Petrol protests - terrorism?
Update: Wonko has made an excellent contribution to this story and I urge you to read his post: The advance of the police state.
My concerns about government increasing its power to detain and to treat people inhumanely and to insist on branding them like cattle by imposing ID cards, have mostly been about the principle. I took it as a given that the UK's government was largely trustworthy and unlikely to take political prisoners or otherwise abuse its power.
Then I set to thinking about the EU and how much power Thatcher, Major and Blair have given away with the Single European Act, Maastricht and Nice respectively. I wondered about their gung ho attitude to what is largely accepted as the majority opinion in England and, despite Scotland, the UK. If the government is willing to treat the electorate like that, what might they do with:
Then the Blair government made sounds to suggest it could invoke anti-terror legislation to keep fuel protests being repeated as in 2000.
This makes me angry.
It isn't just an abuse of power over constitutional change. That could be undone in the future when the EDP or Tories take power (under a new leader). This is an open threat to those who would protest that if they do, they will be treated like terrorists. Let us remember that the terrorists that this legislation was written for, were people willing to commit multiple murder. That they may use this legislation this way is stating that peaceful and legal civil disobedience shall no longer be allowed. It is a suggestion that the state has primacy over the individual.
This is morally wrong in so many ways. Not even the socially conservative Thatcher government would stoop to such levels - and they invoked Clause 28.
At the next election (because our constitution does not allow for a popular recall) we must take these despots out of power. If you are reading this and were brought up by someone who told you
My concerns about government increasing its power to detain and to treat people inhumanely and to insist on branding them like cattle by imposing ID cards, have mostly been about the principle. I took it as a given that the UK's government was largely trustworthy and unlikely to take political prisoners or otherwise abuse its power.
Then I set to thinking about the EU and how much power Thatcher, Major and Blair have given away with the Single European Act, Maastricht and Nice respectively. I wondered about their gung ho attitude to what is largely accepted as the majority opinion in England and, despite Scotland, the UK. If the government is willing to treat the electorate like that, what might they do with:
- ID cards
- the power to imprison without being:
- allowed to question why;
- allowed to ask what evidence is held; or
- given a trial
- The power to restrict and stop peaceful protest
Then the Blair government made sounds to suggest it could invoke anti-terror legislation to keep fuel protests being repeated as in 2000.
This makes me angry.
It isn't just an abuse of power over constitutional change. That could be undone in the future when the EDP or Tories take power (under a new leader). This is an open threat to those who would protest that if they do, they will be treated like terrorists. Let us remember that the terrorists that this legislation was written for, were people willing to commit multiple murder. That they may use this legislation this way is stating that peaceful and legal civil disobedience shall no longer be allowed. It is a suggestion that the state has primacy over the individual.
This is morally wrong in so many ways. Not even the socially conservative Thatcher government would stoop to such levels - and they invoked Clause 28.
At the next election (because our constitution does not allow for a popular recall) we must take these despots out of power. If you are reading this and were brought up by someone who told you
"Don't vote Tory, whatever you do, don't vote Tory"
ignore them for the next election because England cannot and should not cope with more erosions of civil liberty.
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