UK Politics Thread

I think on this - and with the climate change protestors - the Met is happy to do whatever it likes because it knows that the general public are on its side. Order is more important than law to so many afterall.

It feels like something has shifted though. The authorities have never been keen on protests, clearly, and they've always tried to deal with protestors.
Depending on their actions, protestors would risk arrest.

But for my entire life there have been many different protests and there was always a basic acceptance that there were limited things the authorities could do to prevent it because it was an inherent right and part of a free and democratic society.
Now it seems like even thinking you might like to do a peaceful silent protest risks arrest.

It’s not hard to parse. Braverman wanted boots on necks during this weekend and got it. I don’t think they ever wanted to charge them with anything, just get them off the streets for 24hrs.

It’s like they turned up to some American hick town in a bad movie.

Starmer's doing his best to keep things interesting

He really is trying to make it as difficult as possible to put a X in that Labour box.

A fancy X?

David Davis has always been like this in civil liberties but lets face it, this was the new law operating exactly as intended

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/09/tory-mps-condemn-use-of-new-laws-to-detain-coronation-protesters

Starmer is doing everything he can to reduce right wing press attacks, while no one with any sense thinks the legislation is good there's fuck all to be gained from doing anything about it now.

Also there's a huge amount of thick cunts in this country who don't think there's a problem banging up republicans for doing nothing.

I haven't agreed with the narrative of Labour being red Tories or Starmer being right wing (and I'm still not), but this seems like an easy one for them to have come out and say they would make changes to this bill. They already voted against it and I'm certain many of them have made statements in the House shooting it down (certainly other aspects of the bill, even if not specifically the protest element).

Even from a pragmatic angle, I expect the people who cheer on what the police did on Saturday will be choosing between Tory and Reform come election day. If Labour make a noise about siding with the police against peaceful protesters then they surely are more likely to lose people than gain them.

Besides, even if they didn't want to commit to repealing the bill day one of a Labour government, just saying something like "this bill has clearly not been used in the way we've been told it would be used and we would look at amending and possibly removing elements of it" feels like it would be a much better response. Talking about letting it "bed-in" feels like a massive capitulation to what the Tories are so obviously doing with this bill.

Sunak taking a helicopter to a meeting in Southampton today, rather than spending just £30 of our money and an hour each way of his time. Laughable.

and to Southampton of all places

Ok that was proper funny

Their twitter person is absolutely woeful

So they were specifically ordered by the courts to comply with the inquiry and not withhold any information and they're now admitting they withheld information? They then proceeded to wilfully impede the investigation, reject the inquiry's findings that they had obstructed it, when clearly they did... and now, they've magically found some more evidence which should have been presented?

Wow. Anyone who still believes they are not institutionally corrupt is either daft or credulous.

Every single person involved should be prosecuted and fired, same as would happen with any other employer.