new authoritarianism

Progressive International Slams Macron for ‘Authoritarian Efforts to Repress the Will of the French People’

Spread the love

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

French President Emmanuel Macron gestures to the crowd before the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paralympic Games at Place de la Concorde on August 28, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo: Alex Davidson/Getty Images)

The president’s rejection of a center-left coalition’s prime minister candidate “is not merely a political maneuver to hold onto power, but a direct attack on French progressive forces.”

Progressive International on Wednesday issued a scathing critique of French President Emmanuel Macron and backed calls for protests next month over his rejection of a leftist alliance’s candidate for prime minister following recent snap elections.

Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), a coalition of left-of-center parties formed to counter the far-right in this summer’s elections, won the most seats, beating out Macron’s centrist alliance and Marine Le Pen’s right-wing Rassemblement National (RN), but lacks an absolute majority.

Macron has since refused to appoint NFP’s chosen candidate, Lucie Castets, as prime minister, which the Progressive International Observatory blasted as “blatant disregard of the election results and the precedent established throughout the French Fifth Republic.”

Progressive International launched in May 2020 to unite, organize, and mobilize progressive groups and individuals around the world, and since then it has built a global Observatory “with the legal expertise, data science, and parliamentary power to track the attacks on our democratic institutions and provide a real-time defense against them.”

“The attempt to stifle political competition and subvert the democratic process is a direct assault on these core values.”

France’s snap elections—which Macron called after his party performed poorly in European elections—were held on June 30 and July 7. Since then, the Observatory noted, “a caretaker government has led France, with Macron citing the Paris Olympics as a reason to delay the appointment.”

While the Olympic Games have concluded, Macron opened the Paralympic Games in the French capital Wednesday evening. They are set to run through September 8.

Macron—defending his refusal to appoint Castets—has argued that because centrist and right-wing parties would block any actions by NFP, “the institutional stability of our country therefore requires us not to choose this option.” His critics in France are now planning “a large demonstration against Macron’s coup on September 7.”

Echoing the French critics, the Observatory declared Wednesday that “Macron’s move is a direct challenge to the democratic will of the people and an affront to the foundational tenets of political pluralism.”

“This action is not merely a political maneuver to hold onto power, but a direct attack on French progressive forces,” the Observatory said, pointing to pledges by RN and centrist leaders to move a no-confidence motion against any prime minister nominated from the NFP.

The Observatory also highlighted Macron’s “sinister divide-and-rule move” to isolate the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI), led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, by appealing to other NFP parties “to break the political paralysis.”

The other parties that make up NFP have rebuffed the French president and, according toFrance 24, “Mélenchon even threatened to start impeachment proceedings against Macron.”

Progressive International’s Observatory emphasized that “democracy thrives on the diversity of ideas and the peaceful transition of power. The attempt to stifle political competition and subvert the democratic process is a direct assault on these core values.”

The Observatory concluded with a “call to democratic forces worldwide to oppose Emmanuel Macron’s authoritarian efforts to repress the will of the French people—and join the call for the September 7 mobilization to defend it.”

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

Continue ReadingProgressive International Slams Macron for ‘Authoritarian Efforts to Repress the Will of the French People’

Government ‘showing disregard for the law’, Liberty warns in anti-protest legal challenge

Spread the love
Keir Starmer confirms that his government is cnutier than Suella Braverman on killing the right to protest.
Keir Starmer confirms that his government is cnutier than Suella Braverman on killing the right to protest.

https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/issue/government-showing-disregard-for-the-law-liberty-warns-in-anti-protest-legal-challenge/

  • Home Office continues appeal against Liberty’s successful legal challenge to anti-protest rules, which the High Court had previously found unlawful
  • Legislation gave police ‘almost-unlimited’ powers to impose conditions on protests that caused ‘more than minor’ disruption.
  • Liberty said “We will ensure a government is not allowed to wilfully ignore the rules at the expense of our fundamental human rights” 

The human rights organisation Liberty has questioned the new Government’s “concerning disregard for the rule of law” as the Home Office has instructed lawyers to proceed with an appeal against a recent High Court ruling that anti-protest legislation had been created unlawfully.

The legislation, which significantly reduced the threshold at which the police could impose almost-unlimited conditions on protests to anything that they deemed caused ‘more than minor disruption’, had been brought in by then Home Secretary Suella Braverman in June 2023. Previously the threshold had been set at anything that caused ‘serious disruption’.

Liberty challenged the legislation in court, arguing that it was unlawful since it had already been democratically rejected by Parliament just a few months earlier, and was subsequently brought in “via the back door” through ‘secondary legislation’, which required less Parliamentary scrutiny and debate.

In May 2024, the High Court agreed with Liberty’s arguments, ruling that “more than minor cannot mean serious”. The Court also found that the Government had failed to undertake a fair consultation period, instead only inviting thoughts from those it knew would be supportive of its proposals, such as the police but not protest groups.

The previous Government had lodged an appeal against the ruling, and despite requesting an adjournment and meeting to discuss the regulations, the new Government has now decided to continue the appeal. The appeal hearing is expected to take place later in the year.

…

https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/issue/government-showing-disregard-for-the-law-liberty-warns-in-anti-protest-legal-challenge/

Continue ReadingGovernment ‘showing disregard for the law’, Liberty warns in anti-protest legal challenge

Morning Star Editorial: Cooper’s crackdown on ‘extremism’: don’t trust the British state

Spread the love

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-coopers-crackdown-extremism-dont-trust-british-state

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper during a walk through Lewisham town centre, in south London, as part of a visit to speak about neighbourhood policing and meet with policing teams, July 8, 2024

…

Cooper cites both far-right and Islamist hate. But political Islam has no profile in Britain at all. She, like Lord Walney, seeks to lump violent fascist riots together with the peaceful Palestine solidarity movement, whose mass demos have been slandered as “hate marches” by the Tories, right-wing media and fascist agitators such as Tommy Robinson.

Where jihadist violence has reached Britain, it has had more to do with our state’s hyper-violent foreign policy than online grooming. The deadliest terror attack of the last decade, that on the Manchester Arena by Salman Abedi in 2017, was carried out by a man our government had helped travel to Libya to fight in a British-backed Islamist revolt against its government, and whose return to Britain was facilitated by MI5.

A state campaign against extremism “across the political spectrum” will reinforce the clampdowns on protest rights and free speech associated with the Conservatives.

That Labour’s current leadership will deploy it to silence left criticism seems predictable given their record: this is the party that banned its branches from discussing the suspension of its former leader Jeremy Corbyn on the ludicrous grounds that this would make Jewish members feel unsafe.

Bans on “fake news” could only be welcomed if we had total confidence in the objectivity and fairness of those sifting the truth from the lies. X, Facebook and indeed the British state are not objective. There is no way such a ban would not simply become a form of political censorship exercised by the ruling class.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-coopers-crackdown-extremism-dont-trust-british-state

Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Cooper’s crackdown on ‘extremism’: don’t trust the British state

Watchdog of Far-Right GOP Issues ‘The Definitive Guide to Project 2025’

Spread the love

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts speaks at the National Conservative Conference in Washington D.C. on July 8, 2024. (Photo: Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images via AFP)

“It’s a clear threat to our democracy, as our government could be weaponized against us as part of a concerted effort to control how we live our live,” said the vice president of Media Matters for America.

A watchdog organization that monitors the Republican Party and the far-right movement at its core released a document Thursday characterized as “the definitive guide to Project 2025,” a sweeping policy agenda crafted by more than 100 conservative groups and alumni of former President Donald Trump’s administration.

The 67-page report published by Media Matters for America lays out in detail Trump’s close ties to Project 2025 and examines specific policy proposals included in the agenda, which—if implemented—would affect every area of American life, from the workplace to the environment to reproductive rights and other fundamental freedoms.

“Project 2025 lays out an extreme far-right agenda that would impose draconian restrictions to the lives of everyday Americans,” Media Matters vice president Julie Millican said in a statement. “If enacted, not only would it gut the checks and balances that our country relies on, but it’s a clear threat to our democracy, as our government could be weaponized against us as part of a concerted effort to control how we live our lives.”

“Project 2025’s extremist goals make clear what’s truly at stake,” Millican added.

“Project 2025 looks like an albatross that Trump will find hard to get rid of.”

Contrary to the Republican presidential nominee’s claim that he “knows nothing about” Project 2025 or who’s behind it, Media Matters noted that “Trump and his allies are deeply connected” to the initiative spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation.

The new report points to Trump’s remarks at a 2022 Heritage event, where the former president declared that the group would “lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.” The Washington Post revealed Wednesday that Trump traveled to the event via private jet with Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation.

“CNN reported that there are ‘nearly 240 people with ties to both Project 2025 and to Trump,'” Media Matters observed in its new analysis. “The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee nominated Project 2025 author Russ Vought as the policy director of the RNC’s 2024 Committee on the Platform… John McEntee, a Project 2025 senior adviser, said in April he would ‘integrate a lot of our work’ with the Trump campaign later this year.”

The report spotlights plans outlined by Project 2025 and the Trump campaign to purge the federal workforce and replace career civil servants with Trump loyalists dedicated to implementing the far-right movement’s assault on abortion rights, climate regulations, labor protections, and more. Trump allies have already begun screening “thousands of potential foot soldiers” to replace federal employees across the U.S. government.

“This posture toward witch hunts against federal bureaucrats recalls the days of disgraced Sen. Joe McCarthy’s anti-communist crusade, which resulted in massive purges of left-wing federal employees as well as those perceived to be gay or gender-nonconforming,” Media Matters noted, adding that “MAGA media, including Project 2025 allies, have openly celebrated McCarthy’s destructive legacy.”

The report also points with alarm to “a blog published to The American Conservative, a Project 2025 partner, [that] advocated for repealing the 22nd Amendment to allow Trump to serve a third term.”

The Media Matters report came as the University of Massachusetts Amherst released new national survey data showing that Project 2025’s policy proposals are “deeply unpopular” with U.S. voters.

Tatishe Nteta, provost professor of political science at UMass Amherst and director of the poll, said Thursday that “Project 2025 looks like an electoral liability” for Trump and the GOP, which has been accused of injecting Project 2025 policies into government funding proposals currently before Congress.

Nteta said that given the results of the new survey—conducted between July 29 and August 1—”it is no surprise that the Democratic Party has sought to link” Project 2025 with Trump or that the GOP nominee has attempted to “move away from any and all association with the unpopular 900-page playbook.”

“Large majorities of Americans oppose the key pillars of Project 2025, such as the replacement of career government officials with political appointees (68% opposed), restricting a woman’s right to contraception (72% opposed), and eliminating the Department of Education (64% opposed),” said Nteta. “While our politics are usually divided by class, generational, racial, gender, and partisan identities, among these groups we find strong opposition to many of the policies associated with Project 2025.”

“Even former Trump voters exhibit opposition to many of these policies,” Nteta added, “a bad omen for the Republican Party and Trump campaign.”

Just 8% of Trump 2020 voters support Project 2025’s proposal to strip emergency contraception access from tens of millions of women across the U.S., according to the new poll. Only 18% of Trump voters said they support “firing federal employees and replacing them with political appointees loyal to the president.”

More than half of Americans say they have heard about Project 2025, the new survey shows—a finding that UMass Amherst professor Jesse Rhodes described as remarkable given that Heritage Foundation reports are “usually incredibly obscure.”

“For the most part, Americans don’t like what they are hearing,” said Rhodes, a co-director of the new poll. “It’s no wonder Trump is trying to distance himself from Project 2025, but unfortunately for him, because dozens of his former administration officials worked on the report, this is going to be hard to do. Project 2025 looks like an albatross that Trump will find hard to get rid of.”

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingWatchdog of Far-Right GOP Issues ‘The Definitive Guide to Project 2025’

Hundreds gather in Parliament Square as 21 now imprisoned for demanding climate action 

Spread the love

Hundreds gathered in Parliament Square on Saturday in solidarity with the 21 political prisoners currently incarcerated for demanding an end to the fossil fuel era, as well as all political prisoners fighting for change in the UK and abroad, including two imprisoned for taking action with Palestine Action. In recent weeks Just Stop Oil has been taking action with groups internationally to demand governments establish a fossil fuel treaty, to end the extraction and burning of oil, gas and coal by 2030. 

Supporters of Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion, Defend our Juries and Fossil Free London, gathered at the Gandhi statue in Parliament Square. The crowd heard speeches from a range of speakers and messages from those currently in prison. Attendees could be seen holding signs which read ‘You can’t lock up the Truth’ and ‘No Justice when Juries are Denied the Truth.’ After the rally, many attendees joined the Palestinian solidarity march in London, in resistance to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

One of those speaking at the rally today was Raj Chada, a lawyer who has represented many of these 21 political prisoners in court. He said:

“This is about the nature of our democracy, in which peaceful protestors are routinely being imprisoned now. In the Supreme Court, a few years ago, they said that ‘protest was the lifeblood of our democracy.’ Our democracy is on its knees then, because they are not paying attention to protest.” 

“I have been doing this job now for 20 years and until 3 years ago, I hadn’t had one client imprisoned. Something has changed in the establishment. In the shadow of this [Gandhi] statue, it shows the importance of nonviolent action and what it can achieve and why it should be so important. We will continue that fight for as long as we possibly can.”

Raj Chada appears in this video.

My anaysis – dizzy – is that the fossil fuel industry has bought these laws by financing think tanks and lobbying organisations and that judges are blatently biased, not even pretending to be neutral and impartial. If you routinely use private transport to travel even moderate distances, you should expect to be occasionally delayed. Driving delays of hours are commonplace. For consistency shouldn’t people causing delays by conducting road works or having an accident also be imprisoned for many years FFS? It is overwhelmingly biased and punitive. How did some of these harsh judges get to try so many JSO trials?

later ed: The argument that people causing delays by roadworks or having an accident should be imprisoned is strengthened by the fact that motivations are not considered relevant.

7/8/24 Apologies, I can and should do better that my ‘analysis’ above. The argument about imprisoning for roadworks or accidents: The point I’m making is that since motivations are not considered relevant in trials of climate protesters then what is left is the effect: delays to private vehicle users and delays are also caused by roadworks and accidents. I wonder if that’s clear, can be followed.

Continue ReadingHundreds gather in Parliament Square as 21 now imprisoned for demanding climate action