The Government thinks I am an extremist

[cakeorwine]

I am a member of Republic.
Republic are a pressure group that wants to see an end to the Monarchy.
The Monarchy is an institution in the UK.
I will try ti undermine it.

That makes me an extremist.

Revealed: plan to brand anyone ‘undermining’ UK as extremist | UK security and counter-terrorism | The Guardian

Government officials have drawn up deeply controversial proposals to broaden the definition of extremism to include anyone who “undermines” the country’s institutions and its values, according to documents seen by the Observer.

What a mess the Conservatives have made of what was once a sensible and wealthy country. Every right thinking person should be repelled at their failures and see this for what it is, a paper thin attempt to cover up the fact that policing and the criminal justice system is in its knees because of their total mismanagement of it.

So agree with this.

I am quite obviously an extremist being a member of Republic too. And anyone saying that their members went to disrupt the Coronation are totally wrong. They spent months liaising with the Met as to how many would attend, what area would be allocated to them to peacefully protest so that no one's enjoyment of the Coronation would be disrupted. They were then double crossed and arrested and kept in a cell all day. Along with arresting them, they also managed to arrest Westminster Council's Women's Safety Team who hand out rape alarms to women.

The Police behaved appallingly, so much so that 3 Senior Officers actually went to Graham Smith's house (he is CEO of Republic) to apologise.
So please do not talk of Republic spoiling anyone's Coronation. That is untrue.

Extremisim? God help us if our right to protest is eroded like this Government is aiming to do.

From the article, I think these two parts summarise the change that the govt is considering:

...2011 Prevent strategy defined extremism as the “active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs”

and

The documents state: “Extremism is the promotion or advancement of any ideology which aims to overturn or undermine the UK’s system of parliamentary democracy, its institutions and values.”

These parts don't say anything about what objectives might make something extremist (disbanding the monarchy/changing the UK's state religion etc). Maybe objectives are covered elsewhere in the documents.

Instead it broadens what behaviour might* count, from "active opposition" (eg blocking Charles from getting to his coronation) to "promotion or advancement"* (writing to your MP/marching/liking it on X).

I'm not surprised there are people objecting.

Fundamental British values indeed. A red flag in terms of the relationship between a citizen and their government I never saw more clearly. Vote them out.

Mate

Tbf as much as I admire them the suffragettes were definitely (and proudly!) extremists, and they did plenty of actual law breaking rather than just waving placards about.

Eh? I am utterly unable to comprehend what this post is about/for.

What is the solution though to recruiting the right kind of police officers so some people are allowed to go express themselves publicly? When people with options don’t want to be police officers anymore? Because it is far easier and safer to work from home in a flexi job and get paid better?
A lot of these public facing roles are in a recruitment crisis - there is the real truth. Because entitled Joe Bloggs in the public believes it is all the evil Tories fault and he or she is entitled to the best by birth. And the Government of whatever colour owes him or her big time.
I do hope things will get better again under Labour but pre 2008 the U.K. was booming not least because Blair and Co encouraged the City of London to thrive. That gravy train has sailed? Where is all this extra tax going to come from and more importantly who is going to fill the important jobs? What incentives will be offered?

We need to challenge the definition - surely extremism is based on lengths gone to - eg terrorism and threat to life/physical safety and damage to property on a mass scale not having an opinion and lobbying or publicising an opinion

I think that there are already laws covering people who want to use terrorist tactics to create change.

The current definition used by the Prevent strategy is interesting

NYSCP (safeguardingchildren.co.uk)

Extremism is vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. We also include in our definition of extremism calls for the death of members of our armed forces, whether in this country or overseas.
Radicalisation refers to the process by which a person comes to support terrorism and forms of extremism leading to terrorism.
A radicaliser is an individual who encourages others to develop or adopt beliefs and views supportive of terrorism and forms of extremism leading to terrorism.

And

If you have a concern that a person may be at risk of radicalisation or engaged in extremist behaviour, you should follow your organisations safeguarding procedures and share your concerns, including discussing with the Safeguarding Lead for your organisation.

So if someone is a Republican, should this be shared with someone?

That's really interesting, thank you. I agree with you about better ways of learning, I live in a country where formal school doesn't begin till later and it strikes me as a much better option. Our children have more opportunities for learning through play and don't have to sit at desks at 4 years old in full uniform trying to understand digraphs.
I'm from the UK originally and I think if I was raising my children there I'd look at the best ways of keeping them out of that formal setting for as long as possible!

@TheQuestToStopPigeonWoppie
Yes promotion and advancement is a bit vague and ooen to misuse.

Tere are legitimate political psrties promoting or advancing things that would overturn the uks system of parliamentary democracy. The SNO and Plaid dont want a uk at all. The liberals were always pro getting rid of first past the post and changing house of lords (although they might not anymore i havent kept up)

Most adults are doing jobs that they don't really enjoy, because they never got the chance to really explore their interests and develop the skills that might have better served them.

I'm intrigued by this point, @Fionaville . Do you think there are enough enjoyable jobs to go around? There are lots of jobs that few people would enjoy, but if nobody did them we would have a serious problem.

I agree with you that young children shouldn't be sitting still at desks listening to the teacher all day, but I really don't think most primary schools are like that any more.

I think 'enjoyable' is completely subjective. For instance one of the older home ed boys I know, isn't academic at all. But through the freedom of really getting to know himself and what he likes and doesn't like, has decided that he would really like to be a bin man.

There will always be jobs that are considered mundane and there will always be people to fill them. At the very least young people should know if they'd prefer to work indoors or outdoors. If they would like to be customer facing or work alone. What time of day are they at their most productive.
If we could acknowledge and develop these differences, then there is a chance of happiness.

However looking at how the world is changing with the fast development of A.I, a lot of jobs won't be there in 10 or 20 years. So we have an opportunity, to really look at what skill sets will be needed and develop them. Being a creative thinker is increasingly important to succeed.

I just want my kids to have the freedom to develop their strengths and to really pursue their own interests. Most state high schools (certainly the ones local to me) primary role is to prepare kids for the local labour market. I don't want that for mine.

I think primary schools do better than high schools, but they are still way off. Pre schoolers naturally explore the world around them. They are natural scientists, mathematicians and philosopher's. As the years go on children have less and less time for exploration. They are bombarded with facts that they have to learn, in a certain order. It's really not necessary. Lots of home ed kids are very academic. They go on to university and succeed in their chosen field. There are also the kids who come to it after attending school and suffering trauma, but again, that's another thread.

It's uncomfortable reading for anybody with kids in school, so I don't expect the majority to agree. That's OK, I'm not trying to convince anybody. What I would like to see instead of parents or teachers arguing for arguments sake, is for them to recognise that this is a problem with the education system in the UK and to speak out to improve it. There is a reason I know of so many ex teachers now home educating their own children.

This is exactly right.
Farage has been refused banking.
Many muslim groups have suffered this too.
Laurence Fox can’t get a mortgage me has been told it would be easier to get a mortgage for a drug dealer.
Canadian protesters have had their bank accounts frozen.

This is all very bad. People shouldn’t sit back and say it’s nothing like the Stasi. The word is “yet”. Boiling the frog slowly.

Well, Farage hasn't exactly been refused banking, has he? NatWest offered him a standard bank account instead of the Coutts one.

And the reason Laurence Fox can't get a mortgage is because he doesn't have a job, having managed to be sacked by GBeebies.

I'm far more worried about the erosion of the right to peaceful protest and freedom of speech.

That was a debt bubble.
And the problem hasn’t gone away.
In 2008, they printed to kick the can down the road.
Tories haven’t fixed it.
But why would they when most chattering people hate Thatcher for fixing the mess of the 1970s, preventing us from becoming Argentina or Italy.

It wasn’t a debt bubble.

Exactly. You just demonstrated that they responded to the debt bubble with more debt. Don’t you recall securitisations? The Big Short? Don’t you recall QE at the time after the market began to fall in 08?

This happens in the early stages of hyperinflation. The populace demands more printing ….

De pffefel lied in parliament didn't he? Is that treason now then?

Tories gonna Tory.

You have a right to protest, nothing wrong in protests. It becomes a problem when people think their opinions are the correct and refuse to accept differing views.
Live and let live

I completely agree: it's a huge problem when this (any) government think that only their opinions are correct and refuse to accept differing views.

Social credit is just around the corner and I don't think most people have a clue just how far-reaching it will be. It's so old-fashioned to only focus on crime, when you can just label people as 'baddies' - i.e. 'thought criminals' - based on any opinions or beliefs they hold that don't follow the exact party line. If you're not a fan of sleeping at night, look how it's currently playing out in China.

Charles is King by the consent of the people. The majority of people are pro-monarchy. If that dramatically changed and 95% of people were republicans and only 5% wanted a monarchy then it would be right and proper to change, and I am sure Charles himself would agree with that.

Can you provide a link to the last official nationwide survey they carried out that established this? I'm hardly young myself and I don't personally recall ever being asked, but my memory might just be failing me.

Or are you just following the government line here - that almost everybody is pro-monarchy (except for the dangerous extremists) and we just know this for a fact, so there's no need to go to the trouble of ever asking hoi polloi?

All Hail president Blair

Can you expand on that?

Compared with now?

Your All Hail sounds like the shit they spouted in WW2.

People are unbelievably stupid now....

Hope the Tories will fix it all..... Yep loll

Sad.

It might be a long time since Blair was PM, but he's still very active behind the scenes - and highly influential on the people who are really in power.

Personally, I wouldn't even trust the integrity of the mail bags he should currently be stitching or the safety of the rocks that he should be breaking.

At the very least, even if we somehow forgave him for all of that, ignored him and and put him out to pasture for the foreseeable from now on, you would only expect a dangerously extremist establishment to have actually gone to the effort to make the decision to have given this man a knighthood/not to have sought to repeal it since. I'm sure Kim would wholeheartedly approve.

It might be a long time since Blair was PM, but he's still very active behind the scenes - and highly influential on the people who are really in power.

Ah, so it turns out Blair is Nadine Dorries Dr No?

How is "undermine" defined?

How is an Institution defined?
I could argue the BBC is an Institution. So people who undermine it could be defined as an extremist under this rule.

Is the Military an institution? So saying negative things, criticising its performance, could be described as extremism?

Worse than that. It’s anything the Govt of the day decides.