You want groups that fit this definition: “Extremism is the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance, that aims to: 1 negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others; or 2 undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights; or 3 intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in (1) or (2).” source: UK ministers and officials to be banned from contact with groups labelled extremist.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claims “There is a growing consensus that mob rule is replacing democratic rule. And we’ve got to collectively, all of us, change that urgently.” Sunak is recognised as a war criminal due to his complicity in genocide.
The UK Conservative Party and the UK Labour party certainly meet this definition. Promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance.
Where shall I start? Both the Conservative and Labour party promote and advance Zionism, an ideology based on violence, hatred and intolerance that also meets the secondary condition 1. (aims to) negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others. Many rights are denied: the right to life and the right to be free from degrading or inhuman treatment. The Conservative and Labour parties are complicit in genocide, I’m not sure that you can get more extremist than that.
Then there’s the persecution of Julian Assange. That’s the advancement of an ideology based on intolerance aiming to deny Assanges fundamental rights and freedoms. That’s both the Conservative party and UK’s Labour party again. There are strong indicators that the Labour party’s Keir Starmer was directly involved in Assange’s early persecution.
Response to Rishi Sunak’s extremism speech at Downing Street 1 March 2024.
Here’s the leader of the Conservative party, Rishi Sunak. He’s pictured giving an extremist speech trying to undermine democracy and democratic rights e.g. the democratic right to protest, on 1 March 2024. He also involved in mob rule – he rules for a small group of very wealthy, nasty people – some of them tax avoiders and newspaper owners. Anyway Michael, I expect that you’ll be hearing more from me about these extremist groups, there’s plenty more to their extremism.
Politics has failed to address the climate crisis in any meaningful way. Our contemporary politics which I regard as a plutocracy as opposed to a democracy – meaning that it serves a small elite of incredibly rich and powerful people – cannot address the climate crisis because it is serving the climate-destroying plutocrats. Since the system won’t change, we have to change the system. There’s no ifs or buts about this – climate records are getting broken month by month and in the summer it will be back to breaking climate records day by day. Our politics have absolutely failed to address this so we have to change our politics. It’s not a big deal – politicians need to start serving the electorate instead of the rich and powerful.
Unhappy with large protests against the increasingly dire situation in Gaza, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is seeking to update the UK’s definition of extremism. This, he has argued, is needed because “our democracy itself is a target” of antisemitic and Islamophobic extremists.
However, the reality is that no measures do more damage to democracy than policy proposals like the one Sunak is promoting.
The UK already has a definition for extremism, which is used in efforts to tackle terrorism. We may think of the police as leading those efforts, but the UK’s Prevent strategy now also places a duty on certain other authorities to “have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”.
These authorities include local government, education institutions and the NHS. In reality, the UK has placed teachers and NHS staff on the frontline in the fight against terrorism, on top of all their other duties that they were actually trained to do.
To help those with a duty under Prevent to identify people at risk of being drawn into terrorism, the government currently defines extremism as “vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs”. Also included are “calls for the death of members of our armed forces”.
This definition is not contained in any law, however. Instead, it features in the government’s Prevent guidance. A key reason why this definition is not contained in legislation is because it is so vague and unclear. It would be difficult to legally oblige anyone with a duty under Prevent to apply the definition – and even more difficult for a court to determine what it means.
Even as guidance, there are still problems with the definition. It offers enormous discretion to the people deciding who is at risk of being drawn into terrorism. Discretion can lead to inconsistent application. That, in turn, can lead to discrimination.
Vague to vaguer
It has been suggested that the new definition of extremism will include the “promotion or advancement of ideology based on hatred, intolerance or violence or undermining or overturning the rights or freedoms of others, or of undermining democracy itself”.
What does it mean to undermine or overturn the rights or freedoms of others? Would arguing for the UK to leave the European convention on human rights count meet the bar?
Likewise, what does it mean to undermine democracy? Does excessive corporate lobbying do so? What about calling for restrictions on the right to free speech or the right to protest? These are fundamental rights that are absolutely necessary for a democracy to flourish. Would they be extremist?
Existing laws are enough
Sunak is presenting the new definition of extremism as a response to protests he depicts as being out of control. But the UK already has numerous laws in place to tackle what it considers to be unacceptable behaviour at protests. The Terrorism Act (which is also incredibly broad) can be used to prosecute people who damage property or create a serious risk to public safety during protests.
Counter-terrorism laws can also capture forms of expression at public demonstrations or online. It is already a crime to express support for a proscribed (unlawful) organisation, or to wear clothing, symbols or publish images in a way which can raise suspicion that you support an unlawful organisation. So, for example, if you express support for Hamas — a proscribed organisation — you are already committing a crime and can be prosecuted for it.
Meanwhile, the Public Order Act contains offences dealing with hate speech. These include using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displaying written material which is intended to or likely to stir up racial or religious hatred.
In 2022, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act expanded the criminal offence of causing a public nuisance to include “serious distress, serious annoyance, serious inconvenience or serious loss of amenity”. This can now be applied by he police to criminalise protests that are considered to be making too much noise.
It is hard, therefore, to see which bases are not already covered for a government looking to prosecute people for extremism. These mechanisms have already been used to clamp down on all kinds of activism. In reality, there is no gap in the law that needs fixing. Rather, this proposal looks like a classic example of a government talking tough on crime and terrorism in order to boost its poll ratings in an election year.
The right to protest
Adding new definitions for extremism only creates problems. The vaguer a definition gets, the easier it is to misuse. It can also have a pervasive chilling effect on free speech. People may self-censor out of fear of being identified as extremist, not least when their employer has a duty under Prevent.
The fact of the matter is that human rights law allows for protests to be disruptive. Otherwise, they could be simply ignored. Human rights law also allows people to “shock, offend, and disturb” through speech.
The government may not be happy with large public protests against its foreign policy but it should not be viewed as extremist to march for a ceasefire in Gaza. Likewise, it should not be viewed as extremist to vocalise opposition to the potential genocide being committed by the Israeli Defence Forces. If this were so, then the International Court of Justice is extremist.
There is a deep danger of conflating protest with extremism and terrorism, undermining the legitimacy of these protests. To stretch the concept of extremism to cover these views is what is actually undermining democracy and the rights and freedoms of others.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (left) and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak walk through the Peer’s Lobby at the Palace of Westminster ahead of the State Opening of Parliament in the House of Lords, London, November 6, 2023
THE sickening racist abuse directed at Diane Abbott by top Tory donor Frank Hester represents a challenge to the leaders of both the major political parties.
Hester, who has given the Conservative Party £10 million over the last year, told a meeting in 2019 that looking at the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington made him “want to hate all black women” and added for good measure that Abbott “should be shot.”
Such remarks should be enough to immediately terminate anybody’s involvement in public life, and they may indeed constitute a criminal offence.
Hester was speaking, remember, just three years after a Labour MP, Jo Cox, was indeed shot to death by a far-right fanatic.
Everyone should first of all send their unqualified solidarity to Abbott, long the victim of more racist and misogynistic abuse than any other MP.
…
Racism is a bipartisan problem. And it is reinforced by Starmer’s own treatment of Abbott.
She has been suspended from the Labour whip in Parliament for nearly a year now. Her offence was to write a newspaper letter suggesting Jewish people, among others, had not suffered from racism.
Her letter was clearly wrong and she immediately and fulsomely apologised for it. Since then her case has been “under investigation.”
Yet it is unclear what there is to investigate. There can be no possible reason for leaving her in political suspense for such a protracted period over what is a fairly straightforward issue.
The reason for this procrastination is obvious: because Abbott has spent her life on the left of the Labour Party, and served in senior roles under Jeremy Corbyn, he wants rid of her.
If she remains whipless when the next general election is called then she will be unable to stand as a Labour candidate, allowing some gormless Starmerite or other to be imposed on Hackney North.
Abbott is Britain’s first black woman MP, and its longest-serving black MP too. For her to be treated like this ought to be a source of national shame.
It is past time that the phoney “investigation” into her was terminated and the whip restored.
A car gets submerged in flood waters in a pub car park in Sonning on Thames, Berkshire, UK. Photograph: Geoffrey Swaine/REX/Shutterstock
Government has no credible plan for effects of extreme weather, says Committee on Climate Change
The UK’s plans for adapting to the effects of the climate crisis “fall far short” of what is required, the government’s statutory adviser has said.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has examined the national adaptation programme published by ministers last July, intended to set out how people, buildings and vital national infrastructure such as water, transport, energy and telecommunications networks could be protected from the increasing severity of storms, floods, heatwaves and droughts that are afflicting the UK as a result of global heating.
In a damning verdict delivered on Wednesday, the committee found that the government had no credible plan for making the UK resilient to the increasing effects of extreme weather.
Julia King, chair of the adaptation subcommittee of the CCC, said: “The evidence of the damage from climate change has never been clearer, but the UK’s current approach to adaptation is not working.”
