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Jan 17,, 32 tweets, 15 min read
#THREAD

The Govt's draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Bill is authoritarian, antidemocratic, anti-free speech, & anti-British.

It is an insult to all the brave people who gave their lives in WWII to protect our freedoms.

It MUST be resisted.

#KillTheBill #PoliceBill
Former Director of Policy for PM David Cameron, Camilla Cavendish, today stated that Britain is "sleepwalking into a police state."

She said that MPs claiming facemasks "is an imposition on civil liberties, have waved through these provisions" effectively criminalising protest.
Since the 296 page #PoliceBill passed through the House of Commons, Priti Patel has brought in an ADDITIONAL 18 pages at the last second (effectively an additional Bill) which has had ZERO scrutiny from MPs, & which bring in further draconian provisions.

Among the new amendments are measures that would ban protesters from attaching themselves to another person, to an object, or to land. Not only would they make locking on illegal, but they could apply to anyone holding on to anything, on pain of up to 51 weeks’ imprisonment.
New measures include eg 'Serious Disruption Prevention Orders', which mean that if you've participated in two protests in a five year period - even if you haven't been convicted - you can be subject to a set of conditions such as having to contact the police when you move house.
#PoliceBill proposals include allowing judges to give whole life orders (life imprisonment with no parole) for the murder of a child, life sentences for drivers who kill behind the wheel & increasing the maximum sentence from 3 months to 10 YEARS for criminal damage to memorials!
The #PoliceBill significantly expands police powers, allowing officers widespread access to private education & health care records, & suspicionless stop & search - despite the overwhelming evidence showing #StopAndSearch is largely ineffective.

academic.oup.com/bjc/article/58…
Existing stop & search powers are used disproportionately against Black & Brown people, who are six times as likely to be stopped as white people. The new powers would create an even greater disincentive for people of colour to protest.
The #PoliceBill's trespass provisions make "residing on land without consent in or with a vehicle" a criminal offense.

This new offence, means a person can be criminalised for disobeying the instruction of a private citizen, which does not even have to be made in writing!
Part 3 of the #PoliceBill gives police forces broad authority to place restrictions on protests & public assembly, & the new amendments contain new powers to ban named people from protesting, including being banned if we have previously committed “protest-related offences”.
Under existing UK legislation, police must show that a protest may cause "serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community" before imposing any restrictions.

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-564007…
Under the #PoliceBill, police forces will be allowed to criminalise protests they believe constitute a "public nuisance", including imposing starting & finishing times & noise limits, & will be able to consider actions by ONE individual as "protests" under provisions of the bill.
The #PoliceBill was welcomed by the Police Federation of England & Wales - the statutory staff association for constables, sergeants, inspectors & chief inspectors, but the elected Association of Police & Crime Commissioners, registered their disagreement with the bill.
On proposed legally-binding restrictions on protests, Paddy Tipping, APCC Chair stated: "I think politicians would be wise to leave decisions to the responsible people." Tipping added that "they've got to leave people to make local decisions in local circumstances."
Michael Barton & Peter Fahy, the former chief constables of Durham Constabulary & Greater Manchester Police respectively, said in March 2021 that the law threatened civil liberties & constituted a politically-motivated move towards paramilitary policing.

theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/m…
Former police chief Michael Barton warned that the new protest laws contained in the #PoliceBill move Britain dangerously towards “paramilitary policing” & that UK ministers are “flexing their muscles via their police forces” like repressive regimes around the world.
#Liberty say the #PoliceBill "threatens protest" & the Govt’s new criminal justice legislation risks stifling dissent, criminalising Gypsy & Traveller communities, & subjecting marginalised communities to profiling & even more disproportionate policing.

libertyhumanrights.org.uk/issue/policing…
Kenan Malik warns the #PoliceBill reduces the right to protest to "whispering in the corner" - "an assault on the ability of people to protest", the product of a desire to curtail certain kinds of protests such as #BlackLivesMatter & #ExtinctionRebellion.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Even David Blunkett called it an "anti-protest bill" threatening to make Britain look like Putin´s Russia, saying the #PoliceBill is so badly drafted that it should unite people from across the political spectrum.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
By giving police forces sweeping discretion about how they deal with protesters, the #PoliceBill would drive a wedge between them & the public: the bill would allow police officers to impose *any* conditions they feel necessary on certain types of protest!
Ludicrously, the #PoliceBill also expands police powers to shut down demonstrations they feel would be unacceptably 'noisy or a nuisance'.

As David Blunkett warns - just try defining the term “nuisance”, because parliament certainly won’t, & you see the problem.
The #PoliceBill includes some of the most draconian, most authoritarian & most antidemocratic legislation of the last two centuries.

Changes to the Official Secrets Act mean journalists could face up to 14 years in jail for stories embarrassing the Govt.
Protests against the draconian #PoliceBill have taken place in London, Bristol, Guildford, Newcastle, Birmingham, Sheffield, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Brighton & many other places in England & Wales, but most citizens do not yet appreciate just how dystopian the #PoliceBill is.
The #PoliceBill takes Britain into a very dark place - reminiscent of 1930s Germany, by deliberately targeting Roma, Gypsy & Traveller people.

"The UK Govt says discrimination against black people & Travellers ‘objectively justified’ with new laws."

independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…
The new authoritarianism meshes with a very old one, where peasants were divided into villeins (good) & vagrants (bad), where people knew their place, geographically & socially. It’s about the rich controlling the poor, as if democracy had never happened.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
350 mental health professionals & experts have warned that the Govt's #PoliceBill “will have a profound negative impact on young people’s mental health”.

“We cannot think of better measures to disempower & socially isolate young people".

#KillTheBill medact.org/2022/blogs/ope…
#Protest has been used by the people throughout history to stand up to evil, corrupt, authoritarian & exploitative leaders & regimes.

#Protest has given us much of what we completely take for granted today & the 2010s have seen a rise in protests.

theconversation.com/decade-of-diss…
#Protest in the UK has concerned issues such as suffrage & parliamentary reform from the Chartists & suffragettes to the present day, poverty, unionisation, wages, working & living conditions, the poll tax, anti-war, live animal exports, gay rights, civil rights & climate change.
But I now seriously wonder if there is ANYTHING our dystopian Govt could say or do that would result in MASS protests.

Are we really going to meekly accept their lies & utter contempt for us, pretend the Nazis never happened, & sit back & watch while neo-fascism RUINS Britain?
The Govt's scapegoating of minorities; their nationalist & xenophobic rhetoric; their suspicion of experts, intellectuals & so-called "metropolitan" elites; their lies, authoritarian laws, & utter contempt for rules, human rights, & voters, IS neo-fascism.
opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-…
Here's a few quotes from John Smith's final leaders speech nearly thirty years ago. John was heading for a landslide & was that rare politician capable of uniting a country & standing for common decency & fairness. His words were prescient, & just as true today as they were then.
#TODAY #PoliceBill #KillTheBill

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Jan 17,
#THREAD on some @BBC stats 2020/21:

There's a significant problem for the @Conservatives with Nadine Dorries' unexpected @BBC distraction announcement: millions of us ♥️ the @BBC, & a key audience for the BBC is the same demographic that keeps the Tories in power - older voters. Image
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Jan 16,
A good attempt to answer the very pressing question: 'why are right-wingers so much more susceptible to believing lies & misinformation?'

slate.com/technology/201…
The lack of shared reality between left & right has contributed greatly to our current political polarization. Despite occasional left forays into reality denial, conservatives are far more likely to accept misinformation and outright lies.
Deliberate campaigns of misinformation & conservative preferences for information that fits in with their pre-existing ideology provide only a partial explanation.
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Jan 16,
"YouTuber. Christian. Trump Advisor. Husband and Father of 8 children. Here's my Podcast link..." 🤮

Free-market capitalism: the more dumb, unhinged, provocative, & outrageous the claims, the more the rewards (in heaven, but especially on earth!) ImageImageImageImage
In 2018, Trump appointed Taylor Marshall to his campaign’s Catholic Advisory Board. A Texan & convert to Catholicism, Marshall has long used YouTube to propagate a version of the faith that combines hard-core traditionalism with cloak-and-dagger intrigue.
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Jan 16,
Turns out that Boris Johnson & his government were lying about "levelling-up" too!

England’s north-south divide continues to deepen: the south-east is home to one-third of the UK population, but now accounts for 45% of its economy & 42% of its wealth.

theguardian.com/society/2022/j…
In the five years to 2019/20, London received the equivalent of £12,147 per person, while in the north the figure was only £8,125.

The stark disparities will fuel concerns among “red wall” Tory MPs that the govt’s "flagship policy" is just another cheap, manipulative, slogan.
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Jan 16,
John Smith could have said this today. So prescient. ❤
And this. How different - and so much better - would Britain have been today, had John Smith not been taken from us. ❤
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Jan 15,
Hard-right Tory MP & GB "News" presenter Dehenna Davison, attacks Britain's free press for the crime of *asking her questions*, after she was photographed with anti-vax literature which she claims was unsolicited.

A GB "News" presenter COMPLAINING about BEING ASKED QUESTIONS! 🤪
If you're not familiar with Dehenna, here's some basics:

She's from Sheffield, then went to Hull University & during her time there she spent a year working as a parliamentary aide for nonother than Jacob Rees-Mogg, which is presumably where she was radicalised.

Suits you sir!
On 14 February 2020, it was reported that she had been photographed with two far-right activists at a party to celebrate Brexit on 31 January in her constituency. Advocacy group Hope not Hate called for the Conservatives to undertake an investigation.
Read 12 tweets

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