Keep out of my opinions, Mr Plod

THE Guardian newspaper, voice of the Establishment, has been squawking like an indignant parakeet about counter-terrorism police listing Extinction Rebellion as an extremist organisation.

XR turned out to be on a list of ‘extremist ideologies’, which was to be reported to the Prevent programme.

In a way, I agree with The Guardian’s outrage. The police have no business probing people’s opinions. There should be no such lists. The word ‘extremism’ has no objective meaning and it could one day be applied to me or you, if things carry on as they are.

Policing in this country is already far too political and, to put it politely, police officers really aren’t very good at understanding such things.

We have a very expensive Security Service, MI5, which – thank heaven – has no powers of arrest or prosecution, to keep an eye on those who might move from angry speechmaking into acts of violence. When I was a Trotskyist in the 1960s and 1970s, MI5 did a pretty good job of watching us without interfering in our freedom of speech and thought.

Alas, all their files on us were destroyed soon after New Labour came to power, as the Blair government was crammed with ex-Trots (including the Blair creature himself), who may not have been all that ex. And when extremists become the government, who dares call them extremists?

But XR can hardly blame the authorities for being interested in them. The think-tank Policy Exchange made a fascinating study of their nature and origins. Many who have gone on their protests might be surprised to learn just how radical and fanatical they are.

Remember how they seriously discussed disrupting Heathrow. And how, about the same time, they tweeted (last April 1) that ‘this movement is the best chance of bringing down capitalism’. But they deleted the tweet after nine minutes, presumably when they realised they had given away too much.

Worth watching? Yes, but not by Mr Plod.