Showing posts with label Kill the Bill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kill the Bill. Show all posts

Sunday 16 January 2022

KTB Anger.

KILL THE BILL.

            In the UK, January 15th. 2022 was marked by protests across the country as people in towns and cities took to the streets to voice their anger. Righteous anger at a Boris Johnson sidekick Priti Patel, would be fascist, with a burning desire and plans to lead a totalitarian government. Her crime and punishment bill, is the biggest step the UK is preparing to take into that world of total control over the population. Protesting will be virtually impossible under this new legislation. any noisy gathering, any inconvenience to commerce, any annoyance perceived by someone, could see you arrested No matter how they dress this legislation up, its intentions are to stop protests to get you off the streets and to silently and submissively accept what the powers that be throw at you. Protest is not a crime, nor a privilege to be granted by our lords and masters, protest is our democratic right and we must defend this, or see it taken from us. It is easier to fight to hold what you have, than to try to fight to get back what has been taken from you. Make no mistake, this bill takes the few shreds of democracy we have, trashes them for as long as the legislation stands. 

Some photos from Glasgow's George Square,15th. Jan. 2022.


















Central London

Liverpool.

Manchester.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info

Saturday 4 December 2021

Fascism.

         Democracy is a fragile thing, slowly and silently it disappears if we don't exercise the freedoms it offers. That old statement about our world, "use it or lose it" applies to democracy as it does to other things in our life. Today we quietly see democracy being whittled down by an authoritarian cabal who hold sway over our lives, and our anger is just a ripple. The government's new police, crime, sentencing and courts bill is simply an over dose of anaesthetic to our freedoms and any semblance of democracy we might have had, yet still no real anger from the populace. By ignoring the vile authoritarian aspects of this bill we are quietly putting the states handcuffs on ourselves, putting their shackles on our own ankles. Taking these appendages off will be far more difficult than putting them on.



Image courtesy of The Canary.

The following article was written by George Monbiot:

        December 03, 202: Information Clearing House -- "The Guardian" - This is proper police state stuff. The last-minute amendments crowbarred by the government into the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill are a blatant attempt to stifle protest, of the kind you might expect in Russia or Egypt. Priti Patel, the home secretary, shoved 18 extra pages into the bill after it had passed through the Commons, and after the second reading in the House of Lords. It looks like a deliberate ploy to avoid effective parliamentary scrutiny. Yet in most of the media there’s a resounding silence.
       Among the new amendments are measures that would ban protesters from attaching themselves to another person, to an object, or to land. Not only would they make locking on – a crucial tool of protest the world over – illegal, but they are so loosely drafted that they could apply to anyone holding on to anything, on pain of up to 51 weeks’ imprisonment.
       It would also become a criminal offence to obstruct in any way major transport works from being carried out, again with a maximum sentence of 51 weeks. This looks like an attempt to end meaningful protest against road-building and airport expansion. Other amendments would greatly expand police stop and search powers. The police would be entitled to stop and search people or vehicles if they suspect they might be carrying any article that could be used in the newly prohibited protests, presumably including placards, flyers and banners. Other new powers would grant police the right to stop and search people without suspicion, if they believe that protest will occur “in that area”. Anyone who resists being searched could be imprisoned for – you guessed it – up to 51 weeks.
      Existing stop and search powers are used disproportionately against Black and Brown people, who are six times as likely to be stopped as white people. The new powers would create an even greater disincentive for people of colour to protest. Then the media can continue to berate protest movements for being overwhelmingly white and unrepresentative.
      Perhaps most outrageously, the amendments contain new powers to ban named people from protesting. The grounds are extraordinary, in a nation that claims to be democratic. We can be banned if we have previously committed “protest-related offences”. Thanks to the draconian measures in the rest of the bill – many of which pre-date these amendments – it will now be difficult to attend a protest without committing an offence. Or we can be banned if we have attended or “contributed to” a protest that was “likely to result in serious disruption”. Serious disruption, as the bill stands, could mean almost anything, including being noisy. If you post something on social media that encourages people to turn up, you could find yourself on the list. Anyone subject to one of these orders, like a paroled prisoner, might be required to present themselves to the authorities at “particular times on particular days”. You can also be banned from associating with particular people or “using the internet to facilitate or encourage” a “protest-related offence”.
       These are dictators’ powers. The country should be in uproar over them, but we hear barely a squeak. The Kill the Bill protesters have tried valiantly to draw our attention to this tyrant’s gambit, and have been demonised for their pains. Otherwise, you would barely know it was happening.
       Protest is an essential corrective to the mistakes of government. Had it not been for the tactics Patel now seeks to ban, the pointless and destructive road-building programme the government began in the early 1990s would have continued: eventually John Major’s government conceded it was a mistake, and dropped it. Now governments are making the greatest mistake in human history – driving us towards systemic environmental collapse – and Boris Johnson’s administration is seeking to ensure that there is nothing we can do to stop it.
       The government knows the new powers are illegitimate, otherwise it would not have tried to avoid parliamentary scrutiny. These brutal amendments sit alongside Johnson’s other attacks on democracy, such as the proposed requirement for voter ID, which could deter 2 million potential electors, most of whom are poor and marginalised; the planned curtailment of the Electoral Commission; the assault on citizens’ rights to mount legal challenges to government policy; and the proposed civil orders” that could see journalists treated as spies and banned from meeting certain people and visiting certain places.
       So where is everyone? Why isn’t this all over the front pages? Why aren’t we out on the streets in our millions, protesting while we still can? We use our freedoms or we lose them. And we are very close to losing them.



Tuesday 26 October 2021

UK Fascism.

 

       The state, any state moves inexorably towards fascism, it has no alternative as it seeks total control over its citizens. In the UK the state took a massive step towards fascism when on March 9th 2021 it introduced the The Police, Crime, Courts and Sentencing Bill. This single bill hands more power to the police, groups a raft of activities as crimes and introduces harsher sentencing. It is a vice clamp on our right to protest. Those who have the courage to stand up and oppose this curtailing of our democratic rights are being hit hard by the loaded judicial system that will defend and enact this step to fascism.
       In Bristol one such individual is facing a long prison sentence for openly protesting the injustice encapsulated in this legislation. He deserves and needs your support.

       Ryan Roberts’ trial for riot and arson is on the 25-27th October. If convicted he is facing a long sentence. He will be the first defendant to be brought to trial to have plead not guilty for charges relating to the 21st March Kill the Bill demonstration.
       Ryan is calling for solidarity and support
       We will hold a demonstration on October 25th at 8.30am outside Bristol Crown Court. We’d also like people to sit in court from the 25th-27th, to show that Ryan has support!
        On the final day of the trial we will hold a demo at 5pm outside the Crown Court.
        if you’re coming from elsewhere and need accommodation email bristoldefendantsolidarity@riseup.net
        We are also calling for you to do a solidarity banner drop or other action in your local area during October to show your support for Ryan
        Ryan is currently on remand in Bristol Prison. He’d welcome letters of support. Click here to find out how.

Solidarity is strength!
bristolabc 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Saturday 25 September 2021

I Spy!

          Every state moves inexorably towards fascism, small steps, large steps, slow and fast, the direction is the always greater control over the population and harsher treatment for dissenters and those who chose not to fit into their little catalogue of boxes. The UK's latest crime bill is one massive step firmly into the realms of fascism. Protests can and will be classified as acts of terrorism, protesters terrorists, Travellers and Romani will come under ever great harassment with the risk of losing their vehicles, making their way of life impossible. This bill affects us all, we will have to conform or be singled out  for special attention by the state apparatus. Under no circumstances can these new legislations come under the category of a democratic country, that illusion has long been dispelled. We live in a country of total surveillance, monitoring and profiling, your ever move photographed and logged, we are subject to the prying eyes of the state as it clamps down on any form of dissent, any form of activity that strays from their legislated pattern.


 
Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Thursday 15 April 2021

Toothless Protest.



           A comedian once said that if the people you are protesting against are happy with your protest method, then you’re not protesting, you’re just having a shit day out. I’m inclined to agree with him. All the legislation brought in regarding protests is to make your protest acceptable to those you are protesting against. In other words, turning your protest into a shit afternoon out. The establishment would be happy with you quietly, in limited numbers, marching from A to B, of course you will achieve nothing. That is the aim of this new legislation being introduced by bumbling Boris’s gang. Giving you the right to protest as long as you don’t upset, inconvenience or annoy anybody, do it quietly, when and where the police tell you and in numbers decided by the police. Their vision of tomorrow’s protests is groups of six or so people walking quietly and sedately, saying excuse me to everybody they pass, this will be permitted for approximately 15 minutes, then you will be asked to disperse or face the heavy hand of the law. The new democracy fit for a fascist state.
 
 
             The following is an extract from an article by  Adrian Kreutz published in Roar Magazine.
London — 1936. In what we know today as the “Battle of Cable Street,” the Metropolitan Police protected Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists against almost 20,000 anti-fascist protesters, including socialist groups, Irish dockworkers, British Jewry and anarchist and trade unionist groups. That day, 3,000 paramilitary “Blackshirts” marched through a Jewish neighborhood. Mounted police charged at a crowd of peaceful counterprotesters, and many of the arrested reported violent treatment at the hands of the police.
       Following the events on Cable Street, the Public Order Act of 1936 forced organizers of large protests to obtain prior police permission and gave the police broad powers to arrest people for “insulting or abusive” speech. The ambiguity of the word “insulting” meant that the Public Order Act could be applied in a range of cases.
       London — 2021. Social movements protesting for racial and environmental justice disrupt public transport, deface the statues of slave traders, spread banners over Westminster Bridge and block the entrance to parliament. In response, the Johnson administration proposes the “Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill,” popularly know as the “Crackdown Bill” or “Protest Bill.” It fits the draconian script of recent years — the concentration of power, the limiting of government accountability and multi-pronged attacks on human rights.

Read the full article HERE:

 

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk   

Saturday 3 April 2021

Shut Down!

        The blood stained hand of the police state ever tightens its grip, only strong united resistance and solidarity will stop its intended paralysis of freedom. This morning when I visited a site I often visit for information of what is happening across the world, Act For Freedom Now, I was greeted with this message:
       The server on which this website was hosted was confiscated by the Dutch police on March 29th, 2021 for reasons unknown so far. The website will be reconstructed as soon as possible. Please be patient.
nostate.net

       I suppose innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply any more. How many times have we seen sites and information shut down on the say-so of the rich and powerful, and it would be foolish to think it is done to protect the ordinary people.
That is why it is so important that we the ordinary people come together and join in the campaign, in which ever way we can, to "Kill the Bill" another draconian piece of legislation that strengthens the hands of the police and its attendant apparatus at the expense of the ordinary freedoms we sometimes take for granted.

Demonstrators during a ‘Kill The Bill’ protest in Finsbury Park Credit: Aaron Chown/PA

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk   

Friday 2 April 2021

Police State.

         In towns and cities across the country people are organising "Kill the Bill" protests. This is not about a few lefties protesting, this is about climate change, working conditions, wages, peace movements, equal rights, injustices, corruption, about your right to display your anger or dissatisfaction with the way our country is being run. This is the 2021 poll-tax, it affects everybody and it must be resisted with the same anger and determination that brought down the poll-tax. You and everybody else has the right to protest, it is protest that brought about wage increases, better working conditions, end to slavery, end to child labour in mines and other industries, all real change for the benefit of the ordinary people was brought about by protests, they were never given to the people in a benevolent manner by the system. This bill will kill the right to protests as and when we feel the need, in this society, without protests we are at the mercy of the state and its corporate buddies who will milk the situation for their benefit, all to the detriment of our freedoms and conditions.
      The importance of killing this bill can't be emphasised enough, it puts the public in a straight-jacket and gives free rein to the state, it is the rock solid foundation of the police state. Total control of where you can meet up, how many and what sort of noise you can make, if any, and for how long. Our freedoms in this society are limited enough without taking away the one that has in the past allowed us to make progress in our desire for a free and fair society. Lose that right at your peril. "Kill the Bill", think poll-tax.
 
 

 
 

 
      Let's grow this list, make it cover every city, town and village in the UK. This will be the most important protest in defence of your freedom and your right to public assembly and protest. Kill the Bill, kill the police state.
 
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk  

Monday 29 March 2021

Unacceptable.

 

         I doubt I have agreed with one word Bumbling Boris ever spoke, until now. I whole heartedly agree with his statement that the scenes of violence witnessed at the "Kill the Bill" protests, in Bristol and Manchester are unacceptable. The sooner that we get those thugs with their helmets, shields and flaying batons, off our streets the better. We then can get on with allowing the people to protest what is obvious a very undemocratic draconian piece of legislation, which is taking us deeper into the controlled police state.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk