zlacker

If you're looking for evidence of the UK gov's authoritarian tendencies, you don't need to go looking at videos on Youtube, just look at the number of arrests of peaceful protestors who were given charges under terrorism legislation for holding up banners or wearing T-Shirts mentioning "Palestine Action" (ref https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/25/fate-of-hund...).

Or indeed in one notable case the person who was arrested for a T-Shirt about "Plasticine action"

>>raesen+(OP)
They're supporting a specific group that went into a military base and damaged military equipment (that was irrelevant to palestine/israel), those people going out with those T-Shirts know exactly why the group was proscribed and are seeking to be arrested, why are we shocked they got arrested, they wanted it.

>>raesen+(OP)
That’s because Palestine Action are a proscribed group.

Whether or not the proscription was correct is irrelevant, the current law means that you commit the same offence showing support for IS or the Terrorgram Collective.

The police can’t simply ignore one proscribed group over another as that leads to all manner of weird and wacky outcomes.

>>multjo+P1
The legislation which causes anyone expressing support of a proscribed group is the authoritarian thing I'm talking about. The Terrorism Act 2000 as implemented is the problem.

Having a law that means merely expressing support of a group, leads to criminal charges is not something I think should be in place in any country that pretends to support freedom of speech.

>>Chocol+11
Put it this way, the UK managed to get through the troubles, which had a lot of events far more serious than what Palestine action have done, without needing this level of policing of free speech.

The point I was making is that successive UK gov's are tending towards authoritarianism, the current one included.

>>multjo+P1
But they're only a proscribed group because the cabinet decided it was politically convenient to proscribe them.

It's not like these guys are the Taliban or the IRA, though some of them did chuck some paint on some planes.

So a person who is worried about Starmer's authoritarian tendencies lay responsibility for the police action at the door of number 10.

>>raesen+r3
If you're trying to convince Brits not to enact these policies "you guys made it through The Troubles" is a really bad argument unless you're very unfamiliar with the body count and terror and the public perception of that period in British history. (it included some fifty thousand casualties and sixteen thousand bombings)

An advocate of these policies would quite literally argue that not getting into something like The Troubles is the point and a lot of people would agree if that was what is on the horizon.

>>Barrin+U9
Can't say as I agree there. I was in the UK at the time (lived here all my life) and I'm fairly familiar with the horrors of the time.

My point is we were able to get through something like that, which was very serious, without needing to proscribe free speech in the way that's being done now for some people putting paint on planes.

So if we didn't need it for something that serious, we don't need it for this.

>>multjo+P1
You're only looking at the symptom, not the cause.

Who is doing the proscribing?

/rhetorical

>>raesen+(OP)
I'm actually very pro israel and i agree with you on this. It's "two tier" kier at his finest. Labour have demonstrated they have no problem using the police and judiciary to go after anyone who causes them problems. And they somehow convince themselves they have the moral high ground from which to lecture everyone else. Even conservatives with all their indifference and contempt for the British public were never so dishonest.

>>michae+d4
They destroyed "drone and aircraft machinery" [0] at APPH and at Teledyne "damage to the clean rooms could halt production for up to 12 months" [1].

[0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-57403049

[1]: https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/pro-palestine-activists-dama...

>>AftHur+oz
That's an argument for arresting and imprisoning a bunch of people for criminal damage, not an argument for proscribing an entire organisation and limiting their free speech.

The argument here is not the PA should be let off scot free. The argument is that proscribing them as an organisation is a massive and authoritarian overreaction to their actions.

>>michae+d4
Although PA was bundled in with two other organisations in the vote, the vote did pass 385 votes to 26, so it seems there was broad support across MPs, not just the cabinet.

>>MrJohz+LF
I should have included the quote I was responding to: "some of them did chuck some paint on some planes."

>>Chocol+11
Maybe those people are trying to make the point that if the government can, without public scrutiny, declare any organisation as terrorist and then arrest anyone who wears t-shirts mentioning that organisation - then the government has way too much power.

>>AftHur+UJ2
Is that inaccurate? Unless the goal was to strike terror into the hearts of some insurance companies, in what way does the scale of the damages affect whether this organisation should be proscribed? Should we be proscribing Bernie Madoff next?

>>MrJohz+B04
"chuck some paint" is a deliberate misrepresentation.

It misleadingly describes the scale, coordination, and intent. It uses a minor detail to trivialize an act explicitly intended to reduce military capacity.

>>AftHur+Rn5
Is there any scale of paint chucking that can realistically represent a terrorist threat? Is there any scale of paint chucking that should lead to proscription? Because that's the key point here. It's not "can they be prosecuted for paint chucking?" (yes, obviously), or "can their paint checking escapades have serious costs or ramifications?" (sure, lock them up!) it's a question of whether their actions constituted such a grave threat to the safety of the United Kingdom that the only way of dealing with that was to make it illegal to even support their group.

If we as a country are so at risk from paint chucking that we're resorting to proscription as our tool of defence, then we have some serious issues.