Some say it's mearly a boring formalisation of Public Nuisance law when it comes to protests, others say that any protest that's too loud is now VERBOTEN.
Given we already have laws about protesting near parliament, ( plenty of old buildings worth preserving near there) and given there was satire about those draconian laws. Given we had no genuine problem with protesting, when people were doing it in a peaceful way. And that it's now nearly as hard as getting an FAC as it is getting a license to demonstrate. Can we roll back some of the "let me shout" laws?
I'm going to make a sign saying "Fried eggs are better than boiled" and wear it with pride. If that falls fowl of the law, the law is broken.
The bit people are complaining about are mostly fairly dull amendments to Part II of the Public Order Act 1986. It's more a tidying-up of longstanding issues with the legislation than an Orwellian power grab. The Lords have been through it with a fine-toothed comb and removed most of the unreasonably vague wording.
Organisers of public processions already have a legal duty to inform the police in advance. Senior police officers already have the right to apply restrictions to a public procession and chief constables have the right to prohibit a public procession under certain circumstances. Those circumstances have been very slightly expanded to include protests that are unreasonably noisy but not strictly intimidating.
Senior police officers don't like it when protesters are arrested, because it's a drain on resources and exposes them to legal and political risks. The Public Order Act gives them some tools to manage protests without the need to lock up busloads of people. Whatever Priti Patel thinks, she's not the person who has to sign off the overtime, find room in custody suites or deal with the wrongful arrest cases. There might be pressure on the police to crack down on protests, but there's equally strong pressure from the police who have much better things to do with their (increasingly limited) resources.
I don't particularly like the legislation, but I don't think it's going to have much of an impact on protest. Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil have already figured out that there's no point in doing anything that doesn't break the law. Nobody gives a fuck if a bunch of law-abiding people go for a wander while waving some signs; people only start to give a fuck when protests become seriously disruptive and getting arrested is in itself seriously disruptive.
The "people complaining" are people like the head of Amnesty International. In light of that it seems strange to hear you downplaying it.
>“This is dark day for civil liberties in the UK. This deeply-authoritarian Bill places profound and significant restrictions on the basic right to peacefully protest and will have a severely detrimental impact on the ability of ordinary people to make their concerns heard.
>“The Policing Bill is part of a hugely worrying and widespread attack on human rights from across Government which will not only see basic rights reduced across the board, but will also strip people of the means to challenge or contest their treatment.”
>>95695 The problem is that these laws are now there for a potentially even more awful government than this one to exploit. And as laws never, ever get taken off the books we have a situation where even in your silly vision of law and justice, the odds of being banged up for doing nothing wrong have only increased. Anyway, I can see from >>95698 that you've all the brains of a sea cucumber so I'll bother you with reality no more.
>>95699 >these laws are now there for a potentially even more awful government than this one
I'm not convinced this is the issue, it seems as though this government is just working their way up to being as awful as you're talking about. Patel wants death sentences, Johnson wants water cannons - they'll use them when they can.
>>95720 Well, not only are they experts in human rights, but they are also committed enough to doing the right thing that they refused to campaign to free Nelson Mandela from prison, due to his daft militant wog past. So they don't even just go with whatever looks good; their choice of what's good comes from somewhere more authentic than that. I'd say they're pretty admirable if you actually support human rights, which admittedly you might not for all I know.
>>95723 I'm saying they're clearly biased what with being the president of human rights or whatever, which you've confirmed. 10 years ago I had this exact conversation with someone taking the word of a police chief when it came to cuts.
It's not especially hard, just find one of them eggheads in academia where they do some analysis. Think about it, if you run a charity and say that everything is great then you're not really doing your job - you instead need to strike Navalny off as a prisoner of conscience because he hurt peoples feelings about migrants and then you go back to bullying staff into suicide, usual charity stuff.
He's talking about how charities can only exist if the problem they supposedly address continues to exist, so it's not in their interests to solve it forever. Because, obviously, we live in a world where everything's so great that human rights activists are clutching at straws just for something to do.
>then you go back to bullying staff into suicide, usual charity stuff
For those who missed the story at the time:
Amnesty International has a “toxic” working environment, with widespread bullying, public humiliation, discrimination and other abuses of power, a report has found.
A review into workplace culture, commissioned after two staff members killed themselves last year, found a dangerous “us versus them” dynamic, and a severe lack of trust in senior management, which threatened Amnesty’s credibility as a human rights champion.
>>95733 This is going to piss off a lot of you but there is a balance on human rights. Hence why almost every provision of the ECHR comes with derogations and why we all accept that the right to protest has limits, the most obvious example being your right to swing your fists ending at my face. The problem is that Amnesty International's inherent purpose is to say that any restriction is inherently bad and that you should give them money to change that i.e. they should be taken with a pinch of salt.
We'll pass that first year of university eventually lads!
>>95735 You ever notice how in the west there seems to be an inverse relationship between how evil the company is and how toxic its workplace environment is. What causes this, is it the people or the money?
Some organisations are very results-oriented, with clear mechanisms for identifying and rewarding people who contribute to the mission. Others have much more vague goals and no real way of quantifying people's value to the organisation, which tends to breed a lot of conniving, arse-licking, back-stabbing and petty power trips; when no-one knows who's actually doing anything useful, the rewards tend to go to whoever is most ruthless at office politics.
As Charles Munger so often says, show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome.
>>95760 I've experienced this first-hand. Charities in particular are often toxic places to work, because the people working there believe they are unquestionably doing good and that means they can behave how they like at work.
I think the properly evil ones do have just as, if not more of a toxic work culture, it's just that they put so much effort into brainwashing their staff we never hear about it.
I always think it's a giant red flag if a company has things like those open plan kitchen areas in the office, pool tables, football tables, and tells you you're "free to take a break whenever you like", because "they value happy, motivated staff!" or some such bollocks. Because you just know, it's not real. It's definitely one of those Lacanian social taboos like Slavoj Zizek always talks about, where there are rules you're allowed to break, and permissions you are absolutely forbidden from actually using.
Just the fact Google has the motto "don't be evil" has always seemed to me self evident proof that they are unquestionably the most evil business in operation today.
Further to this I would imagine charities and other such good causes attract a lot of narcissist god-complex headcases. Much like if you take a look through the supposedly tolerant, liberal, progressive parts of the internet, you'll invariably find nothing but a cesspit full of bullies and their sycophants, it's just such an easy environment for such people to take advantage of.
I work in the NHS and our department has a truly revoltingly toxic habitual bully, who they (i.e management) simply can't shift. All she has to do is play the victim every time she gets dobbed in, make a bit of noise about bringing in the union, and get a sick note for "stress" for good measure, and they're effectively powerless to sack her. She knows the rules inside out, so she knows exactly what she can get away with.
On a larger scale, when you have a lot of people like that in an organisation, the only way anything ends up getting done is when it boils over into a nasty press expose that requires a big performative house-cleaning to salvage their PR.
>Just the fact Google has the motto "don't be evil" has always seemed to me self evident proof that they are unquestionably the most evil business in operation today.
Good news:
The most famous phrase in Google’s corporate philosophy, “Don’t be evil,” has been almost entirely removed from the technology giant’s code of conduct.
Google, which is now a subsidiary of Alphabet after a corporate restructuring in 2015, previously included the phrase “Don’t be evil” at the very start of its code, and another two times within the first two paragraphs.
The simple language was replaced by vague and less specific wording such as “ethical business conduct”.