Wednesday, October 15, 2025
A threat to financial and political transparency
The paper says that when Elon Musk appeared on huge screens dotted along Whitehall calling for thousands of attendees at far-right campaigner Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally to “fight back… or die”, the tech billionaire’s image was accompanied by the logos of the event’s sponsors. All but one were cryptocurrencies.
They say that these images highlighted the arrival in Britain of a global pattern: the embrace by extreme rightwing movements of decentralised digital currencies:
Authorities have long warned that cryptocurrencies pose an urgent challenge to the UK’s democracy by enabling hostile state actors and foreign nationals to secretly donate to political parties.
Tom Keatinge, director of the Royal United Services Institute’s Centre for Finance and Security, said: “The average person in the UK might think of it as being a marginal thing, but in that [far-right] community – which is a growing community – it’s mainstream.
“Historically, there’s been one form of money. It’s been issued by the central bank, and that’s been controlled by the government. That isn’t the case any more.”
The article points out that Athena Bitcoin Global, one of the main sponsors of the event, which saw up to 150,000 people gather in central London, has been accused of profiting from cybercrime in the US.
Meanwhile, senior Labour MPs have expressed concern about the prospect of crypto-based political donations and are pressing ministers to delay the much anticipated elections bill, designed to change electoral oversight laws, so that it can include a clause banning them. Ireland, Brazil and Greenland have all banned crypto donations.
These concerns crystallised last weekend with a report in the Observer that several sources told the paper that the Electoral Commission had been given prior notice by a party, understood to be Reform UK, that it had received a donation made in cryptocurrency in recent weeks:
Reform is the only political party in Europe to accept donations in crypto, something that its leader, Nigel Farage, announced at a bitcoin conference in Las Vegas in spring. Its party conference in Birmingham last month was sponsored by several alternative finance groups, including at least two crypto companies.
While the value of the donation is not yet known, parties only need to notify the commission if they have received more than £11,180 centrally. MPs, who have a lower reporting threshold of £2,230, are expected to declare donations on their register first.
A Reform spokesman said: “All donations above the reporting limit will be disclosed in the usual way.”
We need more transparency in politics, not less. That is why it is so important that controls are imposed on crypto currency donations.
Authorities have long warned that cryptocurrencies pose an urgent challenge to the UK’s democracy by enabling hostile state actors and foreign nationals to secretly donate to political parties.
Tom Keatinge, director of the Royal United Services Institute’s Centre for Finance and Security, said: “The average person in the UK might think of it as being a marginal thing, but in that [far-right] community – which is a growing community – it’s mainstream.
“Historically, there’s been one form of money. It’s been issued by the central bank, and that’s been controlled by the government. That isn’t the case any more.”
The article points out that Athena Bitcoin Global, one of the main sponsors of the event, which saw up to 150,000 people gather in central London, has been accused of profiting from cybercrime in the US.
Meanwhile, senior Labour MPs have expressed concern about the prospect of crypto-based political donations and are pressing ministers to delay the much anticipated elections bill, designed to change electoral oversight laws, so that it can include a clause banning them. Ireland, Brazil and Greenland have all banned crypto donations.
These concerns crystallised last weekend with a report in the Observer that several sources told the paper that the Electoral Commission had been given prior notice by a party, understood to be Reform UK, that it had received a donation made in cryptocurrency in recent weeks:
Reform is the only political party in Europe to accept donations in crypto, something that its leader, Nigel Farage, announced at a bitcoin conference in Las Vegas in spring. Its party conference in Birmingham last month was sponsored by several alternative finance groups, including at least two crypto companies.
While the value of the donation is not yet known, parties only need to notify the commission if they have received more than £11,180 centrally. MPs, who have a lower reporting threshold of £2,230, are expected to declare donations on their register first.
A Reform spokesman said: “All donations above the reporting limit will be disclosed in the usual way.”
We need more transparency in politics, not less. That is why it is so important that controls are imposed on crypto currency donations.
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Farage seeks to distance Reform from the Russians
The website says that Farage – who led both of those parties – told the BBC on Friday: "I'm the only person in the senior management team of Reform who's ever even met him", however, Reform's current deputy leader Richard Tice and chairman David Bull both spent time with the Anglesey-based politician, who was an MEP for Wales between 2014 and 2020:
Before his exposure as a Russian asset, Gill was effusively praised by Tice at a Brexit Party event in 2019. Introducing Gill to the stage, Tice said: "Your first speaker is well known to you. He's been an MEP for the last five years. He's also before that been a very successful entrepreneur who employed over 200 people."
Tice was leader of Reform when he posted on social media a picture of himself smiling next to Gill outside the Senedd in Cardiff Bay. The post, from April 2021, read: "Great to be with Nathan Gill, leader of Reform UK Wales, campaigning today. Wales needs to reopen, never lockdown again and focus on cutting taxes..."
In 2019 Gill filmed himself welcoming newly-elected Brexit Party colleagues to the European Parliament – including David Bull, who at the time was MEP for North West England and is now chairman of Reform. Bull could be seen smiling, puffing out his cheeks and saying "it's overwhelming" as Gill filmed his reaction to the parliament's Strasbourg headquarters.
Gill and Bull were among a delegation of MEPs who visited Indian-administered Kashmir in 2019, alongside fellow Brexit Party members Alexandra Phillips and James Wells. The visit was controversial as Kashmir's opposition parties had been barred from fact-finding missions since India withdrew the region's semi-autonomous status.
Plaid Cymru's Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts said: "Nigel Farage has been caught lying again. His own deputy, Richard Tice, stood alongside Nathan Gill and heaped praise on him – the former Reform leader in Wales who has now admitted taking Russian bribes.
"It’s yet another example of Farage saying whatever suits him in the moment, no matter the facts."
This story is going to run all the way to the Senedd elections.
Monday, October 13, 2025
A toxic environment
The Guardian reports that voluntary organisations say they are being forced to introduce extensive security measures to protect staff and property – a trend described by one charity head as in danger of becoming the “new normal” – after being targeted amid increasingly toxic rhetoric around immigration and race by politicians and extremist activists.
The paper says that refugee and asylum seeker charities, Muslim, Jewish and ethnic minority organisations, women’s groups, youth bodies, homelessness charities and even charity shops have reported being subject to violence, threats and abuse:
Incidents include threats to rape and kill staff, verbal and physical abuse of beneficiaries on the street, attempted break-ins to charity-owned accommodation, and damage to offices and vandalism, including anti-migrant and racist graffiti.
Charities were being “targeted because of what they stand for and who they support”, said Saskia Konynenburg, executive director at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.
The threat has become more explicit and targeted since the far-right Southport riots in 2024 and the spread of inflammatory political and social media rhetoric around immigrants and “small boats”, say charities. They add the abuse has become more extreme and uninhibited in the way it is expressed or enacted, both on and offline.
A coalition of more than 150 charities including Age UK, Citizens Advice and the Muslim Council of Britain has written to the prime minister, Keir Starmer, urging him to challenge the “cynical” targeting of civil society organisations by far-right politicians and activists seeking to stoke division for political gain in local communities.
Ali Harris, the chief executive of equality and human rights charity Equally Ours, which organised the letter, said: “The devastating antisemitic attack at Heaton Park Synagogue is a tragic reminder that it’s never been more important for us all to stand united when any of our communities are targeted.
“We are taking this collective stand because the organisations in this coalition and the communities we serve are experiencing growing threats and aggression – in places of worship, offices, shops, on public transport and high streets. People with extreme views are increasingly violent in how they express or act on their hatred.”
One charity chief executive told the Guardian increasingly mainstream political rhetoric on the political right denigrating immigrants and refugees, and stoking community divisions along ethnic lines had created a “permission structure” for racism which had emboldened far-right activists.
Last month, a drugs and alcohol charity in east London that formerly shared its premises with a refugee support charity was daubed with a George Cross and far-right graffiti. Volunteers repainted the office front only for far-right activists to return and deface the building with the slogan “East London stands with Southport”, a reference to the far right riots in Southport in 2024.
Some charities have taken drastic safeguarding action in response to the threats including installing safe rooms, fitting staff with phone trackers, hiring security guards, taking down charity signs outside offices, removing staff names from websites and redacting trustee names from publicly available Charity Commission filings.
Others have temporarily closed offices on the advice of local police, stopped providing outreach services because of the potential danger to staff and beneficiaries, and drawn up emergency action plans in the event their premises are attacked.
One refugee charity head said they currently spent “60% of the time managing safety issues related to far-right activism”. Another charity told the Guardian it was considering spending thousands of pounds on personal safety devices. One charity head described the tight focus on staff security as the “new normal”.
The most depressing aspect of all this is the failure of UK Labour Ministers to challenge the hate and bigotry head-on instead of pandering to it. Surely, it is time to take a stand.
Sunday, October 12, 2025
Labour hypocrisy on no-fault evictions
The paper says that scrapping no-fault evictions “immediately” was one of Labour’s main manifesto pledges before its 2024 election win, but more than a year on, the party’s flagship renters’ rights bill has not been made law:
Local authorities cannot normally carry out no-fault evictions – known officially as section 21 evictions – as they apply to tenancies issued by private landlords.
However, Lambeth council in south London has been able to start eviction proceedings against 63 households because it created an arm’s-length body to manage some of its housing stock.
Five families have already been issued with possession orders via the courts and two of those have had their homes repossessed by bailiffs. Another 24 have left properties voluntarily after receiving a section 21 notice.
Internal council documents seen by the Guardian suggest that council officials have been planning to regain possession of the properties since at least 2023, but the full implementation of the scheme was delayed until after last year’s election.
An internal briefing document from March 2024 read: “Advice received from democratic and legal services [is] that this is a key decision and it is too controversial to take during the pre-election period.”
Plans to evict the tenants were made despite the fact Lambeth council wrote to the Conservative government in 2019, asking it to end no-fault evictions.
The tenancies were overseen by Homes for Lambeth, a group of companies wholly owned by the council. It was established in 2017 as part of an estate regeneration scheme. As part of this initiative, the local authority bought back some properties from residents who had purchased former council houses at a discount as part of the right-to-buy scheme introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1980.
The council then transferred these properties to Homes for Lambeth. This meant they were able to be rented on the private market, despite ultimately being owned by the local authority. At its peak, Homes for Lambeth managed about 200 properties across six estates.
However, Homes for Lambeth is now being disbanded due to concerns over poor performance after an independent review by former senior civil servant Bob Kerslake in 2022. Kerslake recommended that management of the Homes for Lambeth stock be brought back “in house” to improve efficiency.
About 100 of the homes were vacated voluntarily before eviction notices were issued. The council is now using legal measures in an attempt to regain possession of the remaining properties. In internal documents, it said this would help it meet the “most urgent” housing needs in the borough, including accommodating vulnerable families who needed temporary housing after being made homeless.
Some residents tried to challenge the decision in court, but in June a judge ruled that current laws do not prevent councils from setting up companies to issue private tenancies.
Judge them by what they do, not by what they say.
Saturday, October 11, 2025
An unusual venue
This building was used by the old West Glamorgan County Council for formal dinners and other occasions, but my first experience of it was shortly after I was elected as a Welsh Assembly member in 1999, when Prince Charles hosted a formal (and largely inedible) dinner there.
Since then I have been back on a number of occasions, as an AM, as Lord Mayor of Swansea and also for a wedding reception. On each occasion the catering far exceeded my first experience, which I largely put down to menu choice - I'm chiefly a pie and chips man.
As the Margam Country Park website recounts, the Orangery was built by 1790 to house a great collection of orange, lemon and other citrus trees, which the Talbots inherited from their Mansel forebears:
Nothing is known for certain of the origin of these trees, but legends suggest that originally they were originally a gift for the crown. As they were being transported the ship was wrecked on the coast near Margam and the trees claimed by the Mansels. Travellers who journeyed through Wales at the end of the eighteenth century in search of picturesque beauty, and who published accounts of their tours, noted several versions of the legend. Queen Elizabeth I, Charles I, Charles II’s wife Catherine of Braganza and William III’s Queen Mary all appear in the variations of the story.
By the mid-eighteenth century the citrus collection numbered about one hundred trees and was housed in several greenhouses in the park. It was the bold design of Thomas Mansel Talbot to build the present Orangery, 327 feet in length, to accommodate the whole collection.
In Britain orange trees need protection from the severity of our winter weather, but in the summer months they can stand out of doors and were used to ornament the formal gardens of the time. As a building the Orangery is superbly functional; long and narrow with a series of twenty-seven tall windows to admit the winter light. The plain back wall contained fireplaces, from which hot air passed through flues. In its centre was the high door through which fully-grown trees could be wheeled into the garden.
A building of such length risked appearing monotonous, but this was avoided by imaginative treatment of the façade. Deeply-worked stone, offset by smooth-faced ashlar, holds light and shadow in the ever- changing, strongly emphasised, horizontal lines of the plinth. The band of rusticated vermiculated stone, the matching heights of key-stones, the frieze of triglyphs, and the row of sculptured urns on the skyline all give a sense of unity and harmony. The building ends with pavilions of smooth stone ornamented with delicately carved scrollwork and lit by Venetian windows.
The stone from which the Orangery is built was hewn locally, in Thomas Mansel Talbot’s own quarry at Pyle. The men who dressed the stone worked under the master mason William Gubbings, one of the craftsmen who had been employed earlier on the villa at Penrice under Talbot’s architect Antony Keck.
When the Margam estate was bought by the former Glamorgan County Council in 1973, the Orangery was in ruins. Four years later, the restoration of this impressive building had been completed and it was opened by the Queen in her Silver Jubilee Year.
Friday, October 10, 2025
Starmer takes another step towards authoritarianism
The Guardian reports that Starmer will be ordering the home secretary to look at further curbs on protests including potential powers to take action against specific inflammatory chants at pro-Palestinian protests.
The paper says that the prime minister told reporters that he is looking at going even further than the measures announced by Shabana Mahmood, which would look at the “cumulative impact” of repeat protests in certain locations:
The proposals have been attacked by civil liberties group over the threats the potential restrictions pose to the right to protest. But after a terror attack on a Manchester synagogue, Starmer is also under pressure to go further, especially over chants that could invoke violence, such as “globalise the intifada”.
Over the weekend, Mahmood said the new laws would allow police officers to consider the cumulative impact of protest when deciding whether or not they are lawful. Protests could be re-routed or even barred altogether if their impact was considered too disruptive.
But Starmer said there was more that could be done, specifically to address the small minority of protesters on pro-Gaza marches who he suggested engaged in antisemitic hate.
“I’ve asked the home secretary to look more broadly at what other powers are available, how they’re being used and whether they should be changed in any way,” he said. “I think we need to go further than that in relation to some of the chants that are going on at some of these protests.”
Starmer also suggested that police forces could take further steps themselves. “That has to be part of the review that we carry into what powers do we have and how they’re being exercised. And then the question of do any of these powers therefore need to be changed or enhanced?
“And that’s the exercise we’re going through. But we are talking at length to leaders of the Jewish community about this, as you would expect.”
Starmer said the review would take in all of the government’s current powers over public order. “I think we need to review more broadly public order powers and there will be a series of actions that we will agree in due course across Whitehall,” he said.
There are already laws against hate crime, meaning that these additional provisions are only needed as part of an attempt to suppress dissent. Labour really are returning to their authoritarian type.
Tories embrace Liz Truss budget rules
Figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies show it would cost around £4.5bn to axe the tax as it stands, but the Conservatives offered a “cautious” estimate that it would cost £9bn by the end of the decade.
The party said this would be paid for out of a £47bn pot of savings shadow ministers claim to have found, made up of welfare cuts, downsizing the civil service and further slashing the country’s foreign aid budget.
In her speech, Ms Badenoch said: “The next Conservative government will abolish stamp duty on your home. It will be gone.
“That is how we will help achieve the dream of home ownership for millions.”
Ms Badenoch also vowed that the Conservatives will undo a series of Labour tax hikes they have campaigned against.
Most notable was the promise to undo the government’s changes to inheritance tax on family farms, dubbed the tractor tax.
Also for the chop under a Tory government is Labour’s levy of VAT on private school fees, which Ms Badenoch said was a “vindictive tax on education”.
These too would be funded from its £47bn savings pot.
All of these pledges may well have gone down well with the few faithful who were there to hear the speech but there are real questions about the proposed spending cuts that are meant to fund them, not least being that if it is that easy, why didn't the last Tory government implement them when they had the chance? Why didn't they abolish stamp duty if that is what they believe is necessary?
I can't help thinking that the savings figure was plucked out of thin air rather the result of detailed research.
This is Trussian economics at its worse, unfunded promises that will crash the economy, while benefitting the better off in society, in this case the owners of expensive homes.
Thursday, October 09, 2025
Another Brexit crisis
The paper says that the European Commission has revealed plans to double the current level of 25 per cent, while reducing tariff-free import volumes to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47 per cent reduction:
The director general of UK Steel said the fresh tariffs would be “devastating” to the industry, which currently exports 78 per cent of its steel to the EU. The increase comes after the industry is still dealing with the impact of 25 per cent tariffs on imports to the US, imposed by Donald Trump.
The prime minister has said he is in discussions with both the US and EU about the tariffs, saying the government is strongly supportive of the steel industry.
Gareth Stace, of UK Steel, warned the government must “go all-out” to secure quotas for the UK or “potentially face disaster”.
Speaking to Times Radio, he said: “This is perhaps the biggest crisis the UK steel industry has ever faced.
“The US has closed off its steel market to imports, and today, what we’ve seen is the EU proposing to do the same.
“We’re seeing a rapid rise of protectionist trade measures all over the world. And let me tell you, the last country to defend its steel industry will be the first country to deindustrialise. This is a massive issue for our sector.
“If the UK government can’t get round the table with the EU and convince the EU that we’re their friend, not their enemy, and then carve out a reasonable quota for UK exports into the EU, then we will see job losses in our sector.
“We will never, if we can’t get a deal, be the same steel sector in the UK ever again if we cannot trade with our biggest trading partner.”
This is going to be another blow to the steel industry and in particular communities in Port Talbot, already reeling from a huge number of redundancies. In many ways though this is yet another Brexit crisis.
If we were still in the single market the UK would be on the right side of these tariffs. Perhaps that is what Keir Starmer should be negotiating.
Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Labour's Reform-lite policy threatens NHS
The paper says that Prof Nicola Ranger, the RCN general secretary, told them: “Health and care services would cease to function without migrant nursing staff. While other countries offer immediate paths to settlement for nurses, the UK is going in the opposite direction.”:
Labour is proposing to double the time that overseas workers will have to wait – from five to 10 years – before they can apply for indefinite leave to remain or claim any kind of benefit, including tax-free childcare, disability living allowance or housing support.
The plans, outlined by the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, at the Labour conference last week, would also mean foreign workers would have to volunteer in their local communities and pass a number of other existing tests to gain British citizenship.
The proposals were first outlined the government’s immigration white paper in May and are seen as a direct response to the rising electoral threat of Reform UK.
The RCN, which represents more than 500,000 nurses in the UK and overseas, said the policy would “deny people access to vital support for a decade or more, increase poverty and ultimately drive them away when there are already gaping holes in the workforce”.
Ranger, who is also the union’s chief executive, added: “These proposals are no way to treat people who come to the UK to care for patients, become part of our communities and pay tax.
“It is pandering of the worst kind, ignorant of the impact on valued migrant staff and their families, but also the patients who need safely staffed services. Yes, ministers need to grow the domestic workforce, but the UK must also be a welcoming, secure place for international nurses.”
More than 800 NHS workers criticised the plan on Monday as “harmful, divisive and xenophobic” and warned that the health service would “crumble” without them.
The plans have caused concern in several key public services – including the NHS, social care and prisons – which rely heavily on overseas workers. About one in five NHS staff in England are not British, according to official figures.
In a letter coordinated by the groups Praxis and Medact, the 800-plus medics said the “already strained NHS would crumble under the pressure” of these proposals, potentially triggering a staff exodus and discouraging overseas medics from working in the UK.
A social worker who spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity said 25-50% or more of his team would be likely to leave the UK if the government made it harder for them to gain citizenship. “The policy is foolish in terms of the impact it’s going to have on the NHS and [it’s] cruel on all the people it’s going to affect,” he said.
The letter says nurses, doctors, dentists and other NHS professionals are “deeply concerned” by Mahmood’s plans to impose “longer and more precarious” routes to settlement.
It turns out that the health service is no safer in the hands of Labour than it would be under the Tories or Reform.
Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Reform's local difficulties
The Guardian reports that a Reform UK-run council where the party sought to pilot drastic cost-cutting plans is going to have to raise council tax after all.
The paper quotes Reform’s cabinet member for adult social care, Diane Morton, as saying that services at Kent county council were already “down to the bare bones”. It makes Kent the latest local authority controlled by Nigel Farage’s party to signal its intention to raise council tax:
“We’ve got more demand than ever before and it’s growing,” Morton told the Financial Times. “We just want more money.”
Morton said she believed the local authority would raise council tax by 5% – the maximum permitted – as councils try to honour their legal duty to make sure spending adds up before budgets are set for next year.
The Reform leaders of Northamptonshire Council, Durham Council, and Staffordshire Council are also looking at putting up council tax, their words reflecting every other council leader in the country, except that Reform were the ones who had promised something different.
As the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, Daisy Cooper says, the admission of a looming council tax rise in Kent is a “spectacular failure” for which the party's head of policy, Zia Yusuf, must “personally apologise”:
“Reform’s pledge to slash millions from Kent council’s budget has turned out to be nothing but smoke and mirrors. Just like his idol Elon Musk, Zia Yusuf has spectacularly failed to deliver what ‘Doge’ promised,” she said.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Guardian we are told that the finances of one of Nigel Farage’s key confidants are being examined by the UK’s tax and revenue authorities amid questions over his income from wealth and business activities.
They say that the scoping exercise by HMRC is said to be focused on tax residency and the business affairs of George Cottrell, whom Reform UK’s leader Farage has described as “like a son to me”.
And, only a couple of weeks ago, Reform UK's former leader in Wales admitted taking bribes to make statements in favour of Russia while being a Member of the European Parliament.
The BBC say that Nathan Gill pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery between 6 December 2018 and 18 July 2019:
The politician took money from Oleg Voloshyn - a man once described by the US government as a "pawn" of Russian secret services - and made speeches in the parliament, statements to a TV channel and arranged an event with a pro-Russian politician.
Gill was a close ally of Nigel Farage, while Llyr Powell, Reform UK's candidate for the Caerphilly Senedd by-election later this month, worked for him prior to the offences taking place. Neither were involved in the offences.
Monday, October 06, 2025
Labour's authoritarian drift
We already have the proposal by Labour ministers to introduce compulsory ID cards, with all the potential for linking up databases into one insecure one and the creation of a surveillance state, now, the Guardian reports that Labour Ministers are to give police new powers to target repeated protests, aimed particularly at cracking down on demonstrations connected to Gaza. So much for free speech and the right to protest.
The paper says that the announcement, made the morning after almost 500 people were arrested in London for expressing support for Palestine Action, a proscribed organisation, could allow police to order regular protests to take place at a different site, with home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, also looking at all anti-protest laws, with the possibility that powers to ban some protests outright could be strengthened.
The Home Secretary is no stranger to protest, as illustrated below, however now she is in power, she wishes to restrict that right for others:
Under the planned powers, Mahmood will push through rapid changes to the Public Order Act 1986, allowing police to consider the “cumulative impact” of repeated protests. Details will be set out “in due course”, the announcement said.
If a protest has caused what a Home Office statement called “repeated disorder” at the same site for repeated weeks, police would be able to order the organisers to move it elsewhere, with anyone who fails to obey risking arrest.
Mahmood, the statement added, would “also review existing legislation to ensure that powers are sufficient and being consistently applied”, including police powers to ban some protests completely.
Asked on Sky about the plan, Mahmood said: “What I will be making explicit is that cumulative disruption, that is to say the frequency of particular protests in particular places, is in and of itself, a reason for the police to be able to restrict and place conditions.”
This could involve police ordering protest organisers to move the event, or restrict the timescale, she said.
The real problem here, of course, is that having proscribed Palestine Action for protests that don't come anywhere near the extremes adopted by the Suffragettes, who are lauded by the same ministers, Labour are embarrassed by the scale of resistance to their ban and are trying to snub it out. In doing so, despite all the caveats and weasel words, they are undermining fundamental democratic rights.
Their actions, and those of the Tories before them, have also politicised the police, using officers to suppress inconvenient opinions legitimately expressed on our streets. No wonder the police are said to be exhausted. These are the actions of authoritarians, not democrats.
If a protest has caused what a Home Office statement called “repeated disorder” at the same site for repeated weeks, police would be able to order the organisers to move it elsewhere, with anyone who fails to obey risking arrest.
Mahmood, the statement added, would “also review existing legislation to ensure that powers are sufficient and being consistently applied”, including police powers to ban some protests completely.
Asked on Sky about the plan, Mahmood said: “What I will be making explicit is that cumulative disruption, that is to say the frequency of particular protests in particular places, is in and of itself, a reason for the police to be able to restrict and place conditions.”
This could involve police ordering protest organisers to move the event, or restrict the timescale, she said.
The real problem here, of course, is that having proscribed Palestine Action for protests that don't come anywhere near the extremes adopted by the Suffragettes, who are lauded by the same ministers, Labour are embarrassed by the scale of resistance to their ban and are trying to snub it out. In doing so, despite all the caveats and weasel words, they are undermining fundamental democratic rights.
Their actions, and those of the Tories before them, have also politicised the police, using officers to suppress inconvenient opinions legitimately expressed on our streets. No wonder the police are said to be exhausted. These are the actions of authoritarians, not democrats.
