UK Politics Thread

Do the rest of the UK not have plastic bullets like we do over in NI? A lot of these people would back the hell down if they were treated to a bit more resistance than a some riot shield shoving.

He would get flashbacks to the war that he never fought in but builds his whole identity around.

I’m sure the people of Ireland feel safe. But nice of him to remember the homeland.

I’d put them down as terrorists. It gives the police additional powers and resources to deal with them.

They do more damage to the country than ‘actual’ terrorists have in recent years. The only thing that has stopped that until now is probably being white.

It's all so dumb.

But they're not terrorists, and it's important that word doesn't get thrown about and watered down. There is a big gulf between these coked up far-right thugs, and actual extreme-right wing white supremacists.

The guys getting arrested and hit with bricks by their own side are not terrorists*.

The people who are always there, egging them on? Lennon and his cadre of criminal fuckwits. How are they any different to Anjem Choudray? Who is rightly dealt with.

*Although, there were reports of some people trying to throw petrol bombs in Whitehall, which if true, might cross the line?

A collective name, causing organised and preplanned intimidation and violence upon others in order to push their agenda in attempting to change how a country is ruled and governed. I'd call that a terrorist organisation, not all terrorism is as simple as bombs and crashing planes.

If people don't want labelled as such then they shouldn't act as such.

www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/terrorism

CPS's description of terrorism. I don't think you can really argue that what we have seen in the last couple of days doesn't fit this criteria (and I say that as someone who initially was leaning towards them being an extremism group rather than a terrorist one).

Using violence for political reasons is pretty much the text book definition of terrorism.

Not long till the Bell riots (if we had the tories still in power we would have Sanctuary Districts)

Going by the CPS definition their actions could be defined as terrorism; its violence and damage to property towards a racial/idealogical/political cause intended to intimidate the public, if you can prove intent.

The law has to be specific, but language is so ambiguous and open to interpretation, hence why laws are so wordy and verbiose.

But defining terrorism is so difficult and even the current one could be applied to lots of things.

It depends on whether that violence is organised by a specific group though. If an organisation arranged a riot and is gearing everyone up for a fight, then that is different from a protest that escalated. Listening to Carol Voderman on LBC at the moment (sitting for James OB), and had a caller saying that white people are treated differently and that no one was calling Black Lives Matter thugs. Big difference though, as about 99% of the BLM protests were peaceful and a few people took it as an opportunity to loot and riot.

However, she also has had an expert of policing and handling riots on saying that EDL doesn't really exist anymore and there hasn't been any real leadership to it since Tommy Robinson left a decade or so ago. Prescribing them as a terrorist organisation when there isn't an organisation would be quite silly.

National Action are already proscribed as a terrorist organisation for doing similar stuff to the EDL.