{"id":70357,"date":"2023-06-14T08:57:10","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T07:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=70357"},"modified":"2023-06-14T08:57:10","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T07:57:10","slug":"do-we-now-live-in-a-police-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2023\/06\/14\/do-we-now-live-in-a-police-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Do we now live in a police state?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My old friend Prem (Lord) Sikka posted this Tweet last night:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Lords voted 154-68 to let Tory govt change the Public Order Act through the back door, Unprecedented.<\/p>\n<p>Our freedoms to protest gone; police  have carte blanche, no accountability.<\/p>\n<p>Labour peers told to abstain on Jenny Jones&#39; motion. I voted for it.<br \/>We have a police state.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Prem Sikka (@premnsikka) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/premnsikka\/status\/1668728811670716423?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 13, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The Greens in the Lords planned a blocking motion that would have blocked this.<\/p>\n<p>The LibDerms supported it.<\/p>\n<p>So did many crossbench peers.<\/p>\n<p>The Bill could have been blocked.<\/p>\n<p>But Labour said it was not its job to block government legislation in the Lords, and so they abstained - letting the Bill pass.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, we now have a law that only permits protests with the permission of the police.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>No wonder Prem was furious. So am I.<\/p>\n<p>Two polls:<\/p>\n<div id=\"polls-66\" class=\"wp-polls\">\n\t\t<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Should the police have the sole right to decide if a protest is permissible?<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"polls-66-ans\" class=\"wp-polls-ans\"><ul class=\"wp-polls-ul\">\n\t\t<li>No <small>(97%, 817 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 97%;\" title=\"No (97% | 817 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Yes <small>(1%, 8 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 1%;\" title=\"Yes (1% | 8 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Please just show me the answers <small>(1%, 6 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 1%;\" title=\"Please just show me the answers (1% | 6 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>I don't care <small>(1%, 5 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 1%;\" title=\"I don&#039;t care (1% | 5 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>I don't know <small>(0%, 2 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 0%;\" title=\"I don&#039;t know (0% | 2 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<\/ul><p style=\"text-align: center;\">Total Voters: <strong>838<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n\t\t<input type=\"hidden\" id=\"poll_66_nonce\" name=\"wp-polls-nonce\" value=\"18953d771d\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"polls-66-loading\" class=\"wp-polls-loading\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-polls\/images\/loading.gif\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Loading ...\" title=\"Loading ...\" class=\"wp-polls-image\" \/>&nbsp;Loading ...<\/div>\n\n<p>And:<\/p>\n<div id=\"polls-67\" class=\"wp-polls\">\n\t\t<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Now the police control the right to protest do we live in a police sate?<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"polls-67-ans\" class=\"wp-polls-ans\"><ul class=\"wp-polls-ul\">\n\t\t<li>Yes <small>(84%, 649 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 84%;\" title=\"Yes (84% | 649 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>No <small>(8%, 65 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 8%;\" title=\"No (8% | 65 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Please just show me the answers <small>(5%, 40 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 5%;\" title=\"Please just show me the answers (5% | 40 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Don't be silly <small>(2%, 19 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 2%;\" title=\"Don&#039;t be silly (2% | 19 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>I don't care <small>(0%, 0 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 1%;\" title=\"I don&#039;t care (0% | 0 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<\/ul><p style=\"text-align: center;\">Total Voters: <strong>773<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n\t\t<input type=\"hidden\" id=\"poll_67_nonce\" name=\"wp-polls-nonce\" value=\"1304520942\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"polls-67-loading\" class=\"wp-polls-loading\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-polls\/images\/loading.gif\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Loading ...\" title=\"Loading ...\" class=\"wp-polls-image\" \/>&nbsp;Loading ...<\/div>\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2023\/06\/14\/do-we-now-live-in-a-police-state\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-labour","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70358,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70357\/revisions\/70358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}