Scrap plans to scan accounts of benefit claimants or risk new scandal, MPs told

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/04/ministers-urged-to-scrap-plans-for-surveillance-of-benefit-claimants-bank-accounts

The DWP is seeking powers to require banks to trawl the accounts of millions of people who receive benefits. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Campaigners say ‘fully automated’ approach risks repeat of Post Office Horizon scandal

Plans for automated surveillance of millions of bank accounts to catch welfare cheats should be scrapped, campaigners have said, warning the approach risks a repeat of the Post Office Horizon scandal.

But campaigners for welfare claimants, disabled people, human rights and privacy warned ministers it represents an “unprecedented and disproportionate invasion of the public’s financial privacy, the effect of which will be felt most sharply by the most vulnerable”.

The net would also trawl the private banking data of people related to welfare claimants including partners, parents and landlords. It would save around £360m a year – less than 5% of the total lost to welfare fraud, according to the government’s best estimate.

In a letter to Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, 42 organisations, from Disability Rights UK to Big Brother Watch, said: “There are approximately 22.6 million individuals in the welfare system, including those who are disabled, sick, caregivers, job seekers, and pensioners. They should not be treated like criminals by default … The Horizon scandal saw hundreds of people wrongfully prosecuted using data from faulty software. The government must learn from this mistake – not replicate it en masse.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/04/ministers-urged-to-scrap-plans-for-surveillance-of-benefit-claimants-bank-accounts

Continue ReadingScrap plans to scan accounts of benefit claimants or risk new scandal, MPs told

Labour bans CLPs from links with string of human rights/peace/health groups incl PSC, JVL, Corbyn’s PJP

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Original article and image republished from The Swawkbox for non-Commerical use.

Email to CLPs warns them that any existing affiliations with groups campaigning for abortion rights, minority human rights, disarmament and a fully public NHS are cancelled

Image thanks to The Skwawkbox

The Labour party has banned local parties (CLPs) from affiliating with an array of groups supporting the human rights of ethnic minorities or campaigning for a public NHS, in yet another Stalinist move to limit members’ freedom of expression.

And local parties are being notified by email that any affiliations they already have in place are unilaterally cancelled – and that if a right-wing group is affiliated with the party nationally, they have no say over whether that group affiliates with them locally.

One such email reads:

Organisations that are nationally affiliated to the party are eligible to affiliate to any CLP provided they pay the appropriate fee and the CLP cannot debate or decide on their affiliations.

…The following affiliations are therefore no longer valid and the CLP may not renew its affiliation without approval from the NEC. To do so would breach party rules. These are:

Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Labour Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Stop the War Coalition, Republic, London Irish Abortion Rights Campaign, Jewish Voice for Labour, Somalis for Labour, Sikhs for Labour, All African Women’s Group, Health Campaigns Together, The Campaign against Climate Change Trades Union, Peace & Justice Project.

Yes, you read that right: a group campaigning for peace, human rights, women’s rights, disarmament and to protect the environment are not welcome in Keir Starmer’s Labour party and party member groups risk disciplinary action if they try to associate with them.

The news should come as no surprise in Starmer’s racist, pro-privatisation, pro-apartheid party where his promises to renationalise the NHS and public utilitiesprotect the climate and empower member rights and democracy were binned almost the instant he got his backside into Corbyn’s office and his claim to be on the side of domestic violence victims masks a shameless cover-up of abuse of them.

And of course, given recent appalling comments by the leadership and its agents, Jews who believe in the human rights of Palestinians are particularly unwelcome – and indeed are being disproportionately targeted by the regime in a campaign of blatant (but ignored by the media) antisemitism and discrimination.

Original article and image republished from The Swawkbox for non-Commerical use.

Continue ReadingLabour bans CLPs from links with string of human rights/peace/health groups incl PSC, JVL, Corbyn’s PJP

Insulate Britain’s ‘show trials’ expose state efforts to silence activists

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Insulate Britain M25 roadblock September 2021. Image: Insulate Britain.
Insulate Britain M25 roadblock September 2021. Image: Insulate Britain.

Original article by Rob Stuart republished from openDemocracy under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

OPINION: An activist is in jail for mentioning the climate crisis in court. Our judicial system is enabling the state

This week we were delivered the strongest evidence yet that the court cases of Insulate Britain members are little more than show trials – in which the defendant’s guilt has already been determined.

David Nixon, a fellow Insulate Britain supporter, was handed an eight-week sentence for merely mentioning the climate crisis during his trial for participating in a roadblock in 2021.

Judge Silas Reid had ordered Nixon to avoid talking about the climate and ecological emergency. He said, “This is not a trial about climate change, fuel poverty, etc. Matters relating to that are not relevant.”

Nixon disagreed, and used his closing speech to tell jurors: “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator. That is why we sat in the road, to tell the truth about the direction we are heading in and prompt action before it’s too late.”

That this was enough to warrant his imprisonment is absurd – and raises serious questions about this country’s judicial system.

A life-changing experience

In October 2021, I also took action with Insulate Britain. We brought large sections of the M25 and other major roads to a standstill in order to raise awareness of fuel poverty and the climate and ecological emergency.

I now have three separate charges relating to these actions. I am due to stand trial in May, June and one last time in November. By then, two full years will have passed since I sat down in the road in defence of people and planet.

As a first time defendant, this has been a life-changing experience. I had never been in trouble with the law before 2019, and I acknowledge now that I have lived a relatively privileged life in that regard. As a white, middle-class man, I regret not recognising sooner the suffering of others less fortunate than me at the hands of the state.

My faith in the legal and judicial system of this country has been severely shaken. I have felt harassed and persecuted by the state as both my reputation and my livelihood have been unduly threatened. My name and address has been published online by the authorities, endangering not only myself but my family as well. Of course, my mental health has suffered.

Those who advocate for change now face even greater challenges than ever before as they risk prosecution under the draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act. As if that were not enough, the regime is now trying to push through its equally notorious Public Order Bill, which will give police officers even more power to crack down on protests.

If jurors can’t hear why a ‘crime’ was committed, are they there just to rubber-stamp the state’s decision?

Though neither bill had come into law at the time of my arrest, I could have reasonably expected a statutory charge of wilful obstruction under the Highways Act or an injunction under the Anti-social Behaviour Act. But neither was invoked against me.

Instead, the prosecution chose to break with legal tradition by pursuing the archaic common law offence of causing a public nuisance. This is worrying – if a charge is not defined in statute, there are no prosecution guidelines to follow.

The decision had abhorrent consequences. According to the judiciary, public nuisance is interested only in the consequences of an action, i.e. whether we supporters of Insulate Britain had caused a nuisance to the public. There is no consideration at all of the circumstances of the action, i.e. our motivations for doing what we did.

Insulate Britain supporters are not arguing that we did not cause any inconvenience or disruption to the public – that would be completely disingenuous. We are arguing that we did what we believed was necessary to sound the alarm on fuel poverty and the climate and ecological emergency. We hoped the UK government would heed our demands.

Let us be clear, it is not a lack of popular demand or technological solutions that keeps rich nations such as the UK from addressing the climate and ecological emergency. We could solve this problem if there was the political will to do so.

By denying the circumstances of our actions, I believe Judge Reid and his associates knew that we defendants would not be able to defend ourselves. We cannot minimise our actions (and neither would we want to) and yet we cannot explain ourselves either, without risking contempt of court. The scales of justice seem distinctly one-sided.

If the diverse range of legal and moral arguments in an (alleged) crime of conscience cannot be presented in front of a jury, one must ask what purpose a jury serves. Are jurors there simply to rubber stamp a guilty verdict that has already been decided since before the defendant’s arrest?

A lack of transparency

Last week another Insulate Britain supporter, Stephanie Aylett, narrowly avoided a custodial sentence after also being charged with contempt. Afterwards, she said: “It horrified me that Judge Reid deliberately stripped away all our legal defences and told us that we would be in contempt of court if we spoke about our motivations, strategy or aims.”

Aylett continued: “He prevented us from mentioning climate change or talking about any scientific evidence. It is incredibly difficult to explain the actions we took without being allowed to mention why we did such a bizarre thing.”

I am concerned about a lack of transparency over who had the authority to determine that we would be charged with public nuisance and what process, if any, was followed in reaching this decision.

The government appears to be investing more energy into silencing climate activists than implementing climate solutions

I have learned that many important decisions are made behind closed doors in secretive ‘case management hearings’ up and down the country. The existence of these hearings is not common knowledge, I am aware of them because I have been required to attend several over the past year. In my opinion they are wide open to abuse.

If there was any justice, I would not be facing charges. It would not have been necessary for me to sit down in the road to raise awareness of the climate and ecological emergency. The individuals who place profit before people and the planet would already be behind bars.

Instead, the current regime appears to be investing more energy into silencing climate activists than implementing climate solutions, such as decent home insulation that would benefit millions of ordinary people during the cost of living crisis.

This government does not represent the people, but rather the CEOs and shareholders of big business. They rule by fear, intimidation and coercion.

A few years ago, it would have been completely unheard of for a defendant to be handed a prison sentence for simply mentioning the climate crisis in a court of law. And yet here we are. As children we were warned to remain vigilant to the threat of fascism. It is time to heed those warnings.

Original article by Rob Stuart republished from openDemocracy under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Continue ReadingInsulate Britain’s ‘show trials’ expose state efforts to silence activists

Government urged to scrap Raab’s ‘rights removal Bill’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/government-urged-to-scrap-raabs-rights-removal-bill

A campaigner for advocacy group Liberty, dressed as Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, swings a wrecking ball at a temporary wall on the Southbank, London to share their concerns around the Government’s plans to pass the ‘Rights Removal Bill’, repealing the Human Rights Act 1998, ahead of Human Rights Day this Saturday. Picture date: Thursday December 8, 2022.

DOMINIC RAAB’S Bill of Rights was dealt a fresh blow today after a damning report warned the reforms would seriously damage people’s ability to enforce their rights.

A cross-party committee of MPs and peers has called on PM Rishi Sunak to totally scrap his Justice Secretary’s plans to overhaul Britain’s human rights laws, with committee members saying they found “hardly any support” for the changes following their inquiry.

The reforms seek to replace the Human Rights Act 1998, which enshrines the European Convention on Human Rights in domestic law, with a new Bill of Rights.

Mr Raab says the overhaul is needed to prevent abuses of the current system, often citing cases where human rights defences have been used to halt deportations.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/government-urged-to-scrap-raabs-rights-removal-bill

Continue ReadingGovernment urged to scrap Raab’s ‘rights removal Bill’

Jeremy Corbyn: On Human Rights Day, the UK government must reflect on its own inaction and complicity

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Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party

JEREMY CORBYN warns that on Human Rights Day Britain is trying to jettison its obligations under international treaties and turning its back on the most vulnerable

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/human-rights-day-government-must-reflect-its-own-inaction-and-complicity

If we walk away from the European Convention and human rights legislation, we will leave a terrible legacy for future generations.

There has been a resurgent pushback against human rights around the world. Let us not be part of it; let us go in the opposite direction.

Human rights have to be universal. They do not mean going to war with somebody. They do not mean abandoning or demonising the most vulnerable.

They mean engagement to try to achieve a more peaceful, caring and compassionate world for us all.

Continue ReadingJeremy Corbyn: On Human Rights Day, the UK government must reflect on its own inaction and complicity

Westminster ‘increasingly antagonistic’ towards human rights, inquiry finds

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/westminster-increasingly-antagonistic-towards-human-rights-inquiry-finds

THE Westminster government has adopted an “increasingly antagonistic” approach towards human rights, a European inquiry has found.

Moves by ministers to replace the Human Rights Act with a new Bill of Rights was singled out as a particular cause for alarm by the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatovic, who warned such a move would weaken human rights in Britain.

Ms Mijatovic also raised concerns about the government’s series of anti-protest Bills, treatment of asylum-seekers, police strip-searching of children and the emergence of a “harsh political and public discourse” against trans people.

The 47-page report follows a four-day visit to Britain by Ms Mijatovic and her team, and comes ahead of international human rights day on Saturday.

Releasing the report yesterday, the commissioner said: “Both the overall system for protecting human rights, and the rights of specific groups, are currently under pressure in the United Kingdom (UK). The authorities should spare no effort to reverse this trend.”

Guardian: Watchdog criticises UK ministers’ ‘antagonism’ towards human rights

The UK government has “an increasingly antagonistic attitude” towards human rights that is weakening instead of strengthening protections for the public, a European inquiry has found.

Inflammatory language used by MPs and officials to describe lawyers could put their safety at risk, according to the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatović.

She said the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Act would have a chilling effect on the right to peaceful assembly, which would be worsened if the public order bill is adopted.

Plans to repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with a bill of rights would weaken the rights of individuals in the UK, Mijatović said.

Continue ReadingWestminster ‘increasingly antagonistic’ towards human rights, inquiry finds

‘Not Yet Defeated’: 1,000+ March for Climate Justice at COP27

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Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

People participate in the Global Day of Action Climate Justice March at COP27 on November 12, 2022 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. (Photo: Gertie Goddard/Greenhouse Communications via Twitter)

“COP27 needs to be a turning point for the climate crisis,” said one activist.

KENNY STANCILNovember 12, 2022

Hundreds of people rallied Saturday at the United Nations COP27 summit in Egypt to demand the fundamental political-economic transformations required to achieve climate justice.

“There can be no climate justice without human rights,” declared the COP27 Coalition, an alliance of progressive advocacy groups that planned the protest as part of its push for “an urgent response from governments to the multiple, systemic crises” facing people around the world. “We are not yet defeated!”

“We march today as part of the global day of action,” Janet Kachinga, spokesperson for the COP27 Coalition, said in a statement. “Solidarity is the cornerstone of climate justice.”

https://twitter.com/ActionAid/status/1591409380007858177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1591409380007858177%7Ctwgr%5Ee407071973c19dd5d7c81054882853c69c37bfee%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2F2022%2F11%2F12%2Fnot-yet-defeated-1000-march-climate-justice-cop27

“We are marching inside the U.N. space to highlight that our movements are unable to march freely on the streets of Egypt,” said Kachinga.

Ahead of COP27, human rights groups denounced Egypt’s repression of dissidents, including hunger-striking political prisoner Alaa Abd El Fattah. Since the conference began last week in the resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh, Egyptian officials have been accused of spying on and otherwise intimidating participants.

“We refuse to greenwash the Egyptian government’s denial of the right to freedom of association, assembly, and speech by marching in a government-controlled march in the streets of Sharm El-Sheikh,” Kachinga continued.

Instead, from inside a designated Blue Zone governed by U.N. rules, activists sought “to lift up the voices and demands of all our frontline communities and movements facing repression because they dream of a better world,” said Kachinga.

https://twitter.com/EarthRightsIntl/status/1591385029166628865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1591385029166628865%7Ctwgr%5Ee407071973c19dd5d7c81054882853c69c37bfee%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2F2022%2F11%2F12%2Fnot-yet-defeated-1000-march-climate-justice-cop27

“We are at a crossroads of overlapping crises and governments are not on track to stop the worst of the climate crisis,” said Kachinga. “COP27 needs to be a turning point for the climate crisis, and not a moment to silence people.”

The U.N. recently published a series of reports warning that as a result of woefully inadequate emissions reductions targets and policies, there is “no credible path to 1.5°C in place,” and only “urgent system-wide transformation” can prevent temperatures from rising a cataclysmic 3°C by century’s end.

“Solidarity is the cornerstone of climate justice.”

According to the latest data, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide—the three main heat-trapping gases fueling global warming—hit an all-time high in 2021, and greenhouse gas emissions have only continued to climb this year.

Despite overwhelming evidence that new fossil fuel projects will lead to deadly climate chaos, oil and gas corporations are still planning to expand dirty energy production in the coming years, including in Africa.

“The call for greater oil and gas production is completely out of step with climate science,” Jeni Miller, executive director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, said Friday in a statement. “Presented as a necessity for development, new investments in fossil fuel infrastructure would instead simply lock a new generation into these dirty fuels, at a time when clean energy is viable and ready to be scaled.”

“The rightful need of people in low- and middle-income countries for access to energy—for clean cooking, for healthcare, for education, for jobs, and many other key determinants of health—must not bring with it the health costs associated with fossil fuels,” Miller added. “It is vital that high-income countries provide financial support for the transition in low- and middle-income countries.”

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The Prirazlomnaya offshore ice-resistant oil rig is seen in the Pechora Sea, part of Russia's Arctic territory, on May 8, 2016.

Oil and Gas Industry’s Expansion Plans Decried as Attack on ‘Livable Planet’

Kenny Stancil

Among the key demands of the COP27 Coalition is that the rich nations most responsible for causing the climate crisis “fulfill their obligations and fair shares by reducing their emissions to zero and providing poorer nations the scale of financial support needed to address the crisis.”

The coalition argues that “repayment should include adaptation, loss and damage, technology transfer, and factor in debt cancellation for vulnerable countries [that] have been impoverished while dealing with the impacts of the climate crisis.”

A recent U.N.-backed report estimates that poor nations will need a combined total of $2.4 trillion per year by 2030 to fight the climate emergency—including funding for mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage.

“Unless more urgency is shown, marches will only be the start.”

A separate analysis from Carbon Brief reveals the extent of wealthy countries’ failures to mobilize far smaller sums of money to support sustainable development and enable equitable responses to escalating extreme weather disasters.

Since the COP15 meeting in 2009, developing countries have been promised that rich nations would provide at least $100 billion in climate aid each year by 2020. However, just over $83 billion was delivered in 2020, the most recent year for which data is available. The Global North is not expected to hit its annual target, widely regarded as insufficient, until 2023.

The U.S. is most responsible for the shortfall, providing less than $8 billion toward the $100 billion figure in 2020. That constitutes a mere 19% of the country’s approximately $40 billion “fair share,” or what it should be paying based on its cumulative contribution to global greenhouse gas pollution.

U.S. President Joe Biden has vowed to allocate $11.4 billion per year toward international green finance by 2024—less than 2% of the annual Pentagon budget and still far less than Washington’s fair share—but congressional lawmakers approved just $1 billion in a $1.5 trillion spending bill passed earlier this year.

When it comes to the U.N.-backed loss and damage fund, just a handful of high-polluting countries have pledged a combined total of around $250 million so far, a tiny fraction of the $31.8 trillion that the world’s 20 wealthiest economies collectively owe the Global South, according to the Climate Clock, a recently unveiled display at COP27.

“The science of climate breakdown has never been clearer, and seeing the suffering of my fellow Africans facing drought and famine, the impacts have never been more painful,” said Mohamed Adow, a representative of the COP27 Coalition.

“It’s no wonder that people are rising up across the world to make their voices heard that they will not stand for inaction from their leaders,” Adow continued. “Unless more urgency is shown, marches will only be the start.”

“Today we rise as a people, despite the restrictions, to demand our collective rights to a livable future,” said environmental justice champion Nnimmo Bassey. “We demand payment of the climate debt accumulated by centuries of dispossession, oppression, and destruction.”

“We need a COP led by the people and not polluters,” Bassey continued, alluding to the massive presence of fossil fuel lobbyists at the meeting. “One that rejects ecocidal, neocolonial false solutions that will widen the emissions gap, burn Africa and sink small island states, and further entrench environmental racism and climate injustice!”

Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Continue Reading‘Not Yet Defeated’: 1,000+ March for Climate Justice at COP27

Priti Patel news

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UK Murdoch Home Secretary Priti Patel appears in recent news items.

Priti Patel’s new powers to remove citizenship would turn ethnic minority Brits into second-class citizens

Consider the following example, because it’s about to come true. Someone has been a British citizen for decades. They go on holiday. When they try to return, they’re told that the Home Secretary has stripped them of their citizenship. They are not told why. They are not told the charges against them. They have no functioning right of appeal. They have been made stateless, by ministerial fiat.

This would be the consequence of a new provision added to Priti Patel’s Nationality and Borders bill, which goes through the Commons over the next couple of days.

Making someone stateless has long been seen as one of the most egregious actions a government can take. In the words of Hannah Arendt, the great scholar of totalitarianism, it deprives people of “the right to have rights”. It makes you an unperson: without protection, without home, without legal status.

Jailed for 51 weeks for protesting? Britain is becoming a police state by stealth George Monbiot

This is proper police state stuff. The last-minute amendments crowbarred by the government into the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill are a blatant attempt to stifle protest, of the kind you might expect in Russia or Egypt. Priti Patel, the home secretary, shoved 18 extra pages into the bill after it had passed through the Commons, and after the second reading in the House of Lords. It looks like a deliberate ploy to avoid effective parliamentary scrutiny. Yet in most of the media there’s a resounding silence.

Among the new amendments are measures that would ban protesters from attaching themselves to another person, to an object, or to land. Not only would they make locking on – a crucial tool of protest the world over – illegal, but they are so loosely drafted that they could apply to anyone holding on to anything, on pain of up to 51 weeks’ imprisonment.

It would also become a criminal offence to obstruct in any way major transport works from being carried out, again with a maximum sentence of 51 weeks. This looks like an attempt to end meaningful protest against road-building and airport expansion. Other amendments would greatly expand police stop and search powers. The police would be entitled to stop and search people or vehicles if they suspect they might be carrying any article that could be used in the newly prohibited protests, presumably including placards, flyers and banners. Other new powers would grant police the right to stop and search people without suspicion, if they believe that protest will occur “in that area”. Anyone who resists being searched could be imprisoned for – you guessed it – up to 51 weeks.

The truth behind Priti ‘pull the drawbridge up’ Patel

Recently, the Guardian broke the news that the reason we are seeing increasing numbers of asylum seekers on our beaches is because they have cottoned on to the fact that, thanks to Brexit, we are no longer part of the Dublin Agreement. This inconvenient truth seems to have escaped Farage and Johnson and all those who are hell bent on ruining the country’s economy at any cost if we can only get control of our borders.

Since 2016, the Tory party has rapidly morphed into the BNP-NF-Brexit Party-UKIP-Tory party but how far has it gone? 

Put it this way. Now it’s suppressing its own reports on the reasons people make the treacherous journey across the channel. Home Office data show two thirds of those attempting to make the crossing are genuine refugees, many coming from war-torn parts of the world. As one of the world’s largest exporters of arms, the UK has had a great deal to do with creating the hell that they are escaping.

But the Home Office is not publishing this data. Why? Because it doesn’t fit the narrative. These are inconvenient truths that the Tories don’t want people to hear. So best they just make out that the asylum seekers are illegal immigrants coming over here to scrounge benefits and get a nice hotel on the back of the taxpayer.

Continue ReadingPriti Patel news

David Cameron Islamic Extremism speech July 2015

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I’ll be making some remarks on David Cameron’s recent speech on so-called Islamic Extremism. Later on in his speech Cameron says that he wants to do away with this blog under his ‘Extremism Bill’. edit: He doesn’t actually say this blog but

“First, any strategy to defeat extremism must confront, head on, the extreme ideology that underpins it. We must take its component parts to pieces – the cultish worldview, the conspiracy theories

we should together challenge the ludicrous conspiracy theories of the extremists. The world is not conspiring against Islam; the security services aren’t behind terrorist attacks

Second, as we counter this ideology, a key part of our strategy must be to tackle both parts of the creed – the non-violent and violent.

This means confronting groups and organisations that may not advocate violence – but which do promote other parts of the extremist narrative.

We must demand that people also condemn the wild conspiracy theories, the anti-Semitism, and the sectarianism too. Being tough on this is entirely keeping with our values.

We need to put out of action the key extremist influencers who are careful to operate just inside the law, but who clearly detest British society and everything we stand for [Tory values]. These people aren’t just extremists. There are despicable far right groups too. And what links them all is their aim to groom young people and brainwash their minds.

So as part of our Extremism Bill, we are going to introduce new narrowly targeted powers to enable us to deal with these facilitators and cult leaders, and stop them peddling their hatred.

As I said, this is not about clamping down on free speech. It’s just about applying our shared values uniformly.

This blog peddles conspiracy theories and claims that security services are behind terrorist attacks.

Sorry Cameron, you’ll be imprisoning me.

image of David Cameron, Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks
David Cameron, Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-extremism-speech-read-the-transcript-in-full-10401948.html

It’s great to be here at this outstanding school, Ninestiles School. Your inspiring teachers and your commitment to British values means you are not just achieving outstanding academic success, but you are building a shared community where children of many faiths and backgrounds learn not just with each other, but from each other too.

Politicians giving speeches at schools is out of order. While they’re guaranteed an audience it’s insulting and disrespectful to the school-students involved. There is an authoritarian regime in schools where students are ordered about and they follow those orders. Their human rights are not recognised. The students didn’t realise they could turn around and say “Fuck off! I’m not listening to that asshole” because of course they can’t. It’s lucky no politician tried that while I was at school.

Blair used to do it a lot – probably because he’d never get an audience towards the end of his reign. He’d go to a school and avoid any eye contact with the students – that’s one of the things that put me onto him and his evil ways. Why was he avoiding eye contact?

Blair went to one school and was booed by the students. He was so deranged and divorced from reality that his aides persuaded him that they were doing some youth-speak “Boom” showing respect for him. Twat.

And that goes right to the heart of what I want to talk about today.

I said on the steps of Downing Street that this would be a ‘one nation’ government, bringing our country together.

That’s total bullshit then. It’s four or five nations for a start. What about the Evel measures Cameron was pursuing? That’s certainly very divisive.

Today, I want to talk about a vital element of that. How together we defeat extremism and at the same time build a stronger, more cohesive society.

My starting point is this.

Over generations, we have built something extraordinary in Britain – a successful multi-racial, multi-faith democracy. It’s open, diverse, welcoming – these characteristics are as British as queuing and talking about the weather.

It’s not welcoming, is it?

It is here in Britain where different people, from different backgrounds, who follow different religions and different customs don’t just rub alongside each other but are relatives and friends; husbands, wives, cousins, neighbours and colleagues.

It is here in Britain where in one or two generations people can come with nothing and rise as high as their talent allows.

It is here in Britain where success is achieved not in spite of our diversity, but because of our diversity.

I’m letting that pass because it’s trivial.

So as we talk about the threat of extremism and the challenge of integration, we should not do our country down – we are, without a shadow of doubt, a beacon to the world.

Oh come on.

And as we debate these issues, neither should we demonise people of particular backgrounds. Every one of the communities that has come to call our country home has made Britain a better place. And because the focus of my remarks today is on tackling Islamist extremism – not Islam the religion – let me say this.

Hmm, Muslims are the one religion that is seriously discriminated against. I happened across a couple of Muslim school students who were about fourteen the other day. I was cycling through a park and they had to move out of the way for me to pass through the gate to leave the park. We exchanged a few words. They were ashamed. I regret not making an issue of telling them that they had nothing to be ashamed of. This is what it’s all about – it’s young Muslims who will be [ed: relentlessly] bullied by school authorities – they’re not ever going to have a break, are they? That seems to me very much like a way to create extremism rather than defeat it.

26/7/15 I’m going to jump ahead because it’s crap.

I was thinking about whether these “our values” actually exist and who is Cameron to define these “our values”. I was intending to argue that there is no consensus since we are so diverse as Cameron has already said and that I share very few values with Cameron. Values are different from beliefs and I should think that values probably follow from beliefs. It follows that since peoples’ beliefs are different then they have different values. I think that’s about right. What about you?

Take for example a religion that promotes the idea that all other religions are inferior – that all others not following that particular religion are animals or beasts in human form, sub-human. Now if you had accepted such beliefs, wouldn’t values follow? and wouldn’t behaviour follow from those values?

So, my proposition is that there are no such “our values”.

26/7/15 19.30 BST

What are these “our values”?

But you don’t have to support violence to subscribe to certain intolerant ideas which create a climate in which extremists can flourish.

Ideas which are hostile to basic liberal values such as democracy, freedom and sexual equality.

Surely Cameron must mean pretend-democracy, pretend-freedom and not even pretend sexual equality. Cameron, former PM Tony Blair and former Resident Dubya Bush are Neo-Conservatives. Neo-Conservatives follow the anti-democratic and illiberal philosophy of Leo Strauss that it is necessary to deceive to rule. It would seem that Cameron is proposing that “our values” includes support for an obvious sham-democracy that is maintained through dissembling and deception.

Ideas which actively promote discrimination, sectarianism and segregation.

Like Cameron’s proposed Extremism Bill.

Ideas – like those of the despicable far right – which privilege one identity to the detriment of the rights and freedoms of others.

Like the religion I mentioned earlier and this speech and the proposed Extremism Bill and Neo-Conservatives.

TBC

Danger Mice

Cameron fights for his brutish values – more Islamophobia and war

Continue ReadingDavid Cameron Islamic Extremism speech July 2015

Con-Dem David Cameron’s censorship and attack on human rights

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Original graphic published at www.reachinglight.com.

Infographic: UK Filter to Block ‘Esoteric Content’ - Worldwide Implications

Hmm, esoteric content? web forums? This is a huge attack on free thinking and any type of organisation or collaborative endeavour. It will probably include geeky tech and alternative politics.

What will the web be like without conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists?

This post subject to change

Continue ReadingCon-Dem David Cameron’s censorship and attack on human rights