Republicans are getting arrested

[carmenitapink]

I find it ridiculous that the media mocks North Korea for forcing its citizens to mourn their leaders death, yet we are being made to do the same.

To top it off, there have been numerous arrests of people protesting the monarchy - which is perfectly within their right to do so, especially if you believe in democracy and only having elected leaders.

amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/12/republican-britain-why-are-people-getting-arrested

I liked and respected the Queen, but don't like the rest of the royal family and find the idea that they have the "divine" right to rule frankly ridiculous in this day and age. What is Britain becoming when people don't have the free speech to protest about it?!

Nice to see supporters exemplifying the gentle spirit of the queen they claim to be honouring in their mourning.

"Not My King" is obscene?

The cuntry is fucked....

One protestor had a blank sign and was told if they wrote anything considered offensive on it, they could be arrested.

I wonder if writing "The Met do a great job and definitely aren't racist" would get them arrested - a significant minority in central London might deem that offensive.

The “obscene signs” was referring to the woman arrested for the “Fuck Imperialism. Abolish Monarchy” sign. She is, to date, the only person actually arrested. All the other protesters were simply escorted away and released without charge.

There's a very interesting comment from a tabloid sports writer in his respect, which I think is worth quoting It's about football fans booing at minute's silence, but he goes on to make a wider point about when making your point is appropriate and when it's not

At the Theatre Royal, Bath, on Friday, during the minute's silence it was possible to observe four people in the stalls who remained seated.

One of them was also the loudest and most demonstrative audience member when the production concluded, so maybe she just liked being noticed. The point is, it didn't reflect on the theatre that a handful did not stand. It's a free country and they weren't disruptive.

There are times, though, when if you can't say anything nice, best not say anything at all, and one of those times is now.

It is why there has been such a backlash against the likes of Trevor Sinclair and Jedward. Not because there can never be discussions about colonialism or abolition - both are valid topics, whatever your view - but because when the much-loved Queen has just died, people are not in the mood for a poorly-considered hot take on Twitter.

It is possible to be a republican and respect duty, responsibility and service, or to respect the feelings of others, or that a family, no matter their status, has just lost its matriarch. That is what many Labour MPs who are not monarchists have been doing.

Or tl:dr - it's about that famour phrase - reading the room. Which it appears a lot of people find quite difficult ATM. This is why countries like NZ and Australia who have flirted with the idea of becoming republics are saying 'now's not the time to discuss this.' It's recognising that while you might not like or respect the institution, it's also about a family publicly going through a harrowing personal time and the polite thing to do might be to zip it for a bit because right now it isn't about you.

Agree!

She protested because she wanted to protest. You already have the answer - she wanted to protest.

Of course I understand people are different - that is why I accept that even if thousands and thousands want to do one thing, one person might want to protest.

I'm a liberal, I believe in freedom, I don't have the right to know why everyone does as they do, they have the right to do as they please up to the line - and IMO the woman with the 'Not my King' poster was not over the line.

you comparison to North Korea is extremely insulting to the people there

Why? You do know that if they don't clap the right way, if they frown, if they do not cheer at the correct time, they are arrested? Kim Jong Un's uncle was killed for not clapping hard enough FFS. When Kim Jong IL died, koreans were not allowed to smile or laugh for 11 days. They could not celebrate their birthdays, and if anyone died in that 11 day period, they were not allowed to cry. He died in 2011 and his barbaric son has decided that this will happen every year for 11 days.
Do not tell me I am insulting to 'the people there' by highlighting what sort of lives they have to live.
I have plenty more I could say about that regime, far worse, as I have read books and watched many hours of footage on it to try and educate myself, but I will refrain for now for fear of derailing the thread

All these “It’s not the right time” posts - the same sentiment is given after school shootings in the US to shut people up about change.

Now is EXACTLY the right time! There’s a political change happening that you don’t agree with? You should have the right to say so. Every media outlet and organisation saying you’re heartbroken about the monarch dying when you’re not? Why can’t I say so?!

Yep.

"Thoughts and prayers" has become a joke. That is what is said after every mass shooting. And "now is not the time to discuss this".

The 'not the right time' is because emotions for many are still very near the surface and sensible discourse isn't going to be easy. Let's face it, political debate is polarised at the best of times and this isn't one of those for starting a debate about the monarchy.

The US shootings are caused by lax gun laws.

The Queen has died naturally. She did not die because someone wanted to keep a gun. Even if we had no monarchy after today people would still want to remember an amazing woman that had done that level of public service for 70 years - the full glare of the media regardless

I am thinking about other great women such as Mother Teresa. We should have more great women to celebrate not less.

@stillsleeptraining

I'm American and I agree with this completely. It's a surprisingly effective tool to stifle dissent and discussion until the narrative can be moved along.

I'm also struggling to understand how someone holding a sign is stopping or interfering with others mourning/paying their respects however they wish?

So you think that in the US, gun control protesters should be allowed to heckle and wave signs during the dead childrens’ funeral processions or outside the church where their little coffins are being held until the funeral, or even graveside at a funeral all in front their grieving family and friends? Really?

That people saying funeral processions and events as well as the funeral itself are not the time or place to protest, are just saying that to shut up people about change….how can this be so when we’ve all pointed out that protesters can go anywhere else and protest, and they can protest at any other time.

Saying you can’t protest here and now because it’s all funeral related, isn’t shutting up anyone, it’s just saying we have to have some restrictions on where and when it is appropriate to protest out of empathy for the grieving family and respect for the dead.

@Roussette that makes sense. I share your concerns about the Bill and the heavy handed police approach to protest. Although in some of the cases, I think they probably did remove them to protect them. After the independence referendum, unionists and Royalists in Scotland showed they have a faction that is intolerant and violent.
As for not shaking M's hand, I think that is a justifiable form of protest. Is it rude? Yy but protest is often rude. It's about challenging. It's always going to offend someone. Arguably the public outside the palace had no expectation they would see or interact with the Sussexes or any other members of the RF. It's feasible many people acknowledging the Queen, don't hold any younger members of her family in the same regard.

I am pretty gun protesters would be shot themselves if they started heckling during a child's funeral...

By all means once the Queen is buried, you can start your case and protests for change if you want. It will start and finish with a referendum and the nation will decide - and you can express your view to your hearts content. We would need to be satisfied there was enough dissent to have another ref.

I don't understand why if America is a great democracy why the gun laws have never been challenged by a referendum?

Such rank hypocrisy.

Right now Mumsnet has an odious thread defending hate speech and saying that hate speech laws and even online policies against hate speech should not exist, because it's "censorship" and against "freedom of speech", and defending people's right to call black people n***rs or use antisemitic slurs, homophobic slurs, including nebulous grounds that "if I was black I'd want to know what racists say" - like black people are naïve and ignorant of what racists say about them.

Two separate threads attacking the concept of trigger warnings and saying that students shouldn't be told ahead of time if a book has depiction of say rape, despite multiple posters who are rape survivors saying they need content warnings, because it's "censorship" and pandering to woke special snowflakes.
A thread saying that two members of a terrorist organisation who were convicted and are currently serving time in Broadmoor for using social media to try to radicalise others and spread hate was "just someone's idea of fun" and that royals should not have their security investigate death threats made online because "social media isn't real." Quelle surprise the royal in question was Meghan and the terrorist organisation was a white supremacist one.

If members of an Islamic terror group went to jail how many MN threads do you think there'd be defending them and saying they shouldn't have been investigated because it's "just someone's idea of fun"? If there were death threats about Kate, would posters be saying "the palace should just ignore it, Twitter isn't real."

The same thread later descended into froth and hysteria about Kate suffering "abuse" on Twitter but the only tweets they could find as evidence of "abuse" were ones politely saying "The Cambridges should hire more black staff" or "it's hypocritical for William to speak out against racism against footballers when he didn't speak out about the racism against Meghan." On Mumsnet, death threats and racial slurs against a black person are fine and protected by free speech, but "I find William's behaviour hypocritical" is outrageous abuse.
Threads that critique Kate's clothes and threads negative towards Andrew are deleted not because they break talk guidelines, but because so many outraged royalists mass-flood MNHQ with fake reports and abuse of the report button. That censorship is fine and dandy!

Only on Mumsnet is it an outrage and censorship and violation of free speech not to be allowed to call black posters "ns" yet arresting people for quietly making one comment to a friend that they're not a fan of Andrew is totally fine and dandy.

There are people on here who wish we live in Nazi Germany, I swear.

So you're talking about people protesting because they want more guns, looser restrictions, more dead children? They wouldn't need to, doesn't make any sense, because that's already the status quo.

I think it's also a valueless comparison because there has to be some distinction between someone who has lived their life as a public figure (taxpayer funded, to some extent anyway), wielding great power and influence, whose funeral and the events surrounding it are taxpayer funded, and a private citizen.

Additionally, to point out again, this was not the funeral. The actual funeral will be in Westminster Abbey and the uninvited commoners will be kept safely outside the doors, despite a lot of us having helped foot the bill.

What, you mean like describing any comment about any divisive public figure as 'hate' and 'racist' if it's anything less than slavishly admiring? couldn't agree more.

Because when you allow protests at funerals, you get shit like this happening…as happened in the US when anti-war protesters started showing up at the funerals of military service members killed in war:
“FAG SOLDIER IN HELL”
”THANK GOD FOR IEDS”
“THANK GOD FOR DEAD SOLDIERS”

Can you see how if this were your mum/dad or son/daughters funeral that seeing such signs being waved by angry “peace protesters” would hinder your ability to grieve?

You can’t trust people to have common sense. They will be rude and offensive.

Because of the conditions on changing the constitution. It is technically possible but the threshold is high.

This is one of the clasics examples used in sixth form debating clubs about the relative merits of a written vs an unwritten constitution.

If the posters on this thread wanted to protest they could but unless they're all sock puppets (and that's for MNHQ to decide) then purely by numbers, they haven't protested.

They're the type of social media poster that doesn't care about free speech until they think it affects them. The sort that think 'protesting' and 'activism' is being an arse on the internet. The ones that takes their knowledge of the monarchy, history and politics from Netflix and then wonder why people who have read Marx, Engels or John Stuart Mill are bemused at their lack of logic and reasoning. They thrive on conflict. They define their space by 'not being' rather than 'being'.

And they are furious about any event that implies any kind of collective action/mourning/respect that bridges politics, races, class or generations.

But luckily, since they limit their actions to angry typing, they don't actually affect RL.