Looks like the #AntiMonarchist demonstrators were subject to a classic bait & switch operation today - they were reassured through detailed meetings with the #Police, led to believe there was a way that they could exercise their right to protest, only then to be arrested when they did... so much for #democracy - another step down a road we're constantly told is merely scaremongering.... its almost entrapment
@ChrisMayLA6
Apparently, Republic have the receipts to prove that they liased properly with the Police, and that everything they were doing/had planned was entirely legal, with no warnings about any changes in the law.
And with Police officers being caught on camera arresting them without explanation beyond "We'll figure it out later", I would expect any case to be thrown out of court.
Not going to hold my breath, though.
@tokensane @ChrisMayLA6
That causes problems for the Police though - Republic liased with them in good faith, and weren't informed of any problems, then were arrested with no cause stated, which is illegal in itself - this basically amounts to illegal detention, which opens them up to action through the courts.
This could well end badly for the Met, and is already putting pressure on the Home Secretary.
@ChrisMayLA6 There’s goes any future engagement between police and protestors at least as long as the current laws are in place and the current #ToryCriminalsUnfitToGovern are in power. Any new parliament will have to rescind these laws that criminalise people for a difference of opinion; and do a great deal to build trust in any police force in future. MetPol also arrested safety volunteers in Westminster last night for having rape alarms. Held from 2am and all day. #abuseofpower
@siobhansarelle@JoeGrowling@ChrisMayLA6 and this is what the government are gong to cause. If protest becomes illegal, then protesters will escalate their methods.
We've got evidence that this is what happens from all around the world.
Yes, but then 'escalating their methods' actually alienates many moderates (who may or may not be important for backing any particular cause) & makes it easier to identify protesters (wrongly) with terrorists... its a spiral that plays into the hands of authoritarianism... we already sliding down towards it; we need to find ways to resist without falling into the trap being set
@ChrisMayLA6@siobhansarelle@JoeGrowling I honestly think it's too late. When the majority seem to think policing like this is a good thing, the battle has been lost.
I am not convinced the majority of people do think the style of policing is a good thing. I think people are largely stuck in a society that is now dependent on road usage, because local jobs and facilities have been removed, with neo liberalism, false choice as bait, and now everyone get in a car on their own, polluting the environment, aiding climate crisis, and everyone is stuck in cycle of anxiety and anger, and mainly only sees the impact on their journeys.
This is why so many people complain about Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, residents simply wanting their communities safer. To the point some destroy bollards, with arson.
The law is full of unenforceable laws. Like residential speed limits. All that money spend on signage. Local councils putting in speed limits after the police told them they would be unenforceable.
People are largely not law abiding with these things.
The government’s excuse for the Public Order Bill is this:
The actions of a minority of protestors, takes police away from doing police work in local communities.
The police will probably now (and already have started actually) simply not turning up to smaller protests.
The police will fail to significantly increase or complete fail to improve local community policing, despite the bill, which will then prove that the bill had no impact.
Any new powers will become another impotent law. There have been the Affray laws for years, where if the actions of 2 or people can be shown to cause a person of reasonable firmness (imaginary person) to fear for their safety, the entire crowd of protestors could be found guilty (the law fought me on this one, and I won)
…and when I say the law fought me and I won. I mean the police literally fought me, well, dragged me to the floor during a protest, pinned me to the ground under foot, then dragged me off through a police station, punched me in the head, threw me around, used me to open swing doors, forced me to my knees in the lift and held me tight by my hair, locked me in a cell for 20 hours, sent me to magistrates court for 10 months, then 2 weeks in Crown Court, where they lied under oath, were shown to have lied, and then their case effectively collapsed because of video evidence showing what actually happened. Which partly sparked off FIT being established.
The Public Order bill, is solely political. For locking on tactics at protests, the Aggravated Trespass law and Affray laws could be used. No new powers are needed.
@siobhansarelle@ChrisMayLA6@JoeGrowling and, ultimately, I'd this gets through the courts, the same result will happen - all laws must be enforced in the context of the Human Rights Act. The courts have worst ruled repeatedly that some disruption is entirely legal. This new law didn't change that.
But, as I said elsewhere, the reality is, what are the consequences to the police for abusing the law? There's no consequences to the officers at all.
Yes, the police are in effect, normally above the law and they do not actually serve the public, neither in practice nor officially, since they serve The Crown,
I suspect the police arrested Republic protestors knowing any care against them would be on very shaky ground. It’s a test case, with very spurious probably made up intelligence about going equipped for locking on.
It the case fails to prosecute anyway, it may just show the law to be useless, and show the government up.
If it’s successful, it’ll show the police up and the government for being corrupt, and undermine them further,
@JoeGrowling@Geri@ChrisMayLA6 I don't think it's a lack of understanding. It's a lack of consequences. If all of those arrested sue the police and win in court, what's the actual outcome? They'll each get a couple of grand in compensation, and every single officer involved will carry on as they did before.
So, in effect, stamping on freedom of expression is just a cost of doing business for the police. Especially as it will have pleased the govt.
@kennethb@JoeGrowling@Geri@ChrisMayLA6 history seems to tell us otherwise. Policing of protest has been fairly consistently heavy-handed for as long as I can remember and from my own experience. This isn't limited to the policing of the coronation.
There is an episode of Star Trek: voyager, Random thoughts, where Torres is charged with thinking a violent thought.
The way the new law works seems to be if they police THINK you are going to do something they can arrest you.
While this appears to set a dangerous presidence, however the police have been doing that for years, by pulling over BLACK people, due to officers being racist and applying racial profiling.
So I can see the issue getting worse for people not better, all this simply alienates the police from the people, increases mis trust, the MET poice are in enough trouble as it is.
@localzuk@JoeGrowling@Geri@ChrisMayLA6 and compensation costs paid out by the police, as well as police lawyers' fees etc, will ultimately be paid for by taxpayers instead of that money going where it's really needed.
@localzuk@JoeGrowling@Geri@ChrisMayLA6 Given the exceptionally bad report on the state of the metropolitan police, I would have though this the last thing they needed.
Tellingly, on Friday catastrophic losses were reported for the Tories. The Coronation masked that and gave them a 'day's grace' It follows then that further "bad reports" will only be highlighted IF the media believe or have been told that it is in the country's interests.
Frankly, I am sick of scrabbling around looking for tiny angles to prove social injustice.
Frankly, the time for action, real action, is way overdue.
You and I both know that nothing will be done. Not by the tories, not by Labour, to correct this fascistic course the UK is now set upon.
Streeting and Starmer both said they would not repeal the Police Bill. Starmer is adamant there will be no rejoining the EU. University fees will not be scrapped by an incoming Labour government.
The British are too cowed. More so now they've seen that they can be arrested for wearing a tee shirt that the police don't like. The poll tax riots are a distant memory. Strikers stand to gain nothing from this callous bunch of crooks.
The United Kingdom is a shadow of what it should be. I'm becoming of the opinion that it will never recover.
If people take direct action that disrupts the public and causes confrontation with the police, it’ll serve to convince the public and the government that harsher laws are a good thing.
No revolution is happening here, The closest we’d get is a civil war but that is highly unlikely because the army are united.
What’s most likely is that some anger will spill over, it will be quashed, laws will fall by the wayside, we will all be kept just bubbling under, dependent with no choice but to just survive, until something catastrophic and out of our hands happens and topples society.
Most ‘civilisations’ last about 1,000 years tops. On average, I think it’s a few hundred.
The probability here I think is that we will tick along, be born, struggle, die, for a few generations, then probably have our numbers drastically cut by climate crisis and nuclear war.
I can take risks knowing there is likely to be little benefit, to at least know I tried, or not,
@siobhansarelle@Geri@redflag@JoeGrowling@ChrisMayLA6 Honestly, I think we're in for a huge change in the way the world works within our lifetimes. With the USA crumbling (even if many won't admit it), the countries that rely on them will need to find a new "big brother". But I fear that new system is going to be far more illiberal than what we have now.
Yes, and this is partly what keeps people from rocking the boat.
Also, humanity has existential fear. Organised religion and even corrupt governments are a means of giving people meaning and purpose, which serves to hide our existential fear from ourselves, make us feel like we are part of something, even if we think that thing is bad, not sustainable.
Yes, but I am not arguing that. What I mean is a cohesive state or nation, or even culture. It’s about mass radical change that happens. The ripples of change can be like a small wave on a big sea, that goes unnoticed, but then suddenly turned into a tsunami.
There are other ways of affecting radical change though. It takes time, but for example, I think a revolution of emotional intelligence may be one of the best chances we have.
On a practical level, I think if we could get teaching of emotional skills as mandatory in schools, we could probably radically change society within a generation or two. Teaching about consent, empathy, boundaries, grounding techniques, how to have healthy relationships (including with ourselves and the environment). All of this could bring about an end to racism, misogyny etc at least within the general population, mostly, within a generation or two. No protest required.
@siobhansarelle@Geri@redflag@JoeGrowling@ChrisMayLA6 problem with that is that the UK government sets what schools must teach. Specifically, in England, all schools must teach "British values", which has been determined by the Tories.
When a child in Devon learns exactly the same as the one in Darlington has no purpose other than to create league tables of qualifications and a society of robots.
That isn’t a problem with the thing I proposed and emotional skills are the same for practically everyone, regardless of culture or nation. These are human values.
@localzuk@siobhansarelle@Geri@JoeGrowling@ChrisMayLA6 ‘British Values’? I wonder what those are; I thought I knew what they were a long time ago. Turns out they were jingoistic bullshit of queen and empire, as well religious indoctrination. I chose my faith carefully after considerate debate with myself. ‘Not so ‘British Values’ which only exist for the purpose of subjugation.
The Iraq war happened. Probably most of those people continued to vote for the people who did it, after it happened,
The threshold for the numbers of people needed to make more direct civil disobedience, work, is far too high, and the risks are too great for most people to get involved, and most people are too dependent on the very system they would be disobeying,
@siobhansarelle It would require a sustained general strike level of disobedience - and as so many people are close to or in poverty already, they wouldn't risk it.
People are already not joining strike action due to being unable to fill the hole in their pay.
Unions are generally part of the state though, or at least dependent on it.
Just look at the way they work with big protests, they agree with authorities to ship lots of people in by coach into London, herd everyone into Hyde Park, probably to see some politicians campaigning, then ship most people home feeling good that they have been to a protest. The police during the day do more ‘friendly’ smiling police work, while the thugs in uniform sleep in vans on the side streets. Once the unions have shipped the bulk of protestors out of London, the thugs move in on the stragglers.
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