Becoming a police state

Deeply disturbing legislation which is included in a new Bill before Parliament has been highlighted by the Good Law Project.

I quote The Good Law Project: "High-profile protests around Brexit, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the climate crisis have been thorns in the Government’s side over the last couple of years.

"By and large, these protests have been peaceful and have acted as effective ways for people to express their dissatisfaction with the Government.

"However, the Home Secretary, in particular, doesn’t seem to like dissenting voices – nor does she want to engage with the root causes of these protests.

"The Government’s proposed solution? To clamp down hard on the right to protest and The Bill as it stands would give sweeping new powers to the police to restrict peaceful protests – including giving them the powers to set conditions on the duration of protests, set maximum noise levels, and put restrictions on where protests can take place.

"As it seems to us, the very purpose of the right to protest is to enable people to register their profound unhappiness or strength of feeling in a way which compels the state to respond.

"It should worry us all that the Government has chosen to attack our rights."

I can only echo these sentiments: we are rightly concerned at what goes on in dictatorships like China and now Myanma, but we may be on the brink of joining them in becoming a police state.

I would urge your MP to vote against this new repressive measure.