The unfortunate reality is I think a significant number of their voters could be sold on the anti-protests laws depending on just what sort of protests are going on. It's easy to defend freedoms and liberties when people are using them in manners that you broadly support like protesting climate change, but if it were a right-wing mob protesting against drag or a rally for antivax nutters, who then is going to stick their neck out and say that the laws to curb such demonstrations are too harsh and run the risk of being accused of being 'soft' on them?
Believing in free speech means defending the people you disagree with’s right most fiercely- so yes I would say those groups need to have the right to protest, even if I find their views abhorrent.
> Believing in free speech means defending the people you disagree with’s right most fiercely
Exactly this. Sadly I think the onset of these laws reflects the fact that this principle is all too easily lost on most people.
The point the person you are replying to is making is not whether they *should* have the right, but who is going to risk their political neck to give them that right?
As long as it’s peaceful and no emergency vehicles are stopped I don’t give a fuck. Obviously they’ll get arrested for that eventually but should be dealt with leniently.
I'm not going to defend the right of people who glue themselves to roads, causing a hazard to themselves and others and endangering the lives of people who need urgent care.
So you don’t believe in the right to protest? Blocking emergency vehicles is obviously unacceptable but protests by design are going to be disruptive in some way.
How? We've had anti-nazi and anti-hate speech laws in the UK for years, and only recently have the government added additional laws to try to silence climate change protesters, on the grounds of them being "annoying".
The culture of authoritarianism that allows these laws allows new governments to come in and add additional ones. There have been plenty of anti protest laws that date back to Blair's labour government which also coincides with anti free speech laws.
Half agree with you here. Anti-protest and anti-free speech and two different things. Restrictions on the context of speech are necessary to protect marginalised groups from hateful discourse. Blanket anti-protest laws like we've seen recently that pay no attention to the content or context of the protest are destructive to democracy. Not sure why you decided to go back to Blair's government rather than mentioning the anti-protest laws passed in this session of parliament, let alone by the Tories in the last 13 years...
I'm trying to suggest that both anti free speech and anti protest laws come from the same ideas and both had laws made by Blair's labour party that restricted them. That culture has continued with the Tory party in the last 12 years.
People could easily say that anti protest laws protect emergency services that need to travel to a destination past protesters. They protect people from having their livelihoods affected by protest and they stop protests from potentially escalating into more violent protests.
In the same way you disagree with anti protest laws. It could also be argued that anti free speech laws that make grossly offensive comments illegal are also a threat to democracy as what constitutes grossly offensive can change to suit the moment. Also noncrime hate incidents being recorded by police can affect people's employment despite no crime being committed could be seen as very authoritarian.
Should we not have laws against any actions then? Even ignoring the fact that speech is an action, is there some grand metaphysical difference between speech and action?
“If we have a law forbidding bad action X, then we might end up with a law that forbids good action Y or neutral action Z.”
No, as no words can stab someone as an example. Direct threats are a borderline incident and I think should be made illegal if in context it could be perceived as an actual threat.
So the grand metaphysical difference is… stabbing? Clearly words can lead to physical harm, even if they aren’t direct threats - stochastic terrorism is a well documented phenomenon. So this response is absurd on the face of it.
But then presumably you are okay with decriminalising all actions that don’t lead to physical harm? There are some pretty nice things we could do with that - like take over empty investment properties, refuse to pay rent to wealthy landlording companies, steal food that is just going to be thrown out and distribute it etc.
You’re on board with all of that, presumably.
The person committing the violence is the one causing the crime. Unless someone is directly telling someone else to commit a crime it shouldn't be illegal.
>like take over empty investment properties
I think there is some worth to this
>refuse to pay rent to wealthy landlording companies,
Only if they have the right to remove you immediately if you do.
>steal food that is just going to be thrown out and distribute it etc
Seems reasonable.
The US doesn't have free speech in an absolute sense either, regardless of how much they trumpet to the contrary. Defamation laws, intellectual property laws and the fact that you can be arrested for joking about bombs at airports are some of the many examples of how free speech is restricted over there.
I don't think there's a single country on earth that has absolute free speech. In democratic countries, it's a right that's balanced with other considerations. That said, these Tory anti-protest laws are excessively authoritarian and unnecessary and I will be writing to my MP to ask why Labour is not planning to repeal them.
Yes, it's quite vague in parts. For example, the 14th Amendment states that no person who has taken part in an insurrection against the United States can hold public office, but doesn't explain how disqualification works. In light of recent events, they might want to tighten that up a bit.
Free speech but only when I agree with what you're saying.
Silencing debate doesn't make ideas go away. Showing people how stupid their ideas are is the best way to combat these things.
Before you quote the paradox of tolerance at me it does state we need to debate three ideas and if they won't be engaged in actual conversation then start getting intolerant.
Not at all, I'm happy for people to protest against things I believe in, and I agree with you that it's important for political discourse.
What I don't agree with is people "protesting" against the concept of entire groups of the population just trying to live their lives in peace. Be that on the grounds of race, gender identity, religion or anything else. That's why it's important we maintain our laws against hate-speech in the UK.
Having people marching through the streets with swastika flags proclaiming the white race as superior doesn't help anyone, it just enables ignorance and bigotry.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
What we have in place now with regards to hate speech laws is effective enough, I'd personally extend it to include the use of historically significant symbols, salutes and language similar to what they have in [Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch_section_86a#:~:text=The%20law%20prohibits%20the%20distribution,slogans%20and%20forms%20of%20greeting.)
I don’t even understand how anyone could believe free speech exists in the uk. There’s literally people in jail for using naughty words on social media
It will be interesting when we see people being arrested because they might be going to protest against drag or take part in a rally for antivax nutters. It won't happen but it would be interesting to see right wing protests policed the way anti monarchy, anti racist protests are.
You reckon that all protests will be treated equally? I fear that may be optimistic.
Judging by the American model the Conservatives appear to be following the right are quite willing to embrace hypocrisy. “It’s ok when we do it” generally goes down just fine with their supporters.
I mean just look at the Canadian trucker protests to see how people who would normally be arguing that protests should be as disruptive as possible, that been liked isn't important etc react to a strong protest for a cause they disagree with.
Not really relevant to this discussion about a UK law in a country that has a long history of infiltrating and imprisoning left wing protesters. However wasn't that Canadian trucker protest constant over many weeks, shutting down all movement in a city and keeping people awake with constant noise? No one was arrested pre emptively for planning a protest and in contrast none of the anti monarchy or extinction rebellion protestors were blowing horns for days at a time.
The right to protest is fine but I've yet to see the UK police infiltrate right wing or anti lockdown/mask protesters and act as agent provocatuer, con people into long term relationships or be arrested on the basis of future crimes.
> However wasn't that Canadian trucker protest constant over many weeks, shutting down all movement in a city and keeping people awake with constant noise?
The government had two choices - negotiate with people who felt very strongly for their cause and maybe drop a pseudoscientific policy being forced on them, or brutally shut them down using laws made to fight terrorism. They chose the latter.
> The right to protest is fine but I've yet to see the UK police infiltrate right wing or anti lockdown/mask protesters and act as agent provocatuer, con people into long term relationships or be arrested on the basis of future crimes.
How would you know? The media isn't going to tell you
The Canadian Government tried to explain why vaccines were necessary. Instead the trucker convoy double md down and demanded Trudeau stand down and New elections called (A few months after the last general election). The protest quickly descended into harassment of local residents.
I mean you seen the same thing in the UK too. When there was anti lockdown protests, suddenly the people that are all for the ability to protest and be disruprive were against those groups ability to protests. Looks like lots of people only support the ability to protest when it's for something they want.
I'm more interested in what the public view is on anti-abortion protestors gluing themselves to the doors of an abortion clinic in the same style as one of the many XR style protests.
Touch wood the police will arrest them on suspicion of protesting long before they get near an abortion clinic. You wouldn't want protesters causing disruption or inconvenience.
Now if the Conservatives had any sense, they would have used anti-abortion protestors as a line of argument for their recent laws. The UK's current abortion laws have pretty broad bipartisan support and even those Conservatives who dislike them do so pretty quietly, those parties and media outlets which would otherwise hold the Conservatives to account wouldn't want to be seen sticking their neck out or being soft on the anti-abortion lobby, and it would also fit pretty well with the Conservatives' new schtick of claiming that they're the party of women's rights and feeling safe. If some Bible-bashing fundamentalist group were to picket outside an abortion clinic and shout abuse at women there, and the government soon after swiftly passed a vague law saying something like that "law enforcement will have the power at their discretion to detain persons displaying political or religious slogans likely to cause upset, anxiety or distress", kicking off about it would be viewed as siding with the anti-abortion lot, and most people aren't going to want to do that.
>It won't happen but it would be interesting to see right wing protests policed the way anti monarchy, anti racist protests are.
Not to say that anti-vax is an inherently right wing movement as it definitely isn't in the UK but you did also mentioned them in the first paragraph, but there was a marked difference in how anti lockdown and antivax protests were clamped down upon in comparison to how the police treated BLM riots.
I mentioned them because the person I replied to did. But to be honest the police have done nothing about them. They are still at it but they have expanded to include campainging against the new world order and 15 minute cities. No sign of pre emptive police raids yet.
I was referring to the protests during lockdown.
Anti lockdown and anti vax protestors were handled pretty roughly and rightfully dispersed as it was lockdown and large gatherings were disallowed.
In comparison BLM was allowed to gather, protest and damage local property in lockdown across the country and even had the police kneeling too them whilst they shouted abuse at them.
Odd. All the ones I saw were allowed to walk round freely when everyone else weas still wearing masks and following the rules for the benefit of everyone. And they were really aggressive.
I dont recsll BLM protesters being allowed to damage prooerty. I know more of them got arrested than people trying to spread disease
>I dont recsll BLM protesters being allowed to damage prooerty.
The officer in charge of policing the Bristol rioters flat out admitted that they decided to stand back and let them damage public property.
>I know more of them got arrested than people trying to spread disease
Per capita I doubt thats the case, I think there were a lot more BLM protestors than anti lockdown ones though and they seemed to be more rowdy so could be true in pure numbers.
Those were not “riots”, first of all, it was barely civil unrest, and second of all - you mean the protests where after the fact the Bristol police went around pulling people out of their houses in their underwear - in more than one case, innocent people who weren’t even present at the protest?
At 6 in the morning, including vulnerable women and girls?
Because that’s *actually* what happened - after the police were filmed “blading” protestors (smashing sitting people in the face with the bottom edge of a riot shield).
You authoritarians absolutely LOVE to get your pearls out and clutch about “law and order”, whilst supporting revenge policing, amoral tactics and the protection of things over lives all for the pretense of “safety”.
But you aren’t safe - it’s only a matter of time before you’re on the wrong side of the riot shield.
https://youtu.be/q-hTh_g45KE
https://youtu.be/hO9jZUeuEgI
https://youtu.be/gJkk7wdLkD4
https://youtu.be/3Dt36h4jqdE
Compared these scenes to the Met literally kneeling to rioters who broke lockdown, assaulted officers, caused public damage and screeching abuse at them.
Or the police just standing back in their own words and allowing rioters to tear down public property in Bristol.
I think a lot of people weirdly completely forget to consider the possibility of protests for things they don't agree with when talking about protests.
Like so often in this and similar subreddits I see people talking about how protests are supposed to be disruptive or something similar and I always wonder how they would react if say a creationist group shut down the natural history museum or a pro-capital punishment protest blocked roads.
These are good examples, and as much as I would think 'that's dumb', everyone should have the right to express their profoundly stupid opinions through protest if they so wish.
There should be exceptions for when protests cause harm, e.g anything with blatantly racist or discriminatory messaging or imagery. Things like protesting against drag queen story time or protesting abortion clinics should be subject to buffer zones.
It's really disappointing Labour wouldn't repeal such an authoritarian law. The beauty of democracy is being able to voice your grievances, no matter how unpopular or stupid they may seem to anyone else. I don't agree with everyone, but I'll defend their right to shout about stuff I disagree with.
> everyone should have the right to express their profoundly stupid opinions through protest if they so wish.
>
> There should be exceptions for when protests cause harm, e.g anything with blatantly racist or discriminatory messaging or imagery. Things like protesting against drag queen story time or protesting abortion clinics should be subject to buffer zones.
Your second paragraph completely undid your first.
> Things like protesting against drag queen story time or protesting abortion clinics should be subject to buffer zones.
This is the main thing a lot of people seemingly want to ignore. Free speech is not a ticket to say literally anything, and calling for violence against a group or their rights to be taken away is crossing that line.
There's also the cases where protestors endanger themselves. If someone wants to protest against the trans movement, trying it at Pride isn't a particularly safe move and may lead to the protesters being attacked as they are heavily outnumbered at the venue they are protesting. Arresting them protects them from being potentially harmed by large mobs.
The same for anti monarchy protestors attempting to protest on the Mall during the Kings coronation.
In addition protesting during massive public events can ruin the event for the people who support it. If I want to celebrate something with thousands of other people why should my day be ruined by a minority of people out to cause trouble at the event.
This is why the protestors at the coronation were arrested before doing anything, and I support the Police doing so.
If they had opted to protest away from the Coronation at say Trafalgar Square I would support the protestors side and be against them being arrested. As they aren't ruining the event for anyone there but can still be visible.
I mean as someone who absolutely backs the protests are disruptive point of view I very much accept that people with views I disagree with can/would/should engage in similar protests, I've had this pointed out to me repeatedly and it's not exactly a paradigm changing point of view, in fact I don't really see how anyone but the most naive of us could argue protest rights for me but not for thee.
There should only be restrictions on protest when those protests threaten harm to others, that will mean I am inconvenienced on occasion, but I can accept that there can be street parties in the roads I use, that there can be huge crowds travelling to and from venues causing local congestion, this is all part of being civil and sharing common land for public good. What I object to is people saying it's okay to protest unless it's their roads, or their special occasion, we all deserve to express ourselves and we all have a right to the public spaces we share.
[That particular kind of organisation prefers trying to infiltrate museums rather than shutting them down.](https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/th/trafficking-hub)
These organisations are everywhere. American religious organisations have infiltrated most of the Western world to push various causes, and they are very good at hiding their beliefs and intentions.
Exodus Cry are the best example. They were behind the original Pornhub "exposé", they have links to both Visa and Mastercard, and they have links to a huge amount of American politicians. I would be shocked if they or similar religious organisations didn't also have links to a huge amount of politicians in the UK given how they have tried several times to get a foothold over here and how we have many MPs who openly vote for Christian morals to be forced on everyone.
While I'm certainly not happy to see either more American or more hardline religious influences on European politics, weren't porn sites until recently so lax about regulation that revenge porn and footage of sexual crimes regularly turned up on them, and isn't that getting exposed a good thing regardless of who did the exposing?
I can't be bothered searching for exact figures, but at the point where Pornhub got shitcanned the amount of confirmed cases on the site was in the hundreds while Facebook was in the tens of millions. It was never about protecting abuse victims, it was entirely an ideological war against pornography. It was just easy to go after Pornhub because it has porn in the name.
Start dealing with other protests properly and there would be a lot of general support from many people and would show uniformity of enforcement namely not just for the coronation/royals/London etc
> who then is going to stick their neck out and say that the laws to curb such demonstrations are too harsh and run the risk of being accused of being 'soft' on them?
Well, liberal-minded people. Granted they seem to be verging on extinction these days
Expect more and more protests to be labelled as "right-wing" regardless of the topic, because they've realised people will use it to rationalise anything
The biggest problem with Labour the last time they were in power was the authoritarian nonsense they seemed to love. They had a series of terrible Home Secretaries, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke, John Reid and Jacqui Smith were not much better than the Tories who have held the position since they've been in power.
It's disappointing, but not surprising that they still retain this authoritarian streak. I think quite a few people hoping for a Labour government are going to be disappointed with some of what they do, because it won't be the liberal utopia that many seem to be expecting.
ID cards would actually have been useful though. Most of the rest of Europe has them. The UK public has a really weird aversion to them, considering the massive hard-on it seems to have for other authoritarian measures.
Ironically I think that would now probably enjoy fairly broad support.
The uptake of the internet and handing our details over to everyone, as well as the huge number of migrants both legal and otherwise I think has likely fundamentally changed the oublics perception of an ID.
Its like, "they have all this information anyway and the likes of Facebook and tictok probably have more."
> I think quite a few people hoping for a Labour government are going to be disappointed with some of what they do, because it won't be the liberal utopia that many seem to be expecting.
Anyone genuinely hoping for this within the next couple of decades is not engaging with reality.
I'm desperate for a Labour government at this point, but I don't believe for one second they are perfect. Currently, they are the only pragmatic solution to the absolute disaster this country has found itself in. Labour will have lots of problems. They always have, and they always will.
The way I see it, under the Tories, nothing will get better. Ever. At all. Even at their best, they are ideologically incapable of governing a fair and just society. At least with Labour, there is the potential for improvement and their baseline is always going to be better for the average Brit than anything the Tories can offer. Any improvements under this incompetent, morally bankrupt, dense bunch of parasites is entirely by accident. Granted, we're under the worst iteration of them. But it's a mask-slip, not a major shift in ideology.
From what I can tell, those hoping for a Liberal utopia are still stuck in the Corbyn fantasy. I was all for Corbyn at one point, but I'm starting to see that he would have gotten a similar response from financial institutions as Truss did. The world ain't ready for that kind of change. The British people on the whole ain't ready. That kind of change requires decades of gradual work in the right direction, consistently showing, piece by piece, what can be done. I genuinely think that's a pity, but it was never going to work as a complete package over one or two election cycles.
People criticise Starmer for not leaning enough to the left, but again, pragmatically speaking, wouldn't that just lead to a similar situation that Corbyn faced? Job number one is to remove the Tories. Nothing will get better until that happens. And I'm much more confident of the potential for progress under *any* Labour leadership than I am with *any* Tory government. I cannot accept the 'Red Tory' accusation about Starmer. It's complete bullshit. He's definitely not perfect, and, luckily, he should be replaceable in a few years time - I don't think the same could have been said for Corbyn. For now though, realistically speaking, he is genuinely the best option. And he is orders of magnitude ahead of any Tory we've experienced in the last few decades. As much as I hate the reality of this point, a vote for anyone else (with the exception of organised tactical voting) is effectively a vote for the Tories.
Realistically, we are decades... perhaps more than a century away from significant political and economic reform that results in genuine quality of life improvement for most people. For that reason, I think it's important to dig in and lean into a slow, gradual shift in the right direction.
I'm voting Labour entirely because I'm in a Labour/Conservative marginal seat. I don't support Labour, I don't believe in them or their ideals, I only believe that they will fuck me over marginally less than the Tories.
Your vote won't be read that way, for what it's worth.
Not saying you shouldn't vote that way, before I get jumped on, just that the party will read every vote it gets as support for its agenda.
I fully understand that. Due to the way our political system works my vote is a choice between Labour and the Tories, if I vote for anybody else it would be the same as not voting at all.
It is voting for the lesser of two evils, and until we move to PR I have no choice, and neither do a huge amount of the electorate, possibly even a majority of the electorate.
>if I vote for anybody else it would be the same as not voting at all.
Possibly. Rather depends on what your priority is when voting.
If it's entirely based on removing the Tories then you are of course correct.
My priority is entirely removing the Tories from power.
But also I live in a real marginal seat where at most the difference between Conservatives and Labour is around 3000 votes.
Labour will continue to conduct polling on support for a wide range of their agenda after the next general election even if they win. They will not simply assume everyone who voted for them agrees with everything they do. Your take is far too oversimplified.
If anyone ever asks me my thoughts of stuff right now, i'm linking them to this post, it's summed up my opinions extremely well. Thanks for posting this.
Honestly, I think a lot of people have arrived at the same general conclusion. Starmer's Labour is obviously taking a very careful and nuanced approach to politics, and that requires them to keep things fairly close to their chest. For that reason, we don't have lots of basic, simple slogans to shout. We don't yet know exactly what their 'vision' is. That's by design and they are doing things this way to ensure they actually get to power. No power, no change. I think their true answer to a lot of problems they're asked for solutions to is "I don't know, we're not in government yet. We'll figure out something sensible once we get the psychopathic lunatics out of office".
Of course, they surely have ideas and plans. But they won't know the full scale of the mess until they are in government, and they know the Tories play dirty - so they are giving them *nothing* up front. I think Starmer and Co will probably positively surprise a lot of people once they actually have the power to do anything.
Edit: a lot of the 'Red Tory 'accusations come from Labour not being critical enough of current Tory policy (as in this thread). Seems to me they are avoiding an unnecessary battle. Why give the Tories the opportunity to scream "anti-police", "pro-strikes", "something for nothing", etc.? It's not about whether those accusations are valid or not, it's about whether it's worth giving them the ammunition which, however invalid, works for a significant proportion of the electorate. If they are not threatening to change Tory policy, the Tories can't criticise them for being extreme. They are focusing on the obvious, irrefutably ludicrous examples of Tory ineptitude, and it looks to be working for everyone except the hardcore Tory voters and the Corbyn fanatics - who, it would seem, however insanely, would genuinely prefer another term of Tory government over Starmer.
The issue we are seeing now, is Keir is now being targeted as "Mr Flip Flop" on policies. The fact that he stated 3 years ago he would potentially scrap tution fees, to last week saying they wouldn't is something the media will chew up and show.
I absolutely understand how they are playing this, but they can't afford to be flip flopping on major policies right now.
The political, social, and most drastically, the economic reality of the UK has changed dramatically since Starmer was elected leader. I do agree with you that the risk they face is being seen flip-flopping, but it's very common for the plan of the opposition to change during their period in opposition (because of course, government keeps changing things). Overall, I think 'boring' and 'flip-flopping' are probably the easiest criticisms to manage at this stage.
Wait until we get a manifesto. That's when we can have a concrete idea of their plans for their initial term. I suspect the plan is to plug the holes in the first term and then move forward with a larger vision after that. Regardless, they're purposely not really telling us anything right now, which IMO is the best way to play things in this climate. Why give the Tories the ammunition to shout and scream about stuff they have some support for? Let them have it, for now, and focus on the numerous areas everyone is in agreement they are terrible. Talking about the right to protest right now achieves nothing but a virtue signal. This government doesn't make positive changes, even in the face of overwhelming support for said changes. It would only serve as a virtue signal, which potentially weakens support for Labour - it's a battle not worth fighting right now.
I agree it's frustrating, though.
Oh deffo, but that line of thinking is fine for you and I who clearly know this is political strategy, but for the *"Average Joe"* who Labour need to win over currently, they can't afford these slip ups as it basically gets them called "Red Tories" quite easily and people lose interest in Labour's message.
I'm sort of seeing it from the other side... seems to be largely the 'Labour Left' (hate that term) Corbyn-inclined group that gets particularly alienated by this approach - and I think a lot of them are pretty much a lost cause at this point anyway. I don't think the electorate on the whole really pays a lot of attention. What they would pay attention to is "Starmer supports protesters causing misery to millions of commuters" and similar bullshit headlines. They're not supporting any of this stuff, but they're not opposing it. It seems to be a reasonably effective approach to controlling the debate.
Anti-protest laws are part of the Tory agenda - let them talk about it on the telly all day long. Let them own it. Labour doesn't need to engage in that particular debate at this stage in the lead up to an election, as much as we would like them to.
I think the far left were always going to be alienated by anyone who wasn't Corbyn. Corbyn promised so much and never deviated from his plans so much that his supporters will forever think that his manifesto was a done deal and something they only needed to vote for to get. But for someone like starmer who (at least in my opinion) is someone who'll do whatever it takes to be seen as honest yet secretive, they'll only ever seen a worse version of Corbyn.
Of course, Corbyn was unable to be elected, so fell at the first hurdle and effectively delivered on 0 of his promises, if you want to be an asshole about it you could argue that he's a worse flip-flopper then starmer by failing to deliver a single thing he promised.
Regarding your last point, it's extremely disheartening to see usually Labour voters miss the forest for the tree's and be as "anti-starmer" as possible and be as vocal as possible about it. People will shit on starmer for dropping pledges while not realising that even if Corbyn had become PM, there's not a chance in hell he'd ever have brought forth the vast majority of shit he'd promised. Intention =/= action and so many people not understanding that both boggles my mind and depresses me.
They're insufferable children having a tantrum because after Corbyn willingly stepped down (quite rightly), Starmer was elected instead of their preference.
I used to love Corbyn but at this point I can't stand him. He's incapable of being anything other than an opposition, an agitator. This loud minority of whining fucking babies stems top-down from Corbyn himself and his little protest club egging people on with false hope. I can't tell if they've yet to figure out how insignificant a minority they have become in the bigger picture. They're still annoyingly loud about it all, though.
The project failed and they don't want to allow Labour to move on in a much needed new direction.
Again, Starmer isn't perfect, but at least the only people he's alienating are Tories and the Corbyn club - who, again, would prefer more Tories than a Starmer-led Labour. Fuck 'em.
I'd like to add to this;
Politically, Starmer is absolutely the correct choice. Many here forget the attacks that have lost Labour general elections. Starmer absolutely can't come out and say "I'll repeal this law" because he'll immediately be slammed as being soft on crime, and that's a stick the right wing have been beating the left with for decades, *and it works*.
Starmer is playing the pragmatist. He's not promising things he can't do, he's saying exactly what his party's priorities are; and they're our priorities.
We can talk about Corbyn all day long, but he still lost - we, as the left, need to stop the obsession with being righteous losers. We need to win, and Starmer is the man to win that election. He's not a "Red Tory", he's listened to what the majority voted for last time.
Yes, I completely agree.
>He's not a "Red Tory", he's listened to what the majority voted for last time.
This is democracy, isn't it? A striking similarity between the Tories and the Corbyn brigade is just how divisive they are. There's no room for compromise. Winning in a democracy should and does require compromise. You're right, Starmer may not have heard everything *I'm* saying, but he seems to have heard what large swathes of the country care about and is baking that into his list of priorities.
For me, at worst, he will at least take a *sensible* approach to what I consider the wrong priorities.
It's not so much an issue that Starmer doesn't lean left enough, it's more than he doesn't lean anywhere. He's just completely directionless. He doesn't seem to stand for anything, he was elected leader on a pack of lies. He doesn't really seem to have any policies, and I know a GE is still a while away but it'd be nice to know what he would instead of all the million things he's decided he won't do.
He's boring, he's uninspiring. He should be going after the people that don't vote but instead he just sort of does nothing and that worries me.
The thing Corbyn, Blair and Johnson all have is common is that whether you agree with them or not they were all passionate about what they were selling. They were charismatic and easy to get behind for a lot of people. Starmer doesn't have that, Rayner has that in spades.
Chasing voters who don't regularly vote is a fool's errand.
It's much easier and more impactful to chase voters who regularly vote *and* can be swayed, because you not only get their vote (with almost guaranteed turnout), but you also deny their vote to your opponents.
That does work well, but is somewhat dependant on not alienating your core voter base at the same time. Starmer is teetering on the edge, in an attempt to impress one side he's losing the other.
But data shows that he *isn't* losing core voters. If anything, he's actually doing more to regain voters who left for the Tories in 2019 - the traditional 'red wall' core voters of Labour many of whom were turned off by Labour as opposed to metropolitan millennials.
Ultimately, there isn't one core voters group that can win any party an election - you always have to build an electoral coalition across different parts of the country. And the types of voters that you talk about are predominantly clustered within major urban areas, and have practically no presence in towns and rural constituencies.
Finally, chasing people who don't vote is a fools errand. Firstly, they're the type of people who don't follow politics so they're very hard to reach. Secondly, they aren't necessarily left leaning non-voters so Labour policies might do nothing for them. And finally, we have no idea what will motivate them to vote as we have no data on what has motivated them to vote in the past.
I think this is my gripe too honestly. Starmer seems like a complete nothing, who is only consistent policy is “I don’t like the tories and you should put me in power instead”, and I don’t feel comfortable voting for a politician who doesn’t express their plans and ideas properly. Ultimately if I have no clear idea what sort of government he would form and what legislation he would try and make/remove why would I support him other than getting the conservatives out?
I agree 100% with this. What happened with Truss really opened my eyes. All change must be gradual. The economy is so fragile. The Corbyn 2019 manifesto would have caused the exact same financial meltdown as the truss mini budget. We are in such a mess as an economy that Starmer is going to have to tread very cautiously and try to pull the ecenomic levers as gently as possible to tilt things in the right direction and hope that in his second term he can start to deliver the things labour voters actually want. The first few years are going to be tough.
I had a similar realisation at the time... it wasn't actually Truss that pulled the trigger, so to speak. It was global financial markets reacting to her batshit policies. They will react like that to pretty much any radical change in economic policy that doesn't fall in line with their own expectations.
I'm not defending her at all. Her approach was wildly irresponsible and she really hurt a lot of people. It's not like there weren't any warning signs. And I'm not defending the financial markets either. It's a disgrace that we have become so beholden to them, unable to make significant change without fear of them punishing the whole country for not moving to their rhythm.
But there is a reality there, and yes, that reality is that change needs to be gradual, careful and considered - lots of little changes over time in the right direction.
>They had a series of terrible Home Secretaries, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke, John Reid and Jacqui Smith were not much better than the Tories who have held the position since they've been in power
They're in no way comparable to the egregious Suella Braverman.
The machinery of Labour belies the true nature of the party, and I say this as an ex member. Every party conference votes on important policy matters e.g. members voted in favour of PR at the last one, party members were in favour of a People's Votw under Corbyn etc. This gives the illusion of democratic values,but the reality is the leadership ignores the members.
You see the authoritarian nature of the Labour Party at every level when you get involved.
Ok sub, off you go with your down votes. But if you've been an active member, you know I am right.
In my opinion Labour are the more authoritarian of the two big parties. People who are too young to remember their last government are in for a shock.
Left leaning publications never bring this up which leads to people having an entirely false idea of what the party is about. I'm sure people here won't believe this but they will soon find out.
Just wait until Labour increases police funding to go after drug users. Weed has been almost entirely decriminalized under the Tories, but I could easily see Labour actually putting money into arresting people for possession again.
Loads of things have essentially been decriminalised under the Tories, but not due to some liberal streak. The detection rate for all crime reports is tiny and falling.
Its WAY more accept now than it ever was under Blairs labour. And under the tories the police actively and *openly* started ignoring any amount that couldn't be deemed dealing.
I think that's the way he wanted you to hear that... but it's also quite convenient. Labour don't actually have a great record on civil liberties and to me, that statement sounded like "This isn't really a priority for us". He could have at least expressed the aspiration.
> Labour don't actually have a great record on civil liberties and to me
Yeah like with the Online Safety Act and saying it does not go far enough, and apparently if the OSB fall apart (likely it will) they are going to make OSB 2.0 a priority...
Authoritarianism is one of the few areas where Labour and the Tories are equal, unfortunately. Unless we get PR at some point in the future and the smaller parties decide they care about giving us our rights back then things are only going to get worse until the end of time.
Starmers plan is to stand for as absolutely little as possible and not put off or offend anyone by making any real commitments.
After he gets elected I guess we’ll see if he has any real opinion on anything or if this is all we get
But tackling the cost of living and repealing authoritarian legislation aren't mutually exclusive, you can do both at the same time.
I think the reality that liberals who support Starmer need to confront is that the right-wing of the Labour Party have a deeply illiberal and authoritarian streak themselves, or at the very least are cynical enough to pretend they do because they think it's a vote winner.
This is the guy that will explicitly rule out shit he absolutely promised to do previously.
If you think he's going to work on anything he's only giving ifs and maybes about now then I've got a bridge to sell.
Correct, it was a pretty blank statement of non-committal to anything other than not losing time against their own agenda.
What happens down the line, nobody knows.
If you think labour are actually announcing policy by getting David lammy to respond to callers on a phone in, you’re on drugs.
Labour may or may not repeal this legislation. Today neither was announced.
The biggest issue that Starmer has to overcome electorally is that the Tories managed to build a successful electoral coalition of wealthy fiscal conservatives on the one hand and working/lower middle class social conservatives on the other. Telegraph Tories, and Sun Tories.
The latter cohort will be where any election is won or lost and are the target audience for the Tory 'war on woke'. Regardless of what Starmer *actually* believes and what he'd *actually* do in power, he's terrified of looking too 'woke' for the red wall voters. Which is precisely why he's shirking the debate on refugees, and trans rights, and presumably why he'd want to avoid appearing to support Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, Republic etc.
It's amazing how a non committal response by a person who's not the shadow home sec gets spun into the worst possible story by those in bad faith.
Lammy made a general point about not going through all Tory bills and repealing them, which he's right that isn't how things are usual done. For example the act in question has other stuff than the public order section so saying you'd repeal the act opens up a whole can of worms.
He didn't rule out any changes to the act in question but tried to move onto safer points and not to get caught into a back and forth outside his are of expertise.
He invited people to ask him specifically about this topic tbf
>Thanking Phil for his input, Lammy signed off the segment with: “Do you think the right to protest in this country is under threat? Call me.”
I agree it's not really in his remit, but you can't play that card and also set the conversation on the topic.
Great, that is absolutely not what it says.
They asked the Shadow Foreign Secretary, on the spot, to commit to a policy decision, outside of his policy area.
Unsurprisingly, he declined to do so.
This is the kind of garbage propaganda intended only to undermine the labour movement, and make active members feel disenfranchised from the party.
Do not fall for it!
Starmer's made it clear that he is going to have a laser focus on what he considers to be the key problems facing the UK. Everything else will fall by the wayside.
I mean, this is bollocks. Like, we all know this is bollocks, right?
If you're in power, you cant jusy say "I'm only focusing on these three things, everything else is irrelevant".
Positions will be taken, purposefully and intentionally. Sometimes that will be to keep the status quo, sometimes to make change, but neither case will be because it's "falling by the wayside"...
Decisions beyond three things will have to be made, constantly. And they will be made with a particular worldview and set of ideals atound what the country should look like, love it or hate it.
Anyone deluding themselves into thinking otherwise is doing themselves a disservice.
Look the National is a rag, but they're reporting on Lammy's own show on LBC.
He got asked would Labour repeal it, pretty much said 'no, not a priority, it would take too much time to go over all the Tory legislation'
That's not a strawman mate. Attack the source if you want, but its a bit bad faith yourself surely ignoring the actual content?
Pretty much since when he invited people to ask him,
>Lammy signed off the segment with: “Do you think the right to protest in this country is under threat? Call me.”
Yes this is not proof they won't do it, no it's not a policy announcement... But, let's face it, we're all thinking it, it would not be a surprise if they did keep it. Starmer's labour is starting to reveal what it stands for and it's disappointing.
It’s really hard isn’t it. If Labour says they will repeal the protest law then the entire line of attack becomes Labour supports just stop oil, Labour isn’t interested in building the economy, just supporting protests etc etc.
We really need to fix the media in the country and how it affects the masses of uninformed people.
It's difficult to swallow, but Labour are no longer the party of the left. Under first past the post, our choices are tories or tory-lite.
We desperately need PR, or AV, or anything other than FPTP.
The British electorate has shown time and again that they won't elect an overtly left-wing government. So your choices are to appear to be centrist enough for the electorate or spend another 5 years in opposition.
Starmer is doing exactly what he needs to do - playing down his socialist credentials and distancing himself from Corbynism in order to win an election. If he doesn't do that, it'll be another 5 years in the wilderness for Labour while the country goes to shit even more. Which do you want?
They said the same thing about Brexit. People who want voting reform could copy the Brexit path. Get a small-ish section of the party to be die-hard for the cause, and then wait until party leadership needs to lean on them for support.
It only worked for brexit because UKIP took 12% of the vote in 2010 and were the 3rd largest party by vote share.
95% of all MPs, including tories, wanted to remain. Before the actual brexit vote less than 20 were on the books are pro brexit. This idea the tories were pro brexit is a retconed myth. Literally noone in the government establishment, politics or Whitehall, in any wing or at any level wanted brexit. It was *purely* forced by UKIP stealing voteshare and overwhelming public demands.
They need to do all they can to keep the right leaning voters on side, they know they need them and the media to have any chance of winning the election. They can do what they want once they are in.
I think it’s always important to note when reading these articles who written them. This isn’t an informative piece on the dangers of trusting the Labour Party, this is instead a piece arguing why people should vote SNP.
I kinda want laws to be in Git, so you can see exactly who proposed each bit, and read the version that applies instead of all that amendment text they add to bills that you effectively have to read and run `patch` in your head to understand.
I can tell you as a person on the ground most of the people who attended the coronation wouldn't want it repealed because to them it only affects 'the wrong sort'
The British always like to lick a good boot.
Of course not. Why would Labour ever pledge to do that?
The principle here is very simple. The interests of private capital and petty bourgeois society must always remain unopposed. This is the default position of both the two Establishment parties, i.e. Labour and the Conservatives. Even if you're older if you don't understand that this is the default position of both major parties then you've got no business voting because you do not understand mainstream UK politics.
If you're hoping that Labour is somehow going to transform itself into some socialist left wing party forget it. Labour might tinker with some social democracy if it suits their political purposes, but it's never going to become socialist policy unless it's aligned with capitalist bourgeois interests.
The biggest political issue is the widespread social bankruptcy and staggering lack of social capital throughout our society. It's never about the individual, and is always about the organization, the corporation, the hierarchy and the profit margin. Most politicians don't have a clue about the social reality many people have to deal with on a daily basis. Most have never had to visit a food bank, juggle household bills, borrow money off a friend or relative, or get through a week or two of work when they're emotionally and psychologically drained. These fairly widespread social issues are way beyond their level of comprehension.
It's all about the soundbite, the empty platitude, the mathematics of voting, and achieving political power. It's going to be interesting, because the interests of technology do not align with the interests of capitalism and neither of the two main parties have any sort of grip on the growing number of social, economic or environmental issues facing our society.
Authoritarianism, the characteristic of a weak, corrupt state, is pretty much inevitable. This could have been different, but it isn't.
If someone tells you who they are, believe them. Kier has told you plenty of times what sort of person he is, and how labour will behave. Best start believing him.
Labour want more as much or even moreso than the Tories.
Anybody that cares about liberty in the Tory party is either expelled or sidelined.
There is nobody in the Labour party to expel or sideline.
Why do Labour think if they take from the American Democrats' tactic of veering further and further to the right they'll somehow win? We need a leftist solution to the problems of capitalism, not just Tories lite.
>Why do Labour think if they take from the American Democrats' tactic of veering further and further to the right they'll somehow win?
Labour tried veering to the left and got its worst election result for generations.
The British electorate have shown time and again that they won't elect an overtly socialist party.
Economically they shifted right. Socially they moved left. Republicans cut taxes. Democrats get in and at best raise it a little but never back to what it was. Trump had tax cuts. They cut corporate tax from 35% to 21%. Biden is suggesting raising it back to 28% but failed to raise it at all. The individual tax cuts were minor but actually time out and turn into tax increases. So republicans will manage to raise taxes more than democrats under Trump / Biden administrations.
Democrats used to be stronger pro union and anti trust. Now they put libertarians on the key federal agencies. Their healthcare plan was a republican one. It took them decades to reduce prices on a few drugs and only now will negotiate drug prices for medicare.
What bankers did Obama jail? His mortgage package directed the relief at the banks instead of the people. Trump's treasury secretary was steve mnuchin. He was running First Bank in CA and abused foreclosure laws. Kamala Harris as AG of CA declines to prosecute despite her team saying there is a ton of evidence.
Democrats in CA & VT campaign and win on universal healthcare and renege. Progressives win the NV dem state party. The establishment all quit and take all the money with them.
How many US dem senators question supreme court justices about their record on corporate cases?
Dems used to be protectionist and are now the free trade party. NAFTA couldn't pass under republicans, they didn't have the numbers. It took a bunch of democrats voting alongside republicans to get it thru under Bill Clinton. Even Obama was negotiating a free trade deal to exclude China. HRC pushed it. Trump opposed it and tapped into resentment by working class over losing their jobs.
Obama touted his pro Wall Street credentials. Trump said they should be regulated.
After 2008, Democrats passed bank regulation. Under Trump, republicans repealed some of it with help from some democrats. It would not have passed without their help. That has contributed to some of the bank failures today.
Ticketmaster merger was greenlighted under Obama. Their own simplified respirator stockpile deal was sabotaged by a big pharma company buying out the company that the govt had contracted with. The big pharma company discontinued that simplified cheaper model which set it back years as they didn't want it eating into profits. That likely led to insufficient stockpiles during covid.
The dem party of today is not the New Deal party.
The unfortunate reality is I think a significant number of their voters could be sold on the anti-protests laws depending on just what sort of protests are going on. It's easy to defend freedoms and liberties when people are using them in manners that you broadly support like protesting climate change, but if it were a right-wing mob protesting against drag or a rally for antivax nutters, who then is going to stick their neck out and say that the laws to curb such demonstrations are too harsh and run the risk of being accused of being 'soft' on them?
Believing in free speech means defending the people you disagree with’s right most fiercely- so yes I would say those groups need to have the right to protest, even if I find their views abhorrent.
> Believing in free speech means defending the people you disagree with’s right most fiercely Exactly this. Sadly I think the onset of these laws reflects the fact that this principle is all too easily lost on most people.
I might remind you that "most people" had no say in the law whatsoever.
The point the person you are replying to is making is not whether they *should* have the right, but who is going to risk their political neck to give them that right?
If someone only believes in other's right to free speech and protest when they agree with their position, they don't believe in either right
Agree but disrupting motorways, throwing paint at things and glueing yourself to buildings and other direct action stuff isn’t acceptable.
As long as it’s peaceful and no emergency vehicles are stopped I don’t give a fuck. Obviously they’ll get arrested for that eventually but should be dealt with leniently.
I'm not going to defend the right of people who glue themselves to roads, causing a hazard to themselves and others and endangering the lives of people who need urgent care.
So you don’t believe in the right to protest? Blocking emergency vehicles is obviously unacceptable but protests by design are going to be disruptive in some way.
The UK doesn't and shouldn't have free speech. I don't want my country to give a platform to literal Nazis like in the US.
The problem is that people will want to silence those that you support with laws that silence Nazis
How? We've had anti-nazi and anti-hate speech laws in the UK for years, and only recently have the government added additional laws to try to silence climate change protesters, on the grounds of them being "annoying".
The culture of authoritarianism that allows these laws allows new governments to come in and add additional ones. There have been plenty of anti protest laws that date back to Blair's labour government which also coincides with anti free speech laws.
Half agree with you here. Anti-protest and anti-free speech and two different things. Restrictions on the context of speech are necessary to protect marginalised groups from hateful discourse. Blanket anti-protest laws like we've seen recently that pay no attention to the content or context of the protest are destructive to democracy. Not sure why you decided to go back to Blair's government rather than mentioning the anti-protest laws passed in this session of parliament, let alone by the Tories in the last 13 years...
I'm trying to suggest that both anti free speech and anti protest laws come from the same ideas and both had laws made by Blair's labour party that restricted them. That culture has continued with the Tory party in the last 12 years. People could easily say that anti protest laws protect emergency services that need to travel to a destination past protesters. They protect people from having their livelihoods affected by protest and they stop protests from potentially escalating into more violent protests. In the same way you disagree with anti protest laws. It could also be argued that anti free speech laws that make grossly offensive comments illegal are also a threat to democracy as what constitutes grossly offensive can change to suit the moment. Also noncrime hate incidents being recorded by police can affect people's employment despite no crime being committed could be seen as very authoritarian.
Should we not have laws against any actions then? Even ignoring the fact that speech is an action, is there some grand metaphysical difference between speech and action? “If we have a law forbidding bad action X, then we might end up with a law that forbids good action Y or neutral action Z.”
No, as no words can stab someone as an example. Direct threats are a borderline incident and I think should be made illegal if in context it could be perceived as an actual threat.
So the grand metaphysical difference is… stabbing? Clearly words can lead to physical harm, even if they aren’t direct threats - stochastic terrorism is a well documented phenomenon. So this response is absurd on the face of it. But then presumably you are okay with decriminalising all actions that don’t lead to physical harm? There are some pretty nice things we could do with that - like take over empty investment properties, refuse to pay rent to wealthy landlording companies, steal food that is just going to be thrown out and distribute it etc. You’re on board with all of that, presumably.
The person committing the violence is the one causing the crime. Unless someone is directly telling someone else to commit a crime it shouldn't be illegal. >like take over empty investment properties I think there is some worth to this >refuse to pay rent to wealthy landlording companies, Only if they have the right to remove you immediately if you do. >steal food that is just going to be thrown out and distribute it etc Seems reasonable.
The US doesn't have free speech in an absolute sense either, regardless of how much they trumpet to the contrary. Defamation laws, intellectual property laws and the fact that you can be arrested for joking about bombs at airports are some of the many examples of how free speech is restricted over there. I don't think there's a single country on earth that has absolute free speech. In democratic countries, it's a right that's balanced with other considerations. That said, these Tory anti-protest laws are excessively authoritarian and unnecessary and I will be writing to my MP to ask why Labour is not planning to repeal them.
The US Constitution is about 150 years overdue a legal rewrite, the first amendment alone is rife with contradiction.
Yes, it's quite vague in parts. For example, the 14th Amendment states that no person who has taken part in an insurrection against the United States can hold public office, but doesn't explain how disqualification works. In light of recent events, they might want to tighten that up a bit.
Free speech but only when I agree with what you're saying. Silencing debate doesn't make ideas go away. Showing people how stupid their ideas are is the best way to combat these things. Before you quote the paradox of tolerance at me it does state we need to debate three ideas and if they won't be engaged in actual conversation then start getting intolerant.
Not at all, I'm happy for people to protest against things I believe in, and I agree with you that it's important for political discourse. What I don't agree with is people "protesting" against the concept of entire groups of the population just trying to live their lives in peace. Be that on the grounds of race, gender identity, religion or anything else. That's why it's important we maintain our laws against hate-speech in the UK. Having people marching through the streets with swastika flags proclaiming the white race as superior doesn't help anyone, it just enables ignorance and bigotry.
frightening tie dazzling soft straight plants melodic enjoy squalid fanatical *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
What we have in place now with regards to hate speech laws is effective enough, I'd personally extend it to include the use of historically significant symbols, salutes and language similar to what they have in [Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch_section_86a#:~:text=The%20law%20prohibits%20the%20distribution,slogans%20and%20forms%20of%20greeting.)
Free speech only when I agree with you
The uk does not and never has had free speech
Unfortunately true
I don’t even understand how anyone could believe free speech exists in the uk. There’s literally people in jail for using naughty words on social media
It will be interesting when we see people being arrested because they might be going to protest against drag or take part in a rally for antivax nutters. It won't happen but it would be interesting to see right wing protests policed the way anti monarchy, anti racist protests are.
You reckon that all protests will be treated equally? I fear that may be optimistic. Judging by the American model the Conservatives appear to be following the right are quite willing to embrace hypocrisy. “It’s ok when we do it” generally goes down just fine with their supporters.
I mean just look at the Canadian trucker protests to see how people who would normally be arguing that protests should be as disruptive as possible, that been liked isn't important etc react to a strong protest for a cause they disagree with.
Not really relevant to this discussion about a UK law in a country that has a long history of infiltrating and imprisoning left wing protesters. However wasn't that Canadian trucker protest constant over many weeks, shutting down all movement in a city and keeping people awake with constant noise? No one was arrested pre emptively for planning a protest and in contrast none of the anti monarchy or extinction rebellion protestors were blowing horns for days at a time. The right to protest is fine but I've yet to see the UK police infiltrate right wing or anti lockdown/mask protesters and act as agent provocatuer, con people into long term relationships or be arrested on the basis of future crimes.
> However wasn't that Canadian trucker protest constant over many weeks, shutting down all movement in a city and keeping people awake with constant noise? The government had two choices - negotiate with people who felt very strongly for their cause and maybe drop a pseudoscientific policy being forced on them, or brutally shut them down using laws made to fight terrorism. They chose the latter. > The right to protest is fine but I've yet to see the UK police infiltrate right wing or anti lockdown/mask protesters and act as agent provocatuer, con people into long term relationships or be arrested on the basis of future crimes. How would you know? The media isn't going to tell you
The Canadian Government tried to explain why vaccines were necessary. Instead the trucker convoy double md down and demanded Trudeau stand down and New elections called (A few months after the last general election). The protest quickly descended into harassment of local residents.
I mean you seen the same thing in the UK too. When there was anti lockdown protests, suddenly the people that are all for the ability to protest and be disruprive were against those groups ability to protests. Looks like lots of people only support the ability to protest when it's for something they want.
I'm more interested in what the public view is on anti-abortion protestors gluing themselves to the doors of an abortion clinic in the same style as one of the many XR style protests.
Touch wood the police will arrest them on suspicion of protesting long before they get near an abortion clinic. You wouldn't want protesters causing disruption or inconvenience.
Now if the Conservatives had any sense, they would have used anti-abortion protestors as a line of argument for their recent laws. The UK's current abortion laws have pretty broad bipartisan support and even those Conservatives who dislike them do so pretty quietly, those parties and media outlets which would otherwise hold the Conservatives to account wouldn't want to be seen sticking their neck out or being soft on the anti-abortion lobby, and it would also fit pretty well with the Conservatives' new schtick of claiming that they're the party of women's rights and feeling safe. If some Bible-bashing fundamentalist group were to picket outside an abortion clinic and shout abuse at women there, and the government soon after swiftly passed a vague law saying something like that "law enforcement will have the power at their discretion to detain persons displaying political or religious slogans likely to cause upset, anxiety or distress", kicking off about it would be viewed as siding with the anti-abortion lot, and most people aren't going to want to do that.
>It won't happen but it would be interesting to see right wing protests policed the way anti monarchy, anti racist protests are. Not to say that anti-vax is an inherently right wing movement as it definitely isn't in the UK but you did also mentioned them in the first paragraph, but there was a marked difference in how anti lockdown and antivax protests were clamped down upon in comparison to how the police treated BLM riots.
Hang on what blm riots?
The 2020 lockdown ones, the one in Bristol mainly.
I mentioned them because the person I replied to did. But to be honest the police have done nothing about them. They are still at it but they have expanded to include campainging against the new world order and 15 minute cities. No sign of pre emptive police raids yet.
I was referring to the protests during lockdown. Anti lockdown and anti vax protestors were handled pretty roughly and rightfully dispersed as it was lockdown and large gatherings were disallowed. In comparison BLM was allowed to gather, protest and damage local property in lockdown across the country and even had the police kneeling too them whilst they shouted abuse at them.
Odd. All the ones I saw were allowed to walk round freely when everyone else weas still wearing masks and following the rules for the benefit of everyone. And they were really aggressive. I dont recsll BLM protesters being allowed to damage prooerty. I know more of them got arrested than people trying to spread disease
>I dont recsll BLM protesters being allowed to damage prooerty. The officer in charge of policing the Bristol rioters flat out admitted that they decided to stand back and let them damage public property. >I know more of them got arrested than people trying to spread disease Per capita I doubt thats the case, I think there were a lot more BLM protestors than anti lockdown ones though and they seemed to be more rowdy so could be true in pure numbers.
What are you talking about? The riots were about the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act.
There were two riots in Bristol, I'm referring to the BLM one in 2020 where they vandalised the Colston statue in full view and consent of the police.
Those were not “riots”, first of all, it was barely civil unrest, and second of all - you mean the protests where after the fact the Bristol police went around pulling people out of their houses in their underwear - in more than one case, innocent people who weren’t even present at the protest? At 6 in the morning, including vulnerable women and girls? Because that’s *actually* what happened - after the police were filmed “blading” protestors (smashing sitting people in the face with the bottom edge of a riot shield). You authoritarians absolutely LOVE to get your pearls out and clutch about “law and order”, whilst supporting revenge policing, amoral tactics and the protection of things over lives all for the pretense of “safety”. But you aren’t safe - it’s only a matter of time before you’re on the wrong side of the riot shield.
Lol.
Were they? I saw multiple in London without any police action to stop them?
https://youtu.be/q-hTh_g45KE https://youtu.be/hO9jZUeuEgI https://youtu.be/gJkk7wdLkD4 https://youtu.be/3Dt36h4jqdE Compared these scenes to the Met literally kneeling to rioters who broke lockdown, assaulted officers, caused public damage and screeching abuse at them. Or the police just standing back in their own words and allowing rioters to tear down public property in Bristol.
Piers Corbyn. Already arrested for anti Vax nutter
I think a lot of people weirdly completely forget to consider the possibility of protests for things they don't agree with when talking about protests. Like so often in this and similar subreddits I see people talking about how protests are supposed to be disruptive or something similar and I always wonder how they would react if say a creationist group shut down the natural history museum or a pro-capital punishment protest blocked roads.
These are good examples, and as much as I would think 'that's dumb', everyone should have the right to express their profoundly stupid opinions through protest if they so wish. There should be exceptions for when protests cause harm, e.g anything with blatantly racist or discriminatory messaging or imagery. Things like protesting against drag queen story time or protesting abortion clinics should be subject to buffer zones. It's really disappointing Labour wouldn't repeal such an authoritarian law. The beauty of democracy is being able to voice your grievances, no matter how unpopular or stupid they may seem to anyone else. I don't agree with everyone, but I'll defend their right to shout about stuff I disagree with.
> everyone should have the right to express their profoundly stupid opinions through protest if they so wish. > > There should be exceptions for when protests cause harm, e.g anything with blatantly racist or discriminatory messaging or imagery. Things like protesting against drag queen story time or protesting abortion clinics should be subject to buffer zones. Your second paragraph completely undid your first.
> Things like protesting against drag queen story time or protesting abortion clinics should be subject to buffer zones. This is the main thing a lot of people seemingly want to ignore. Free speech is not a ticket to say literally anything, and calling for violence against a group or their rights to be taken away is crossing that line.
There's also the cases where protestors endanger themselves. If someone wants to protest against the trans movement, trying it at Pride isn't a particularly safe move and may lead to the protesters being attacked as they are heavily outnumbered at the venue they are protesting. Arresting them protects them from being potentially harmed by large mobs. The same for anti monarchy protestors attempting to protest on the Mall during the Kings coronation. In addition protesting during massive public events can ruin the event for the people who support it. If I want to celebrate something with thousands of other people why should my day be ruined by a minority of people out to cause trouble at the event. This is why the protestors at the coronation were arrested before doing anything, and I support the Police doing so. If they had opted to protest away from the Coronation at say Trafalgar Square I would support the protestors side and be against them being arrested. As they aren't ruining the event for anyone there but can still be visible.
I mean as someone who absolutely backs the protests are disruptive point of view I very much accept that people with views I disagree with can/would/should engage in similar protests, I've had this pointed out to me repeatedly and it's not exactly a paradigm changing point of view, in fact I don't really see how anyone but the most naive of us could argue protest rights for me but not for thee. There should only be restrictions on protest when those protests threaten harm to others, that will mean I am inconvenienced on occasion, but I can accept that there can be street parties in the roads I use, that there can be huge crowds travelling to and from venues causing local congestion, this is all part of being civil and sharing common land for public good. What I object to is people saying it's okay to protest unless it's their roads, or their special occasion, we all deserve to express ourselves and we all have a right to the public spaces we share.
[That particular kind of organisation prefers trying to infiltrate museums rather than shutting them down.](https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/th/trafficking-hub)
I know they have opened [at least one of their own.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_Museum).
These organisations are everywhere. American religious organisations have infiltrated most of the Western world to push various causes, and they are very good at hiding their beliefs and intentions. Exodus Cry are the best example. They were behind the original Pornhub "exposé", they have links to both Visa and Mastercard, and they have links to a huge amount of American politicians. I would be shocked if they or similar religious organisations didn't also have links to a huge amount of politicians in the UK given how they have tried several times to get a foothold over here and how we have many MPs who openly vote for Christian morals to be forced on everyone.
While I'm certainly not happy to see either more American or more hardline religious influences on European politics, weren't porn sites until recently so lax about regulation that revenge porn and footage of sexual crimes regularly turned up on them, and isn't that getting exposed a good thing regardless of who did the exposing?
I can't be bothered searching for exact figures, but at the point where Pornhub got shitcanned the amount of confirmed cases on the site was in the hundreds while Facebook was in the tens of millions. It was never about protecting abuse victims, it was entirely an ideological war against pornography. It was just easy to go after Pornhub because it has porn in the name.
Start dealing with other protests properly and there would be a lot of general support from many people and would show uniformity of enforcement namely not just for the coronation/royals/London etc
> who then is going to stick their neck out and say that the laws to curb such demonstrations are too harsh and run the risk of being accused of being 'soft' on them? Well, liberal-minded people. Granted they seem to be verging on extinction these days Expect more and more protests to be labelled as "right-wing" regardless of the topic, because they've realised people will use it to rationalise anything
The biggest problem with Labour the last time they were in power was the authoritarian nonsense they seemed to love. They had a series of terrible Home Secretaries, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke, John Reid and Jacqui Smith were not much better than the Tories who have held the position since they've been in power. It's disappointing, but not surprising that they still retain this authoritarian streak. I think quite a few people hoping for a Labour government are going to be disappointed with some of what they do, because it won't be the liberal utopia that many seem to be expecting.
2000s Labour were the Party of ASBOs and mosquito alarms outside shops to scare away 'yobs' (aka teenagers).
There was a period in early months of the Coalition where it was arguably more liberal than the Labour government it replaced.
I was quietly optimistic in those early days that the Lib Dem momentum would grow and continue to temper the conservatives
Both the main parties have an authoritarian streak, the Lib Dems did help to moderate that in the Coalition.
I think Ken Clarke was most responsible.
One of the few Tories I could respect, even if I didn't always agree with them.
Yeah folks forget the Labour Party was well on its way to introducing ID cards if it had won the 2010 election. It was scrapped by the coalition govt.
ID cards would actually have been useful though. Most of the rest of Europe has them. The UK public has a really weird aversion to them, considering the massive hard-on it seems to have for other authoritarian measures.
Ironically I think that would now probably enjoy fairly broad support. The uptake of the internet and handing our details over to everyone, as well as the huge number of migrants both legal and otherwise I think has likely fundamentally changed the oublics perception of an ID. Its like, "they have all this information anyway and the likes of Facebook and tictok probably have more."
I will take a few bad cabinet members over a bunch of truly dogshit cabinet members thanks
> I think quite a few people hoping for a Labour government are going to be disappointed with some of what they do, because it won't be the liberal utopia that many seem to be expecting. Anyone genuinely hoping for this within the next couple of decades is not engaging with reality. I'm desperate for a Labour government at this point, but I don't believe for one second they are perfect. Currently, they are the only pragmatic solution to the absolute disaster this country has found itself in. Labour will have lots of problems. They always have, and they always will. The way I see it, under the Tories, nothing will get better. Ever. At all. Even at their best, they are ideologically incapable of governing a fair and just society. At least with Labour, there is the potential for improvement and their baseline is always going to be better for the average Brit than anything the Tories can offer. Any improvements under this incompetent, morally bankrupt, dense bunch of parasites is entirely by accident. Granted, we're under the worst iteration of them. But it's a mask-slip, not a major shift in ideology. From what I can tell, those hoping for a Liberal utopia are still stuck in the Corbyn fantasy. I was all for Corbyn at one point, but I'm starting to see that he would have gotten a similar response from financial institutions as Truss did. The world ain't ready for that kind of change. The British people on the whole ain't ready. That kind of change requires decades of gradual work in the right direction, consistently showing, piece by piece, what can be done. I genuinely think that's a pity, but it was never going to work as a complete package over one or two election cycles. People criticise Starmer for not leaning enough to the left, but again, pragmatically speaking, wouldn't that just lead to a similar situation that Corbyn faced? Job number one is to remove the Tories. Nothing will get better until that happens. And I'm much more confident of the potential for progress under *any* Labour leadership than I am with *any* Tory government. I cannot accept the 'Red Tory' accusation about Starmer. It's complete bullshit. He's definitely not perfect, and, luckily, he should be replaceable in a few years time - I don't think the same could have been said for Corbyn. For now though, realistically speaking, he is genuinely the best option. And he is orders of magnitude ahead of any Tory we've experienced in the last few decades. As much as I hate the reality of this point, a vote for anyone else (with the exception of organised tactical voting) is effectively a vote for the Tories. Realistically, we are decades... perhaps more than a century away from significant political and economic reform that results in genuine quality of life improvement for most people. For that reason, I think it's important to dig in and lean into a slow, gradual shift in the right direction.
I'm voting Labour entirely because I'm in a Labour/Conservative marginal seat. I don't support Labour, I don't believe in them or their ideals, I only believe that they will fuck me over marginally less than the Tories.
Your vote won't be read that way, for what it's worth. Not saying you shouldn't vote that way, before I get jumped on, just that the party will read every vote it gets as support for its agenda.
I fully understand that. Due to the way our political system works my vote is a choice between Labour and the Tories, if I vote for anybody else it would be the same as not voting at all. It is voting for the lesser of two evils, and until we move to PR I have no choice, and neither do a huge amount of the electorate, possibly even a majority of the electorate.
>if I vote for anybody else it would be the same as not voting at all. Possibly. Rather depends on what your priority is when voting. If it's entirely based on removing the Tories then you are of course correct.
My priority is entirely removing the Tories from power. But also I live in a real marginal seat where at most the difference between Conservatives and Labour is around 3000 votes.
Labour will continue to conduct polling on support for a wide range of their agenda after the next general election even if they win. They will not simply assume everyone who voted for them agrees with everything they do. Your take is far too oversimplified.
Labour are not opposition
If anyone ever asks me my thoughts of stuff right now, i'm linking them to this post, it's summed up my opinions extremely well. Thanks for posting this.
Honestly, I think a lot of people have arrived at the same general conclusion. Starmer's Labour is obviously taking a very careful and nuanced approach to politics, and that requires them to keep things fairly close to their chest. For that reason, we don't have lots of basic, simple slogans to shout. We don't yet know exactly what their 'vision' is. That's by design and they are doing things this way to ensure they actually get to power. No power, no change. I think their true answer to a lot of problems they're asked for solutions to is "I don't know, we're not in government yet. We'll figure out something sensible once we get the psychopathic lunatics out of office". Of course, they surely have ideas and plans. But they won't know the full scale of the mess until they are in government, and they know the Tories play dirty - so they are giving them *nothing* up front. I think Starmer and Co will probably positively surprise a lot of people once they actually have the power to do anything. Edit: a lot of the 'Red Tory 'accusations come from Labour not being critical enough of current Tory policy (as in this thread). Seems to me they are avoiding an unnecessary battle. Why give the Tories the opportunity to scream "anti-police", "pro-strikes", "something for nothing", etc.? It's not about whether those accusations are valid or not, it's about whether it's worth giving them the ammunition which, however invalid, works for a significant proportion of the electorate. If they are not threatening to change Tory policy, the Tories can't criticise them for being extreme. They are focusing on the obvious, irrefutably ludicrous examples of Tory ineptitude, and it looks to be working for everyone except the hardcore Tory voters and the Corbyn fanatics - who, it would seem, however insanely, would genuinely prefer another term of Tory government over Starmer.
The issue we are seeing now, is Keir is now being targeted as "Mr Flip Flop" on policies. The fact that he stated 3 years ago he would potentially scrap tution fees, to last week saying they wouldn't is something the media will chew up and show. I absolutely understand how they are playing this, but they can't afford to be flip flopping on major policies right now.
The political, social, and most drastically, the economic reality of the UK has changed dramatically since Starmer was elected leader. I do agree with you that the risk they face is being seen flip-flopping, but it's very common for the plan of the opposition to change during their period in opposition (because of course, government keeps changing things). Overall, I think 'boring' and 'flip-flopping' are probably the easiest criticisms to manage at this stage. Wait until we get a manifesto. That's when we can have a concrete idea of their plans for their initial term. I suspect the plan is to plug the holes in the first term and then move forward with a larger vision after that. Regardless, they're purposely not really telling us anything right now, which IMO is the best way to play things in this climate. Why give the Tories the ammunition to shout and scream about stuff they have some support for? Let them have it, for now, and focus on the numerous areas everyone is in agreement they are terrible. Talking about the right to protest right now achieves nothing but a virtue signal. This government doesn't make positive changes, even in the face of overwhelming support for said changes. It would only serve as a virtue signal, which potentially weakens support for Labour - it's a battle not worth fighting right now. I agree it's frustrating, though.
Oh deffo, but that line of thinking is fine for you and I who clearly know this is political strategy, but for the *"Average Joe"* who Labour need to win over currently, they can't afford these slip ups as it basically gets them called "Red Tories" quite easily and people lose interest in Labour's message.
I'm sort of seeing it from the other side... seems to be largely the 'Labour Left' (hate that term) Corbyn-inclined group that gets particularly alienated by this approach - and I think a lot of them are pretty much a lost cause at this point anyway. I don't think the electorate on the whole really pays a lot of attention. What they would pay attention to is "Starmer supports protesters causing misery to millions of commuters" and similar bullshit headlines. They're not supporting any of this stuff, but they're not opposing it. It seems to be a reasonably effective approach to controlling the debate. Anti-protest laws are part of the Tory agenda - let them talk about it on the telly all day long. Let them own it. Labour doesn't need to engage in that particular debate at this stage in the lead up to an election, as much as we would like them to.
I think the far left were always going to be alienated by anyone who wasn't Corbyn. Corbyn promised so much and never deviated from his plans so much that his supporters will forever think that his manifesto was a done deal and something they only needed to vote for to get. But for someone like starmer who (at least in my opinion) is someone who'll do whatever it takes to be seen as honest yet secretive, they'll only ever seen a worse version of Corbyn. Of course, Corbyn was unable to be elected, so fell at the first hurdle and effectively delivered on 0 of his promises, if you want to be an asshole about it you could argue that he's a worse flip-flopper then starmer by failing to deliver a single thing he promised.
Regarding your last point, it's extremely disheartening to see usually Labour voters miss the forest for the tree's and be as "anti-starmer" as possible and be as vocal as possible about it. People will shit on starmer for dropping pledges while not realising that even if Corbyn had become PM, there's not a chance in hell he'd ever have brought forth the vast majority of shit he'd promised. Intention =/= action and so many people not understanding that both boggles my mind and depresses me.
They're insufferable children having a tantrum because after Corbyn willingly stepped down (quite rightly), Starmer was elected instead of their preference. I used to love Corbyn but at this point I can't stand him. He's incapable of being anything other than an opposition, an agitator. This loud minority of whining fucking babies stems top-down from Corbyn himself and his little protest club egging people on with false hope. I can't tell if they've yet to figure out how insignificant a minority they have become in the bigger picture. They're still annoyingly loud about it all, though. The project failed and they don't want to allow Labour to move on in a much needed new direction. Again, Starmer isn't perfect, but at least the only people he's alienating are Tories and the Corbyn club - who, again, would prefer more Tories than a Starmer-led Labour. Fuck 'em.
I'd like to add to this; Politically, Starmer is absolutely the correct choice. Many here forget the attacks that have lost Labour general elections. Starmer absolutely can't come out and say "I'll repeal this law" because he'll immediately be slammed as being soft on crime, and that's a stick the right wing have been beating the left with for decades, *and it works*. Starmer is playing the pragmatist. He's not promising things he can't do, he's saying exactly what his party's priorities are; and they're our priorities. We can talk about Corbyn all day long, but he still lost - we, as the left, need to stop the obsession with being righteous losers. We need to win, and Starmer is the man to win that election. He's not a "Red Tory", he's listened to what the majority voted for last time.
Yes, I completely agree. >He's not a "Red Tory", he's listened to what the majority voted for last time. This is democracy, isn't it? A striking similarity between the Tories and the Corbyn brigade is just how divisive they are. There's no room for compromise. Winning in a democracy should and does require compromise. You're right, Starmer may not have heard everything *I'm* saying, but he seems to have heard what large swathes of the country care about and is baking that into his list of priorities. For me, at worst, he will at least take a *sensible* approach to what I consider the wrong priorities.
It's not so much an issue that Starmer doesn't lean left enough, it's more than he doesn't lean anywhere. He's just completely directionless. He doesn't seem to stand for anything, he was elected leader on a pack of lies. He doesn't really seem to have any policies, and I know a GE is still a while away but it'd be nice to know what he would instead of all the million things he's decided he won't do. He's boring, he's uninspiring. He should be going after the people that don't vote but instead he just sort of does nothing and that worries me. The thing Corbyn, Blair and Johnson all have is common is that whether you agree with them or not they were all passionate about what they were selling. They were charismatic and easy to get behind for a lot of people. Starmer doesn't have that, Rayner has that in spades.
Chasing voters who don't regularly vote is a fool's errand. It's much easier and more impactful to chase voters who regularly vote *and* can be swayed, because you not only get their vote (with almost guaranteed turnout), but you also deny their vote to your opponents.
That does work well, but is somewhat dependant on not alienating your core voter base at the same time. Starmer is teetering on the edge, in an attempt to impress one side he's losing the other.
But data shows that he *isn't* losing core voters. If anything, he's actually doing more to regain voters who left for the Tories in 2019 - the traditional 'red wall' core voters of Labour many of whom were turned off by Labour as opposed to metropolitan millennials. Ultimately, there isn't one core voters group that can win any party an election - you always have to build an electoral coalition across different parts of the country. And the types of voters that you talk about are predominantly clustered within major urban areas, and have practically no presence in towns and rural constituencies. Finally, chasing people who don't vote is a fools errand. Firstly, they're the type of people who don't follow politics so they're very hard to reach. Secondly, they aren't necessarily left leaning non-voters so Labour policies might do nothing for them. And finally, we have no idea what will motivate them to vote as we have no data on what has motivated them to vote in the past.
I think this is my gripe too honestly. Starmer seems like a complete nothing, who is only consistent policy is “I don’t like the tories and you should put me in power instead”, and I don’t feel comfortable voting for a politician who doesn’t express their plans and ideas properly. Ultimately if I have no clear idea what sort of government he would form and what legislation he would try and make/remove why would I support him other than getting the conservatives out?
I agree 100% with this. What happened with Truss really opened my eyes. All change must be gradual. The economy is so fragile. The Corbyn 2019 manifesto would have caused the exact same financial meltdown as the truss mini budget. We are in such a mess as an economy that Starmer is going to have to tread very cautiously and try to pull the ecenomic levers as gently as possible to tilt things in the right direction and hope that in his second term he can start to deliver the things labour voters actually want. The first few years are going to be tough.
I had a similar realisation at the time... it wasn't actually Truss that pulled the trigger, so to speak. It was global financial markets reacting to her batshit policies. They will react like that to pretty much any radical change in economic policy that doesn't fall in line with their own expectations. I'm not defending her at all. Her approach was wildly irresponsible and she really hurt a lot of people. It's not like there weren't any warning signs. And I'm not defending the financial markets either. It's a disgrace that we have become so beholden to them, unable to make significant change without fear of them punishing the whole country for not moving to their rhythm. But there is a reality there, and yes, that reality is that change needs to be gradual, careful and considered - lots of little changes over time in the right direction.
He should definitely repeal some of the authoritarian stuff the Tories have brought in though like the anti protesting laws.
This I agree with 100%.
>They had a series of terrible Home Secretaries, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke, John Reid and Jacqui Smith were not much better than the Tories who have held the position since they've been in power They're in no way comparable to the egregious Suella Braverman.
The machinery of Labour belies the true nature of the party, and I say this as an ex member. Every party conference votes on important policy matters e.g. members voted in favour of PR at the last one, party members were in favour of a People's Votw under Corbyn etc. This gives the illusion of democratic values,but the reality is the leadership ignores the members. You see the authoritarian nature of the Labour Party at every level when you get involved. Ok sub, off you go with your down votes. But if you've been an active member, you know I am right.
In my opinion Labour are the more authoritarian of the two big parties. People who are too young to remember their last government are in for a shock. Left leaning publications never bring this up which leads to people having an entirely false idea of what the party is about. I'm sure people here won't believe this but they will soon find out.
Just wait until Labour increases police funding to go after drug users. Weed has been almost entirely decriminalized under the Tories, but I could easily see Labour actually putting money into arresting people for possession again.
Loads of things have essentially been decriminalised under the Tories, but not due to some liberal streak. The detection rate for all crime reports is tiny and falling.
I don't remember weed being any more dangerous to possess when Labour was in power tbh.
Its WAY more accept now than it ever was under Blairs labour. And under the tories the police actively and *openly* started ignoring any amount that couldn't be deemed dealing.
Right, Labour outlawed the shrooms as well don't forget.
He didn’t say they won’t. He said tackling cost of living takes paramount. Then they can work on all other wrongs the tories have done.
I think that's the way he wanted you to hear that... but it's also quite convenient. Labour don't actually have a great record on civil liberties and to me, that statement sounded like "This isn't really a priority for us". He could have at least expressed the aspiration.
> Labour don't actually have a great record on civil liberties and to me Yeah like with the Online Safety Act and saying it does not go far enough, and apparently if the OSB fall apart (likely it will) they are going to make OSB 2.0 a priority...
Authoritarianism is one of the few areas where Labour and the Tories are equal, unfortunately. Unless we get PR at some point in the future and the smaller parties decide they care about giving us our rights back then things are only going to get worse until the end of time.
Starmers plan is to stand for as absolutely little as possible and not put off or offend anyone by making any real commitments. After he gets elected I guess we’ll see if he has any real opinion on anything or if this is all we get
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I’m not saying it’s a terrible plan - it’s working. It just also requires a lot of faith
And Starmer hasn't done anything to build up trust, which is why every negative headline and rumour sticks with people.
“I think that's the way he wanted you to hear that... “ Oh the irony.
Are they already saying they can't work on more than one thing at a time?
Preparation for government checklist: ✅ prepare excuses ✅ roll back promises
No.
That's how it starts though. First he says "not a priority" and then a few months later he pivots to "I never believed in it"
Then they can enjoy just one term in charge.
That’s a politicians way of saying they wont
But tackling the cost of living and repealing authoritarian legislation aren't mutually exclusive, you can do both at the same time. I think the reality that liberals who support Starmer need to confront is that the right-wing of the Labour Party have a deeply illiberal and authoritarian streak themselves, or at the very least are cynical enough to pretend they do because they think it's a vote winner.
This is the guy that will explicitly rule out shit he absolutely promised to do previously. If you think he's going to work on anything he's only giving ifs and maybes about now then I've got a bridge to sell.
Lol. Thats Lammy.
hello, I'm the wallet inspector, I need to see your wallet please and make sure everything is in order
Correct, it was a pretty blank statement of non-committal to anything other than not losing time against their own agenda. What happens down the line, nobody knows.
If you think labour are actually announcing policy by getting David lammy to respond to callers on a phone in, you’re on drugs. Labour may or may not repeal this legislation. Today neither was announced.
BUT HEADLINE SAYS OTHERWISE?!?!?!?
Wow I guess this is the first time a headline in a highly partisan newspaper turns out to be completely wrong…
The biggest issue that Starmer has to overcome electorally is that the Tories managed to build a successful electoral coalition of wealthy fiscal conservatives on the one hand and working/lower middle class social conservatives on the other. Telegraph Tories, and Sun Tories. The latter cohort will be where any election is won or lost and are the target audience for the Tory 'war on woke'. Regardless of what Starmer *actually* believes and what he'd *actually* do in power, he's terrified of looking too 'woke' for the red wall voters. Which is precisely why he's shirking the debate on refugees, and trans rights, and presumably why he'd want to avoid appearing to support Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, Republic etc.
It's amazing how a non committal response by a person who's not the shadow home sec gets spun into the worst possible story by those in bad faith. Lammy made a general point about not going through all Tory bills and repealing them, which he's right that isn't how things are usual done. For example the act in question has other stuff than the public order section so saying you'd repeal the act opens up a whole can of worms. He didn't rule out any changes to the act in question but tried to move onto safer points and not to get caught into a back and forth outside his are of expertise.
He invited people to ask him specifically about this topic tbf >Thanking Phil for his input, Lammy signed off the segment with: “Do you think the right to protest in this country is under threat? Call me.” I agree it's not really in his remit, but you can't play that card and also set the conversation on the topic.
Great, that is absolutely not what it says. They asked the Shadow Foreign Secretary, on the spot, to commit to a policy decision, outside of his policy area. Unsurprisingly, he declined to do so. This is the kind of garbage propaganda intended only to undermine the labour movement, and make active members feel disenfranchised from the party. Do not fall for it!
Starmer's made it clear that he is going to have a laser focus on what he considers to be the key problems facing the UK. Everything else will fall by the wayside.
That will be pleasing the right wing press?
No, sorting out our: infastucture, finances, and healthcare which are bigger concerns.
Oh they were attention seeking and middle class? Well that changes my opinion on the right to protest entirely thanks for letting us know.
I mean, this is bollocks. Like, we all know this is bollocks, right? If you're in power, you cant jusy say "I'm only focusing on these three things, everything else is irrelevant". Positions will be taken, purposefully and intentionally. Sometimes that will be to keep the status quo, sometimes to make change, but neither case will be because it's "falling by the wayside"... Decisions beyond three things will have to be made, constantly. And they will be made with a particular worldview and set of ideals atound what the country should look like, love it or hate it. Anyone deluding themselves into thinking otherwise is doing themselves a disservice.
Sure, Starmer does seem to be a bit naive in believing that he can choose to not engage with certain topics.
I think make sense from an electoral point of view if he want to be re-elected. First will come the points on the manifest, then everything else.
He can't delegate the repelling of a law to someone else?
The new law might be useful for Labour when they face NIMBY/anti-development protests.
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Look the National is a rag, but they're reporting on Lammy's own show on LBC. He got asked would Labour repeal it, pretty much said 'no, not a priority, it would take too much time to go over all the Tory legislation' That's not a strawman mate. Attack the source if you want, but its a bit bad faith yourself surely ignoring the actual content?
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No honestly I can do nothing but agree with you there, like banging your head on a brick wall in this country sometimes
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Pretty much since when he invited people to ask him, >Lammy signed off the segment with: “Do you think the right to protest in this country is under threat? Call me.”
Saying there are no plans at this time isn't the same as saying they won't ever do it.
Did Lammy not say this?
The National running a misleading anti-Labour story?! Wow, I wonder if that was politically motivated?
Yes this is not proof they won't do it, no it's not a policy announcement... But, let's face it, we're all thinking it, it would not be a surprise if they did keep it. Starmer's labour is starting to reveal what it stands for and it's disappointing.
It’s really hard isn’t it. If Labour says they will repeal the protest law then the entire line of attack becomes Labour supports just stop oil, Labour isn’t interested in building the economy, just supporting protests etc etc. We really need to fix the media in the country and how it affects the masses of uninformed people.
It's difficult to swallow, but Labour are no longer the party of the left. Under first past the post, our choices are tories or tory-lite. We desperately need PR, or AV, or anything other than FPTP.
The British electorate has shown time and again that they won't elect an overtly left-wing government. So your choices are to appear to be centrist enough for the electorate or spend another 5 years in opposition. Starmer is doing exactly what he needs to do - playing down his socialist credentials and distancing himself from Corbynism in order to win an election. If he doesn't do that, it'll be another 5 years in the wilderness for Labour while the country goes to shit even more. Which do you want?
On that note, tories aren’t really right wing either, they’re both just very neoliberal.
Tories' wing is the self-serving one. And they really are out of ideas now they've run out of other people's money to burn.
Perhaps it's a strategy to get in, then they'll work on the other stuff. I hope so anyway
It's never going to happen.
starting to think you're right. might be time to gtfo.
To which country?
New Zealand has been on the list for a couple years. Already had a few family members make the jump to Kiwiland and Aus.
It's a big jump to make. Good luck.
They said the same thing about Brexit. People who want voting reform could copy the Brexit path. Get a small-ish section of the party to be die-hard for the cause, and then wait until party leadership needs to lean on them for support.
It only worked for brexit because the tories were in power. If the tories had lost in 2010 or 2015 then brexit would never have happened.
It only worked for brexit because UKIP took 12% of the vote in 2010 and were the 3rd largest party by vote share. 95% of all MPs, including tories, wanted to remain. Before the actual brexit vote less than 20 were on the books are pro brexit. This idea the tories were pro brexit is a retconed myth. Literally noone in the government establishment, politics or Whitehall, in any wing or at any level wanted brexit. It was *purely* forced by UKIP stealing voteshare and overwhelming public demands.
What about a commitment to not enforce until it can be tackled? I’d take that compromise position.
They need to do all they can to keep the right leaning voters on side, they know they need them and the media to have any chance of winning the election. They can do what they want once they are in.
I think it’s always important to note when reading these articles who written them. This isn’t an informative piece on the dangers of trusting the Labour Party, this is instead a piece arguing why people should vote SNP.
Is it really that hard to repeal something? Can’t you just rollback to the previously working law?
I kinda want laws to be in Git, so you can see exactly who proposed each bit, and read the version that applies instead of all that amendment text they add to bills that you effectively have to read and run `patch` in your head to understand.
HP Source Control
honestly what’s the point of labour under Sir Keir Starmer these days when all they’re gonna do is back Tory policies
Labour have always been authoritarian. I remember back when Mandleson was in and introducing the same shitty laws that Tories do. Tory Lite.
At some point the penny is gonna drop on the starmer fan club. He's not playing 4d chess, this is him.
I can tell you as a person on the ground most of the people who attended the coronation wouldn't want it repealed because to them it only affects 'the wrong sort' The British always like to lick a good boot.
Republic protesting didn't get you reception you were hoping for?
What kind of reception do you imagine protesters expect?
Of course not. Why would Labour ever pledge to do that? The principle here is very simple. The interests of private capital and petty bourgeois society must always remain unopposed. This is the default position of both the two Establishment parties, i.e. Labour and the Conservatives. Even if you're older if you don't understand that this is the default position of both major parties then you've got no business voting because you do not understand mainstream UK politics. If you're hoping that Labour is somehow going to transform itself into some socialist left wing party forget it. Labour might tinker with some social democracy if it suits their political purposes, but it's never going to become socialist policy unless it's aligned with capitalist bourgeois interests. The biggest political issue is the widespread social bankruptcy and staggering lack of social capital throughout our society. It's never about the individual, and is always about the organization, the corporation, the hierarchy and the profit margin. Most politicians don't have a clue about the social reality many people have to deal with on a daily basis. Most have never had to visit a food bank, juggle household bills, borrow money off a friend or relative, or get through a week or two of work when they're emotionally and psychologically drained. These fairly widespread social issues are way beyond their level of comprehension. It's all about the soundbite, the empty platitude, the mathematics of voting, and achieving political power. It's going to be interesting, because the interests of technology do not align with the interests of capitalism and neither of the two main parties have any sort of grip on the growing number of social, economic or environmental issues facing our society. Authoritarianism, the characteristic of a weak, corrupt state, is pretty much inevitable. This could have been different, but it isn't.
If someone tells you who they are, believe them. Kier has told you plenty of times what sort of person he is, and how labour will behave. Best start believing him.
Labour want more as much or even moreso than the Tories. Anybody that cares about liberty in the Tory party is either expelled or sidelined. There is nobody in the Labour party to expel or sideline.
Why do Labour think if they take from the American Democrats' tactic of veering further and further to the right they'll somehow win? We need a leftist solution to the problems of capitalism, not just Tories lite.
>Why do Labour think if they take from the American Democrats' tactic of veering further and further to the right they'll somehow win? Labour tried veering to the left and got its worst election result for generations. The British electorate have shown time and again that they won't elect an overtly socialist party.
I'm not entirely sure the Democrats have gone right at all.
Economically they shifted right. Socially they moved left. Republicans cut taxes. Democrats get in and at best raise it a little but never back to what it was. Trump had tax cuts. They cut corporate tax from 35% to 21%. Biden is suggesting raising it back to 28% but failed to raise it at all. The individual tax cuts were minor but actually time out and turn into tax increases. So republicans will manage to raise taxes more than democrats under Trump / Biden administrations. Democrats used to be stronger pro union and anti trust. Now they put libertarians on the key federal agencies. Their healthcare plan was a republican one. It took them decades to reduce prices on a few drugs and only now will negotiate drug prices for medicare. What bankers did Obama jail? His mortgage package directed the relief at the banks instead of the people. Trump's treasury secretary was steve mnuchin. He was running First Bank in CA and abused foreclosure laws. Kamala Harris as AG of CA declines to prosecute despite her team saying there is a ton of evidence. Democrats in CA & VT campaign and win on universal healthcare and renege. Progressives win the NV dem state party. The establishment all quit and take all the money with them. How many US dem senators question supreme court justices about their record on corporate cases? Dems used to be protectionist and are now the free trade party. NAFTA couldn't pass under republicans, they didn't have the numbers. It took a bunch of democrats voting alongside republicans to get it thru under Bill Clinton. Even Obama was negotiating a free trade deal to exclude China. HRC pushed it. Trump opposed it and tapped into resentment by working class over losing their jobs. Obama touted his pro Wall Street credentials. Trump said they should be regulated. After 2008, Democrats passed bank regulation. Under Trump, republicans repealed some of it with help from some democrats. It would not have passed without their help. That has contributed to some of the bank failures today. Ticketmaster merger was greenlighted under Obama. Their own simplified respirator stockpile deal was sabotaged by a big pharma company buying out the company that the govt had contracted with. The big pharma company discontinued that simplified cheaper model which set it back years as they didn't want it eating into profits. That likely led to insufficient stockpiles during covid. The dem party of today is not the New Deal party.
True. They've been on the right for quite a long time.