated at Flodden Field because the rules of chivalry forbade him from taking a certain action. Bugger rules when peoples’ lives are at stake. There’s only one unbreakable rules “do no harm” – in war that means fight in a way that results in fewest deaths and injuries.
All progressives & progressive forces must do all they can to prevent this vile tinpot would-be dictator and his vile Faux-Labour, Party, from getting ANYWHERE near power. He and they would be an authoritarian (and also a flat-earther economist “fiscal rules” Procrustes bed, where people are forced to adhere to riles, instead of rulesto people) disaster!
Utterly, utterly vile.
The public are starting to learn the difference between Crown Law and Natural Law, and that the Police Officer is responsible for their own actions. Expect many more Police officers to be sued.
Difficult for many without legal aid though, and that’s being withdrawn. Along with access to light, heat, healthcare etc. etc. together with any lawful means of demonstrating against this. I’m aware crowdfunding exists but one cannot, as has been observed, pour from an empty cup.
“But Labour said it was not its job to block government legislation in the Lords,”
What is their job then?
Aren’t they the Opposition?
This is folly. Anger denied peaceful expression will still be expressed, in all probability using the only language left available, that of violence. I say this is folly; that is unless encouraging the implementation of martial law is the real intention here, and both main parties approve.
I agree with Bill on this.
Essentially, our political class have finally set the seal on the concept of bring governance into disrepute.
It also indicates what they think is our future, which is one of great unrest.
Terrible indeed.
The twitter thread linked below is quite informative:
https://twitter.com/JohnWest_JAWS/status/1668758880896299008
Explains why Labour didn’t support the motion and the politics behind it, but also notes that Jones (and Sikka, of course) was trying to do the right thing.
The question now is whether the Tory rebels have the guts to keep their word and reject the changes or if a future Labour government would be trustworthy enough to repeal it if it did pass into law. I have to say, I’m not convinced that either will be the case given the fragile state of our polity.
Thanks
A useful thread
We certainly have a de facto police state, resulting from a far-right government. In contrast, a centre left government (de jure to be clear) is what’s needed.
Yes, abstention may appear weak, but it is also a withdrawal of support and a clear decision. The Tories have a majority, though if you include a likely proportion of “crossbenchers” it’s likely to be an overall majority (not a scientific argument, I admit!).
Let’s see what a Labour government can do, EVENTUALLY, to address the disparity (across the piece of governance) of an unelected second house.
There were only 222 lords who voted out of over 800. Haven’t seen the list on Hansard yet, but that percentage would not count in any union vote, by new laws decided by the tories.
Good point
I’ve been reading Jenny Jones twitters about it. Labour have lost a lot more votes in the next election.
It’s not Labour’s job to oppose such a bill! WTF!! “This the end” – copyright Jim Morrison. “There’s gonna be a revolution” – copyright John Lennon. I’d rather have either as leader of the opposition. Even in there current state. By the way I’m expecting “thought polis” at the door after I fire this off!
I have to agree with the prevailing opinion here that UK is heading towards a police state and may already be there. I’ve never seen a definition which clarifies precisely when that status is reached, but I actually lived in a police state (Brasil under its military dictatorship in the 1970s) and saw it first-hand there. I was also raised by parents who had lived in police states in the 1930s (Germany and Austria), so my judgement is that, while we haven’t yet reached the stage of citizens “being routinely disappeared”, all the powers to enable that are being put in place. It’s not just the police powers that are a give-away: the massive under-funding of the law in England effectively removes legal rights for all but the ultra-rich.
Meanwhile in Scotland we see an increase in instances of UK Gov interfering in devolved matters without prior discussion and overturning legislation passed legitimately after due debate by the Scottish Parliament on devolved matters. That’s democracy being dismantled and let’s not pretend that the Scots don’t recognise it as such. The current internal ructions of the SNP are a temporary distraction here, with the media being orchestrated to portray them as the deathknell of the Independence movement. As ever the UK political parties and media don’t understand Scotland or its people and imagine they can lie endlessly to us and we’re all so stupid (check the stats on the percentage of graduates in total population) that we’ll simply kow-tow.
Just by chance tonight (after a nice meal and a couple of glasses of excellent red) I got a call purporting to be opinion-gathering on behalf of “the Government”. I asked “which government?” and the man on the other end of the line was puzzled, so I asked “UK or Scotland?” This seemed to puzzle him even more and at this point the excellent red took over and I pointed out to him that I was Scottish, my government was the Scottish Government, I disowned the UK Government as utterly incompetent and acting against the interests of the people of the UK, so my only connections with the UK related to paying my taxes and having a UK passport. By this stage the excellent red was in full control so he was entertained to a dress-rehearsal of my views on the UK Police State. The line went dead, so if you don’t hear from me again, maybe I’m first-in-line for “being disappeared?
🙂