O/T Which jab have you had?

[KerrAvon]

I think this Bill lowers the threshold for police intervention.

Kerr highlights it* "where there was a reasonable belief that the proposed demonstration would be noisy enough to cause intimidation or harassment or serious unease, alarm or distress”

Reasonable belief will be based on the opinion of a Senior Police Officer. The officer could be open to Government pressure. And thereby lies my concern with the bill.

We were repeatedly lectured that Brexit was about returning our sovereignty.* Yet, within a few months of leaving, the Brexiteer in Chief has handed over a basic right of a western democracy, the right to protest, to the subjective judgement of an unelected body.

And Brexiteers dont even bat an eyelid.* GM is more concerned with an ECHR ruling, when his human rights are being stripped back home. Quite staggering.

It makes me think it wasnt about sovereignty after all.

Well done. Yes the bill would lower the threshold for the police to be able to impose conditions upon demonstrations, just as I explained in my opening post on the subject.

They currently have powers to impose conditions that are exercisable upon the resonable belief of a senior police officer. Do you have examples of goverement pressure being exercised in relation to them? Are you concernd with the current law, whch has been around since 1986?

The idea of government pressure is, I think, rather far fetched. If the organisers of a demonstration disagree with a 'reasonable belief' decision then they can go to the High Court to challenge it (just as Reclaim the Streets did a few weeks ago, albeit in relation to a decision made under different legislation). If that happens, it will be the senior police officer who has to justify his decision, not a politician. Do you think a senior police officer is going to put himself in that firing line for a decsion her is she disagrees with? I don't. And what form of pressure do you have in mind?

How is a British government seeking to put a bill through a democratically elected British parliament anything other than an exercise of sovereignty?

[gm_gm]

The lefties dont half make me laugh.

Throughout the last 18 months there has been a constant refrain of 'tories are crooks' ' Boris is liar' ' 'you cannot trust this tory govt'
' all Johnson interested in his profit' ' the tories are ripping us off' 'f*ck of Boris' etc


Boris then announces that the vaccine is safe and all the lefties go ' ok mate, no problem'.

Same with Thatcher and right to buy IBS

[KerrAvon]

I keep referring to the new powers given to the home secretary deliberately to emphasise that this bill would give her (and others after) the power to define "serious disruption" through secondary legislation, and without scrutiny. Effectively this gives her (and others) the power to decide whether individual protests can go ahead.

Do you find it impossible to have a discussion without recourse to childish personal remarks? Who the **** teaches critical race theory except in the culture wars you and your government seem to cherish? (I can lower myself too!) You seem to imply that I would approve these powers if coming from a leftist government, but the whole point of me framing the question as whether Grist could protest if Brexit was cancelled was to emphasise that we should protect our freedom to protest for whatever cause as frequently the faith we put in elected politicians can let us down.

So you are now conceding that the Home Secretary does not make 'reasonable belief' decisions and that when referring to her having the power to do so your were wrong? Progress!

Are you also conceding that your reference to 'annoyance' in the context of the protest provions was also completely incorrect?

Yes, the bill does give the Home Secretary then power to make regulations upon the meaning of 'serious disruption to the activities of an organisation which are carried on in the vicinity of a public assembly' and 'serious disruption to the life of the community'. Whilst I am not convinced that will ever be necessary, it doesn't permit the making of different regulations for every proposed demonstration, which is what you appear to believe. Furthermore, regulations cannot be inconsistent with the terms of the parent legislation, have to be reasonable and rational and have to be consistent with Human Rights legislation.

I'm sorry that I have upset you with my EDL protest analogy. I was using it to illustrate a point just as you were with your comments about Grist and Brexit. I will withdraw it and simply note that you repeatedly failed to adddress how you would respond to a protest that caused serious disruption to the activities of your place of work.

I didn't 'imply' that you would approve of these powers coming from a Leftist government, I was pretty explict about the point.

[howdydoo]

I keep referring to the new powers given to the home secretary deliberately to emphasise that this bill would give her (and others after) the power to define "serious disruption" through secondary legislation, and without scrutiny. Effectively this gives her (and others) the power to decide whether individual protests can go ahead.

Do you find it impossible to have a discussion without recourse to childish personal remarks? Who the **** teaches critical race theory except in the culture wars you and your government seem to cherish? (I can lower myself too!) You seem to imply that I would approve these powers if coming from a leftist government, but the whole point of me framing the question as whether Grist could protest if Brexit was cancelled was to emphasise that we should protect our freedom to protest for whatever cause as frequently the faith we put in elected politicians can let us down.

Haven’t you got your own thread on this topic on the other board?

You and Wan love lecturing others about non footy threads and just look at you? If you’re going to keep canvassing the moderators to move threads over, the least you can do is f@ck off over there and practise what you preach.

Tut tut.

[great_fire]

The lefties dont half make me laugh.

Throughout the last 18 months there has been a constant refrain of 'tories are crooks' ' Boris is liar' ' 'you cannot trust this tory govt'
' all Johnson interested in his profit' ' the tories are ripping us off' 'f*ck of Boris' etc


Boris then announces that the vaccine is safe and all the lefties go ' ok mate, no problem'.

Not to mention the Brexiteers who've spent 4 years calling the BBC liars and now believe they've as honest as the day is long.

[ragingpup]

So you are now conceding that the Home Secretary does not make 'reasonable belief' decisions and that when referring to her having the power to do so your were wrong? Progress!

Are you also conceding that your reference to 'annoyance' in the context of the protest provions was also completely incorrect?

Yes, the bill does give the Home Secretary then power to make regulations upon the meaning of 'serious disruption to the activities of an organisation which are carried on in the vicinity of a public assembly' and 'serious disruption to the life of the community'. Whilst I am not convinced that will ever be necessary, it doesn't permit the making of different regulations for every proposed demonstration, which is what you appear to believe. Furthermore, regulations cannot be inconsistent with the terms of the parent legislation, have to be reasonable and rational and have to be consistent with Human Rights legislation.

I'm sorry that I have upset you with my EDL protest analogy. I was using it to illustrate a point just as you were with your comments about Grist and Brexit. I will withdraw it and simply note that you repeatedly failed to adddress how you would respond to a protest that caused serious disruption to the activities of your place of work.

I didn't 'imply' that you would approve of these powers coming from a Leftist government, I was pretty explict about the point.

Kerr you deal with extensive legislation for a living, I'm a former drama student trying to make sense of quite an extensive piece of legislationa and how it might impact on us all. I'm quite happy that I might make mistakes with how I have perceived different parts of the bill or misunderstood terminology applying in different cases. I'm a complete layman, you are not. Therefore, what do you think it makes you look like when you repeatedly try to draw attention to where people misread and claim it as a win? My brother in law, a barrister, is exactly like that in debates too, and even his own family think he's an arse.

Ok, so you trust the Home Secretary not to abuse these powers. No I don't believe that she is thinking of rewriting regs "for every proposed demonstration", but don't trust her or any future home secretary not to abuse this power and don't think such a power should exist. It's my fandamental problem with this bill, aside from the fact that police leaders can deny a protest because they think there will be "serious noise" and can arrest a protester because an arresting officer determined that "a person over there was seriously annoyed".

I guess as probably the most establishment figure on here (yes lets keep doing that thing then), and being pretty much opposed to anything that challenges the centre-right status quo, you would have faith in Patel and trust the government not to abuse these powers. You would see them as reasonable. But pretty much every country had acts of protests from climate activists that were 'disrupive', 'annoying', 'noisy' and I don't read of other countries making fundamental populist law changes pushing through such draconian powers.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on how trustworthy we feel our political leaders are and can be.

[ragingpup]

Haven’t you got your own thread on this topic on the other board?

You and Wan love lecturing others about non footy threads and just look at you? If you’re going to keep canvassing the moderators to move threads over, the least you can do is f@ck off over there and practise what you preach.

Tut tut.

I tried that howdy, but people refuse to use it and only want to perform to an audience sadly. So they will go on on here as the mods have clearly given up

[WanChaiMiller]

Haven’t you got your own thread on this topic on the other board?

You and Wan love lecturing others about non footy threads and just look at you? If you’re going to keep canvassing the moderators to move threads over, the least you can do is f@ck off over there and practise what you preach.

Tut tut.

Ive have never lectured anyone about posting political stuff on the other board. I said it in jest a few times after Cam made the move.

I was never in favour of moving these topics off the main page and said it at the time. Like you, I think these topics add to the board and increases traffic and interest. If you dont want to read it, move on.

[howdydoo]

Wanchai

I think you’ve got it. Nice one.

��

[howdydoo]

I tried that howdy, but people refuse to use it and only want to perform to an audience sadly. So they will go on on here as the mods have clearly given up

It’s nothing to with performing to an audience.

Stop being silly.