climate of fear

We will ‘break your climate of fear’, peace activists warn police and politicians

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/we-will-break-your-climate-fear-peace-activists-warn-police-and-politicians

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, MP John McDonnell (front, fourth from left) and Khalid Abdalla (front row third from right) join people taking part in a national march for Palestine on Whitehall in central London, January 20, 2025

PEACE campaigners vowed to “break the climate of fear” fed by intensified police repression in a weekend rally to defend protest rights.

Hundreds gathered in Bethnal Green’s Atrium to discuss the Metropolitan Police’s mass detentions of marchers, including the violent arrest of chief steward Chris Nineham, at a Palestine solidarity demonstration on January 18, and the subsequent decision to charge Mr Nineham, Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) director Ben Jamal and others with public order offences.

Mr Jamal said the policing that day was “an escalation of repression by the state against our movement.

“Very clearly in my view, the police sought to provoke scenes of disorder on the streets. They began arresting people very early for the crime of standing in the wrong bit of Whitehall at the wrong moment. They brought empty coaches to transport to police stations those they intended to arrest… despite the fact that every single one of our protests has been peaceful and has had a low rate of arrest.”

The PSC leader said police intended to create “a scene of chaos and disorder that would create the political climate to enable [Home Secretary] Yvette Cooper to go into Parliament and announce she was banning all future marches.

“They did not succeed… [because] this is a peaceful and disciplined movement.”

The Metropolitan Police deny having tried to provoke disorder and referred the Morning Star to a previous statement accusing marchers of “a deliberate effort, involving organisers of the demonstration,” to breach the conditions they had imposed on the march, which included blocking a protest outside the BBC.

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Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/we-will-break-your-climate-fear-peace-activists-warn-police-and-politicians

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.
Continue ReadingWe will ‘break your climate of fear’, peace activists warn police and politicians

Morning Star Editorial: Benefit fraud hysteria demonises the sick – and threatens all our rights

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-benefit-fraud-hysteria-demonises-sick-and-threatens-all-our-rights

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall speaking to the media outside the Department for Work and Pensions in Westminster, London, December 17, 2024

LABOUR’S repeated attacks on disabled people are cynical, cruel and, in providing an excuse to legislate for ever-greater state intrusion into private citizens’ lives, a threat to all our freedoms.

Liz Kendall chases headlines with the latest gimmick (banning those found guilty of benefit fraud from driving). More sinister is the resurrection of Tory plans to make banks share information from private accounts and powers for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to seize funds without a court process.

The state already has ample power both to detect and punish benefit fraud: it can make banks share clients’ financial information if there is suspicion of fraud, while those found guilty can be jailed for up to 10 years (courtesy of Keir Starmer in a previous iteration, as director of public prosecutions egging on the then Conservative-Lib Dem coalition’s war on welfare).

This is not about fighting crime. Nor even about cutting costs: benefit fraud amounts to less than 3 per cent of social security spending, and ministers say the new legislation is aimed at saving £1.5 billion over five years, an almost irrelevant sum given annual spending on social security excluding pensions is over £130bn.

It is about creating a climate of fear.

The approach echoes that toward immigration, where endless scaremongering about “small boats” obscures the rarity of such arrivals compared to immigrants who arrive legally.

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Original article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-benefit-fraud-hysteria-demonises-sick-and-threatens-all-our-rights

Keir Starmer confirms that he's proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Benefit fraud hysteria demonises the sick – and threatens all our rights