There's a word for people who take pleasure in the suffering of others
Sadist and sadists should never be allowed anywhere near our politics.
Almost the entire media reported a scripted comment
by Suella Braverman.
She talked about Guardian reading, Tofu eating, Wokarati.
And this was considered to be quite daring and funny.
But almost none of them reported
what she was doing when she said it.
What she was doing was pushing through the House of Commons
the most repressive legislation of the modern era.
And she seemed to do it gleefully she reveled in it, she enjoyed it,
she grinned all the way through it.
The Public Order Bill is the tool of dictators.
It's the definitive termination of our rights to protest.
Perhaps the most Sinister aspect of the bill is what it calls
"Serious disruption prevention orders'
These are orders that can be served on anyone
who has been to a protest in the past 5 years
or encouraged anyone else to go to a protest in the past 5 years
or in any way has supported a protest in the previous 5 years.
You can be subjected to the kind of restraints
that dangerous criminals might face when they're released
from prison on probation.
You have to report to the police as and when the police determine,
you're not allowed to associate with certain other people,
you are not allowed to go to a protest or encourage a protest
or possibly even look at protest related materials online.
And you can be forced to wear an electronic tag and have
monitoring equipment installed in your home.
I've seen some people say well they can't do it to everyone
I mean if millions of us protest they won't have the resources
to force us all to wear electronic tags.
But that's not how this works the way it works
is that they do it to the specific people they want to target,
to their political enemies to those they want to scapegoat
to those they want in particular to discourage
and that is how it always begins.
UK politicians love to lecture other nations about democracy
they say you should practice good governance
you should be like us.
But they really, really shouldn't be like us
we're a terrible model of democracy.
We have a prominent whistleblower and journalist
Julian Assange thrown into effectively a dungeon in Belmarsh Prison
just being left there to rot.
For the crime of exposing the misdeeds of the powerful.
And now we have these extremely oppressive forms of legislation the police can now arrest anyone
who protests the government says oh no no no we're not shutting down protests just protests
which causes serious disruption to two or more people or to an organization that's what we're
Prosecuting but the police Act passed earlier this year has redefined serious disruption so that it
now includes noise so any protests deemed to be causing a noise is causing serious disruption to
two or more people or to an organization in other words any protest but of course labor is going to
repeal all these repressive laws isn't it it's a party which grew out of the labor movement which
was all about protest uh no kirstama has made just one public statement related to the public
order Bill and he has endorsed its headline policy of raising the penalties for people
who block roads that's a year in prison twice the penalty for common assault and while labor
voted against it in the House of Commons there is no Prospect I can see that under kirstama former
director of public prosecutions these laws will be repealed in fact in the previous incarnation
of right-wing labor under Blair and brown we saw a series of Highly repressive new laws brought
in prevention of harassment act 2000 terrorism act 2005 serious crime act which Gravely eroded
our rights to protest the fact that these new acts brought in by a conservative government finish off
that process and terminate our right to protest I don't think we'll cause kirstarma a single Miss
minute of sleep when you look at it from this perspective when you see the conservatives and
the labor party both broadly supporting highly repressive Draconian legislation
you see the extent to which the faces may change but the fundamental policies do not
there is an elite consensus around deregulating business and re-regulating citizens and what
that means is basically preventing citizens from getting in the way of capital and it's
particularly telling that these new highly repressive laws are aimed at environmental
campaigners the people who question the very model of economic growth the people who point
out that business as usual is destroying the living world and as such they must be caged
and corralled and contained and prevented from interfering in the extraction of profit
from the country by Capital it's easy for people to say well that doesn't apply to me because I
don't protest I'm I'm a respectable citizen I'm I'm not one of those people who goes and sits
in the road but the most respectable citizens of all are the protesters because they're the ones
who have secured all our freedoms I couldn't be talking to you like I'm talking right now
if it weren't for the protests of our ancestors I wouldn't have a vote you wouldn't have a vote we
wouldn't even have a weekend if it weren't for the protests of our ancestors protest is the Bedrock
of democracy it's what secures our freedoms good citizenship is hand in love with protests you
cannot separate the two things so when people say Well they're not doing it to me yet oh yes they
are they're undermining your fundamental rights and freedoms even if you never intend to protest
yourself because it is protesters who secure those fundamental rights and freedoms protest is the bed
Rock of democracy obviously these new laws are terrifying but that doesn't mean we should be
terrified it does not mean we should be cowed into submission if you look at what our ancestors faced
the people who mobilized for the male franchise and were cut down in Manchester in the peterloo
massacre the people who mobilize for votes for women the suffragettes who were treated with
appalling Violence by the state the civil rights campaigners with the utterly brutal treatment they
face all the people who have fought for freedom down the ages many of them faced even greater
barriers than those we now face many of them literally put their lives on the line and yet they
still fought for freedom they fought for something bigger than themselves and unless we do the same
despite these laws even because of these laws then we will be betraying those who fought for us
once the public order bill becomes law even a film like this could be deemed to offend it because
I'm inciting protests maybe I'll end up with an electronic tag myself but regardless of that we'll
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