To feel uneasy about how quiet everyone is about this happening?

[Maxnon]

Here are a few articles about a new bill going through, but really there isn't enough being spoken about it in the media.

Politics.co.uk: Anti-protest bill: Freedom dies in silence "The truly frightening thing was that they didn’t even argue for it. Over two days of debate and dozens of speeches, not one government minister actually defended the anti-protest powers in the new policing bill. Only one MP did."

The Economist: An illiberal bill to suppress protest in Britain

Guardian: 'Bill that curtails ability to protest in England and Wales passes second reading' "The DUP MP Gavin Robinson said: “The loose and lazy way this legislation is drafted would make a dictator blush. Protests will be noisy, protests will disrupt and no matter how offensive we may find the issue at their heart, the right to protest should be protected.”

Opinion: The Right to Protest is important in any credible democracy. Whilst I appreciate the current covid restrictions makes protest harder, in general, this should only be temporary until the pandemic slows down and we are back to some normality. A bill making potentially permanent changes to the Right to Protest makes me feel uneasy. Is that unreasonable?

I watched Mike Leigh's 'Peterloo' film the other night.
In some ways it might appear a bit caricatured / dimensional about the 'nasty toffs who hate and fear the rebellious poor'.
But I got my teens to watch it and they both said: 'but that's what the Govt is trying to do now isn't it? I said: 'no no the Govt isn't advocating riding at crowds with swords' and the older one replied: 'no they are just going to make the crowds illegal to start with'.
They are 13 and 16 and both have Autism. If they can see the dangers I'm surprised that more educated middle aged adults don't.

As a victim of crime in the past who had absolutely no support from the police at all (apart from a letter at the end of my 6 year ordeal saying 'sorry, we could have done better') the thought of them being allowed to decide whether your protest is too loud or whatever, chills me to the bone.

@52andblue

I watched Mike Leigh's 'Peterloo' film the other night. In some ways it might appear a bit caricatured / dimensional about the 'nasty toffs who hate and fear the rebellious poor'. But I got my teens to watch it and they both said: 'but that's what the Govt is trying to do now isn't it? I said: 'no no the Govt isn't advocating riding at crowds with swords' and the older one replied: 'no they are just going to make the crowds illegal to start with'. They are 13 and 16 and both have Autism. If they can see the dangers I'm surprised that more educated middle aged adults don't.

But riding at crowds is next.

TempsPerdu's post nails it.

@Crankley

skirk64 The voice of sense and reason but the left wing woke folk on here aren't interested in either.

I am neither left wing nor woke. I am a 50+ year old woman with no interests in politics.

You don't seem to realise how this is the slow shuffle to eroding our democracy and the ignorant are cheering it on.

As I said - how very very sad.

I think the Clapham Common protests raised a lot of awareness of this, and just as it was about to go through parliament. As a result, Labour was going to vote against this (despite other changes the act made that they did want to see) but I haven't followed the debate this week - any update?

people have the right not to care

Well they do ...but it’s a very important thing to care about @skirk64

And if you have kids or grandkids they might think you for caring.

Rumours of bill being delayed

www.scotsman.com/read-this/controversial-policing-bill-has-been-delayed-after-backlash-what-you-need-to-know-3171419

But also rumours of Parliamentary power being reviewed

mobile.twitter.com/BBCDomC/status/1372517312985759750

But you all knew we lived in a dictatorship when lockdown was declared, right? (I know many will say no)

But it's not like we weren't warned. Those of us who protested against lockdown, this isn't a surprise.

What TempsPerdu said.

YABU to just be "uneasy" and not absolutely fucking raging. Fun lockdown activity: rewatch V for Vendetta and play spot the difference.

Agree people have the right not to care

I did everything I could last year

Nobody cared

Now I do nothing, safe in the knowledge I can exit leaving no dependents behind 🤷🏻‍♀️

@LunaHeather
Damn right! (I just didn't want to frighten my kids)
I am 53. I went on my first CND march as a naive 15 year old with my best friend and our home made badges and banner.
(I wanted to go to Greenham but my Mum said women were being beaten up by the police and she was a Tory, so if it had filtered through her Daily Wail lens then she probably approved :( )
I remember watching some marchers being kettled and hit with batons and being really scared. I have suffered CSA and, despite the perpetrator admitting it, the CPS declined to take it forward 'having reviewed Police notes'. I was also raped at Uni and the Police did noting (despite me also being punched quite hard). I appreciate these are separate issues from the right to protest but I do think it is all linked. If womens rights are not taken seriously, or are removed, what do we do if our right to protest is also removed? What about the BAME community? The Jewish community? What about ANY of us?

I am trying hard to raise my kids to see the Police as a good force in society and to approach them for help if needed (how I was raised). But my heart is NOT in it. And this Govt gets increasingly authoritarian

Yanbu, OP. But in between people's decreasing engagement with current affairs (brexit yawn, multiple elections yawn, covid pandemic yawn yawn yawn) and increasing reliance on crappy internet sources for their news media, Britain (amongst others) is sliding into unmonitored authoritarianism like it's a badedas bath.

I have felt for some time that we are replaying 1930s Germany here but also felt that enough people had spotted it that we'd be OK. But then the pandemic happened and I just don't think anyone has the energy to fight anymore. It would help if the country hadn't returned the Tories with such a ridiculous majority in 2019, because tbh there's a limit to how much anyone can do now.

I don't know what the solution is. If I did, I would act.

Emily Pankhurst would be turning in her grave. How utterly sad your post makes me feel.

The thing is there was a Tory MP on Newsnight spouting the same crap as @skirk64 about this.

It was almost word for word. Same tone etc

Priti Patel like.

Lots of things are going by us unnoticed which will someday come back to bite us. British Gas for example will fire all their engineering staff at the end of the month with no redundancy unless they sign a contract that means working more hours, for less pay and impact customer safety as jobs will be timed and any time over the engineer will owe the company. This from a profitable company that wasn't affected by the crisis. It's a crazy way of avoiding redundancy pay and once British Gas get away with it so many more will do the same.

There are so many little things that are happening we just don't notice. I think we have been so isolated we don't care about others situation and we just turn our ears off to news as we have been so bombarded with it, we just listen to what and how things will impact us right now and then switch off. It's pretty scary really.

a little less in favour of mob rule

Not suggesting that a Bill like this is the answer, but many are tired of mobs attempting to rule (within the real and virtual spaces - i.e. social media)

We need a more balanced approach

There are so many little things that are happening we just don't notice. I think we have been so isolated we don't care about others’ situation

Agree with this. Social isolation is eroding the connections between people and our ability to see the bigger picture. Many people have also internalised the idea that the world outside our own four walls is bad/scary so we should block it out. We’re all in our own little silos.

The Free Speech brigade have been v quiet on this. Presumably they think it doesn't apply to them. Just the left. Fascists under the guise of libertarians .

YANBU, OP.
Democracy is really slipping away in this country and it's being largely ignored.

Another thing that is slipping in quietly is First Past the Post is going to be used to determine outcomes of London (and other city) mayoral elections. www.standard.co.uk/news/mayor/london-mayor-election-first-past-the-post-system-b924534.html
FPTP is a terrible system. Extending it to mayoral elections is completely unacceptable. There needs to be a fuss about this, too.

@skirk64

YABU. One, because there are several threads about this already, two, because people have the right not to care, and most importantly, all this does is protect innocent people from having their lives disrupted.

People will still be allowed to protest! They will just have to do it in a way that doesn't intimidate or otherwise inconvenience people who are not protesting and are just trying to go about their business. There's nothing wrong with that idea.

If it makes a protestor think twice before supergluing themselves to a train, good. If it makes organisers think through their plans more carefully to ensure they get their message across peacefully and safely, great. If it gives authorities the power to lock up people who feel their right to cause trouble and smash property outweighs the rights of others to feel safe, fantastic.

Frankly, if you can't persuade people with calm discussion then perhaps your argument is not as strong as you think it is.

All this bill does is tip the scales slightly, to make them a little less in favour of mob rule.

The very sinister element of the bill is that Priti Patel gets to decide which protests are 'annoying' and which are not.

That is not democracy.

The police always had the powers to crack down on disruptive protests, which is why there were 600 arrests amongst the Extinction Rebellion protests, which were non-violent and which did not cause criminal damage.

The claim that all the bill does is tip the scales slightly is one of the most myopic claims I've ever seen.

I'm sick of those loudmouths thinking they speak for everyone. They don't.

The Free Speech brigade have been v quiet on this. Presumably they think it doesn't apply to them. Just the left. Fascists under the guise of libertarians

Because they know that ‘their’ protests will be the ones that are deemed acceptable and not at all annoying by our dear Home Secretary.

I'm sick of those loudmouths thinking they speak for everyone. They don't.

Protestors or the Tories rolling back democracy?

Ditto all the mandatory CV19 laws which do not even let us leave the house or marry - in various forms in force since March 2020. I have been against them all but most of the UK has been utterly behind them as they sleep walk into a police state.

@Xenia

Ditto all the mandatory CV19 laws which do not even let us leave the house or marry - in various forms in force since March 2020. I have been against them all but most of the UK has been utterly behind them as they sleep walk into a police state.

100% Glad there's others out there

Interesting just-published update on this debate, bearing the Clapham Common vigils in mind. Seems to be saying that the Home Secretary instructed that vigils at the weekend should be prevented – but then u-turned on supporting police once it went wrong and she saw how it looked.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/19/priti-patel-wanted-police-stop-people-gathering-sarah-everard-vigil