Labour’s War on Protest
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/10/labours-war-on-protest
Labour’s plan to criminalise recurring protests strikes at the heart of democratic life, transforming political freedom into a privilege granted by the state.
On Sunday, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced plans for sweeping new powers to allow the banning and restriction of protests. Her move came after the refusal of the Defend Our Juries campaign group to cancel Saturday’s demonstrations against the proscription of Palestine Action, which are increasingly becoming a mainstay on Parliament Square.
The prime minister and home secretary had both urged organisers to cancel their planned actions in light of the Manchester synagogue attack. Though they paid lip service to the right to protest, they claimed that exercising it at this moment would be ‘un-British’, with Mahmood darkly adding that just because you have freedom, ‘you don’t have to use it at every moment of every day.’ Having seen their appeals ignored, the government now intends to remove those rights.
Mahmood said the new powers would target ‘cumulative disruption’ and the ‘frequency of particular protests in particular places.’ In practice, this means giving police the authority to simply shut down demonstrations from happening. Defying police orders may result in six months in prison, an unlimited fine, or both. The home secretary described the inability to outlaw recurring protests as a technical oversight, a ‘gap in the law’ in need of closing. But far from a technical fix, the proposal amounts to the most serious assault on the freedom of assembly in a generation.
Recurring demonstrations are necessary for the very reason that the injustices they confront are recurring. In the case of pro-Palestine protests, the government continues to arm and directly support Israel’s military operations in defiance of public opinion — and even after the UN formally concluded that Israel is committing genocide. The same is true of protests against the proscription of Palestine Action, under which thousands of peaceful demonstrators have been arrested on terror charges merely for holding signs. The classification of the group as a terrorist organisation — a ‘disturbing’ misuse of anti-terror legislation, according to the UN — remains in force.
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Original article continues at https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/10/labours-war-on-protest
Meta AI adviser spreads disinformation about shootings, vaccines and trans people
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/12/meta-ai-adviser-robby-starbuck
Critics condemn Robby Starbuck, appointed in lawsuit settlement, for ‘peddling lies and pushing extremism’
A prominent anti-DEI campaigner appointed by Meta in August as an adviser on AI bias has spent the weeks since his appointment spreading disinformation about shootings, transgender people, vaccines, crime, and protests.
Robby Starbuck, 36, of Nashville, was appointed in August as an adviser by Meta – owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other tech platforms – in an August lawsuit settlement.
Since his appointment, Starbuck has baselessly claimed that individual shooters in the US were motivated by leftist ideology, described faith-based protest groups as communists, and without evidence tied Democratic lawmakers to murders.
Starbuck’s online posts have not changed in tenor since the “anti-DEI agitator” was brought into the Meta fold, and his Trump administration connections raise broader questions about the extent to which corporate America has capitulated to the Maga movement.
The Guardian repeatedly contacted Meta for comment on Starbuck’s role, and his rhetoric online, but received no response.
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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/12/meta-ai-adviser-robby-starbuck
Green party reaches 100,000 members for first time after Polanski becomes leader
Green party in England and Wales has had near-50% rise in membership since Zack Polanski took over last month
The Greens in England and Wales have more than 100,000 members for the first time, the party has announced, a near-50% rise since Zack Polanski took over as leader last month.
It puts them on a potential course to overtake the Conservatives and comes little more than a week after the Greens announced they had moved past the Liberal Democrats in membership numbers, getting to 83,500.
If the same momentum continues, party officials say, they could be on course to become bigger than the Conservatives. Tory party membership figures are not made public, but recent reports say the total is slightly above 120,000.
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The Greens’ surge has caused worries among some senior Labour figures, who believe it could take votes and seats from the party in next May’s local elections in England, particularly in some London boroughs.
Polanski has repeatedly set out what he sees as the Greens’ ambition to supplant Labour. In a speech this month to the party’s annual conference, he said that without action Keir Starmer would “hand this country on a plate” to Reform UK.
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Jeremy Corbyn: Voters’ voices are being shut out of British politics. Your Party has a radical plan to change that
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/13/your-party-conference-jeremy-corbyn-members
At our conference in November we will use a jury service-type model to allow members to discuss and decide policy, strategy and even the name of our party
At Labour’s latest conference, one thing stood out: the party no longer believes in democracy. Members and trade union affiliates voted to back, first the findings of a UN commission of inquiry that Israel is committing genocide, and second that the government must do all it can to prevent it.
It is now two weeks since this motion was passed, but still the Labour government refuses to recognise the genocide in Gaza and allows the supply of weapons to Israel.
Over the past 40 years in parliament, I have witnessed at first-hand the democratic deficit in our political system. For too long, top-down political parties have disempowered their membership and crushed internal debate. Now, Your Party will try to do something unprecedented in British politics: forge a mass, democratic party from scratch.
When we launched, we announced that members would decide the policies, the strategy and even the name. In the meantime, we called it Your Party. It was an apt choice because it expressed the essence of what we are trying to build: a new kind of political party that belongs to its members.
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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/13/your-party-conference-jeremy-corbyn-members
