"Protesters who wear masks could face arrest, up to a month in jail and a £1,000 fine under proposed measures that human rights campaigners claim are pandering to “culture war nonsense”.
Police in England and Wales will be given the power to arrest people if they are wearing face coverings at specific demonstrations, the Home Office has said."
Been a bad 18 months or so for privacy in the UK. Online Safety Bill passed, the right to take strike action curtailed, people in receipt of benefits (including disabled people) will soon (as from 2025) have their bank accounts open to the government, the right to protest curtailed and now this.
Antifa ain’t happy about that.
Hmm…I wonder which political spectrum the current government belongs to…
Whatever gets them votes. Actual conservatives would at least pretend to care about the economy.
Why? Conservatism is about preserving traditional values and traditional power structures not the economy.
If you actually care about the economy that means you care about progressing a more effective and efficient state for the benefit of the people. Afraid that makes you a progressive which the conservatives assure us they aren’t.
Well if they were conservative and cared about traditional values, they wouldnt have let in so many migrants.
What “traditional values” are you talking about?
We’re a nation of migrants; you don’t get to rewrite history because it makes you mad.
The first immigration law passed in this country was a process for naturalization; it doesn’t get more traditional than that.
The UK isn’t a nation of migrants, they are not America.
Someone tell the 1066 Normans they were actually born in England.
Oh, and the Romans.
Oh, and the Saxons.
Oh you mean the guys who literally invaded? I don’t think you’re helping your case.
Fuck the Tories right, but I also don’t see Starmer opposing any of this.
Starmer is like like 1 cm left of rishi
Exactly… (leaving both firmly on the right)
Vote none, and start organising (in your work place, in your community, in your own home inspiring your kids). If you still can’t see that the system is designed by the rich and powerful for the rich and powerful, you’re not paying any real attention (precisely why the media keeps society constantly looking at anything but how things are really run).
We need to abolish the establishments keeping us down, not continue to play their game by their rules and wonder why things never change…
I hate kier but not voting for Labour would be stupid, protest votes or non votes don’t count any the only people pushing that idiocy are the rich right wing because they don’t want you to vote against them
Everyone just thinks ‘oh look these people are too dumb, busy, or disconnected to vote oh well’
You can still resist and work against a system you voted for,
They need the facial recognition software to do it’s thing so they can make sure life gets difficult for anyone conscious of their actions.
Man its like the UK is an authoritarian shit hole or something. Y’all need weapons and resistance. And no, I’m not American before someone asks.
Curious, where are you from? I like it when people from other countries use y’all, especially when the apostrophe is in the right place 🙂
Im Canadian which I’ll be the first to admit is basically American.
Jus’ so ya know, “y’all” pops up on my phone’s autocorrect. I wouldn’t reckon it’s all that reliable of a metric, so don’t go puttin’ too much faith in it.
Heh, I see what y’all did there…
Fake beards, wigs , sunglasses and presumably face paint should be ok
Stay safe protestors. Leave id and phone at home, don’t hold anything that could be interpreted as a weapon, and carry a “your rights” card to help you remember what to do if the police try to take away your freedom.
It looks like this would apply to any item used to conceal one’s identity. So, it’s possible that all of those things could be included.
Face paint would be mind blowing, what will all the football fans do?
This is just the first step at making protests illegal.
I see no hope for this country. Things are just getting worse and worse every year, how long can this keep going?
It’s pretty bad now, but I seriously worry what things will be like in 20 or so years.
People hate on the US all the time, but the first amendment is very unique when you consider how other countries are curtailing people’s right to protest, practice their religion, etc.
An argument that might carry weight if you weren’t setting up hotlines for people to snitch on anything or anyone vaguely LGBTQIA+, removing books from libraries, allowing huge orgs to buy political favour, enslaving people in for-profit prison systems etc etc etc.
- Kids shouldn’t be coerced into being gay.
- Yeah lobbying sucks I agree
- If people don’t want to have to work in prison then they shouldn’t commit crimes.
Kids aren’t being “coerced into being gay”. That’s a batshit statement right there.
Also, slavery is always bad. End of story. Putting any leeway in there is disgusting.
World
FTFY
Never gets old how westerners see themselves as the world.
Climate change only affects westerners? Things are going badly for the world.
Climate change affects everyone, but that doesn’t mean it’s an unsolvable problem. In fact, at least one country is far along the path of mitigating it.
As long as world powers are putting profit over everything, we are not going to “solve” climate change.
We know how to fix it. We won’t do it, because there is A LOT of money to be made by doing so.
Sure, capitalism needs to be abolished for humanity to thrive.
And the other 194 countries?
Some are doing better than others, but emissions aren’t meaningfully improving in most other industrial countries.
Climate change is not something any one country can mitigate. It’s going to take all of us - the world.
Sure, but some countries are leading the change and others are dragging all of us down https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/19/business/us-production-oil-reserves-crude/index.html
Right, because the massacre of Ughir in China, genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, and attempted genocide of rural Burmese in Myanmar are all such good things. I also remember hearing that North Korea has finally locked down to the point where escape has been deemed impossible, and I don’t know what’s happening in South America or Africa currently, but I’m sure it isn’t all sunshine and roses there too. Oh yeah, isn’t South Korea having major societal issues right now as well? Something to do with women’s rights, if I remember correctly?
The Uyghur narrative is completely made up and has been debunked to death at this point. What Israel is doing in Gaza is directly enabled by the west. Likewise problems in Myanmar are also linked to US operations. Meanwhile, people are literally fleeing South Korea to the north at this point. South Korea is a direct product of western occupation. So yeah, much of the horrors going on in the world today can be traced directly to the western empire.
Is the UK turning into a dictatorship or an undeveloped country ? How is independent press doing over there ?
More like fascist-adjacent. And we started the process of underdeveloping ourselves when the fascist-adjacent leaders persuaded the terminally ignorant that Brexit would be great when it was obvious it was going to lead exactly where it is leading right now.
As if the EU is some kind of leader in freedom. 🤔
I guess it’s better than the UK for now, and there have been no attempted fascist coups for quite a few decades now. Even if we’re totally glass-half-empty, the EU is at least slamming on the brakes on the descent, while the UK is tearing their brakes off, and the US is deliberating whether using the brakes would hurt rich people.
Obviously, world governments are the answer to all our problems.
What are you on about? What alternative do you have?
The alternative? To a global government?
Anything but that. That my final offer
The EU is barely a government over the 480 million it represents. Where did you get the notion it’s a global government?
Remember remember the fifth of November,
When Guy Fawkes took the fall.
Be sure to wear your mask from now on,
They can’t arrest us all
damn, gpt is terrible at poetry
So if someone doesn’t want to get sick for being in a huge crowd, they get arrested? Truly genius.
Yes that’s why we wear masks yeah
It wasn’t before Covid, but it is now, and it should have been then.
On the privacy sub yep. For sure
This is an admittance that you have no right to protest.
What are.you going to do about it?
You’ve got to understand the ‘average’ British psyche at this point in history. The majority simply don’t care that people they see as troublemakers and/or scroungers are having their rights dismantled. They lack the empathy to give a shit for these people and they lack the foresight to see that it’ll be their rights gone one day too. What stirs the average british gammon off their collective arses these days is the rumour there might be an immigrant in a hotel somewhere or that a drag queen exists.
These must be western values we keep hearing so much about.
Yeah we really need to step it up. Sadly we’ll never live up to the shining example of Tiananmen Square. Peak human rights!
Ah I was just kidding, you probably mean the ability for Soviets to assemble. Like that one time they all banded together to put an end to…the Soviet Union. In that case yes we have much to aspire to!
Wow what an amazing counterpoint you’ve mustered there.
