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Comment by dua2020 | Hacker News Reader

dua2020

This is a government which is in the process of criminalising protest under a deliberately vague 'public nuisance' clause. They only want freedom of expression for their views and not for those that oppose them.

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Can someone explain to me how this makes sense when they are letting insulate britain block motorways? Like which protests are they trying to stop?

I assume blocking motorways is illegal already, yet the police are doing nothing, which is leading dangerously to vigilante justice as per some videos, which is only a question of time before it turns really violent.

Wtf is the UK government doing? Why do they need more powers when they don't use the current ones? Or is it for "other" types of protests? Shutting down motorways is fine.

Since when are they doing nothing? They have been arresting them.

Blocking motorways is probably illegal - the trouble is, the police arrest people and then they just go ahead and do it again. (Also, I think the Supreme Court decided that the law on blocking highways didn't apply to people doing it in the name of protest so it's far from clear that those people could be convicted - the court has shown activist tendencies in general, something that some pundits predicted would happen as soon as the UK created one.) One of the things the final law is expected to include is more provisions allowing the police to take action to stop people form doing this.

the court has shown activist tendencies [citation needed]

I mean, it's almost identical to the old Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, but with different hats. They've always done a fair amount of development of the common law. The court under Baroness Hale was maybe a little more vigorous at that than usual, the current regime maybe a little less than usual. I don't see any of it as outside the usual bounds of British jurisprudence.

The SC didn't rule that the obstruction of the highway offence didn't apply in cases of protest. The question is whether the exception in the Act applies:

“if a person, without lawful authority or excuse, in any way wilfully obstructs the free passage along a highway he is guilty of an offence” (Highways Act, 1980, s.137).

They ruled that, under some circumstances, 'proportionately' exercising the right to protest could qualify as a lawful excuse. In the case in point, the protesters had blocked one of multiple entrances to an arms fair, in circumstances when only arms fair traffic was likely to even notice the protest (it was an entryway to the Excel centre). Also, the protest was of short duration.

The consequence of the decision is that the question of lawfulness is now case-by-case, as it is with other highway obstructions. There is essentially no chance that protesters blocking motorways are going to escape a conviction on the basis of this decision. They're also likely to be given post-conviction orders making repetition imprisonable.

FWIW I pretty strongly support the campaign's expressed aims, but reckon that this is some of the shittest praxis I've seen from protest group. Like the previous stunt by a bunch of XR-aligned people of gluing themselves to public transport, it's got a tenuous link with the aim pursued and is going to cost their cause vastly more public support than it can hope to gain.

[see https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/offences-during-protes...]

> Or is it for "other" types of protests?

There was a BLM protest that pulled down a statue of a slave trader in Bristol. Honestly, pretty much every elected politician would have been OK with that. But then there was another protest in London where some critical graffiti was sprayed on a statue of Winston Churchill. Despite his faults, Churchill is an extremely popular figure; no elected politician would support statues of him being damaged or removed.

So a bill to stop protests damaging statues seemed like a good idea to them.

From the perspective of civil servants and the police, if you offer them more power of course they'll say yes. Who wouldn't want more power, after all?

But getting the bill through the bureaucracy took time, and by the time it was ready the most recent protest-policing news was a police crack-down on a candle-lit vigil for a woman who'd been raped and murdered just days before... by a policeman.

> Why do they need more powers when they don't use the current ones?

Is this a serious question? To make their job easier, always. It's a lot easier to do what you want when you don't have little things like the law or people's rights standing in the way.

> Can someone explain to me how this makes sense when they are letting insulate britain block motorways? Like which protests are they trying to stop?

They are letting them? I'm pretty sure they get arrested every single time. Or are you wanting a instant jail sentence for being suspect of making people late?

the police and courts have the ability to impose bans on individuals returning to protests and re-offending. They could quite easily say "if you participate in another protest where a road is blocked in the next 12 months, we'll hand you a 1 month jail sentence".

For some reason this isn't being used, and they just let people go again and again, and they always return a few days later. Well, actually, they DO issue these restrictions, but don't follow up with actual punishment. Boggles the brain. You take a handful of grandmas and stick them in actual, factual jail for a month, see how many people return to protest next time.

The bans have been imposed. They've literally got multiple injuctions againist them.

> You take a handful of grandmas and stick them in actual, factual jail for a month, see how many people return to protest next time.

What you think they would be victimised? Mate they won't be touched and all the cons will love them. Bashing old people gets you put into protection in the jails.

David Davis is a backbench MP, he isn't a Government minister. I would sooner eat my own eyeballs than vote Conservative, no matter who the candidate, but Davis does have a principled track-record in voting for civil liberties.

> Davis does have a principled track-record in voting for civil liberties.

Well, if you're British, sure? If you're an EU Citizen wanting to live or work in the UK, he was very much "they should have ID cards" in 2017.

To be fair, they probably should have ID cards since every other country in the EU as far as I know has a national ID scheme.

As an EEA citizen living in the UK (now a citizen, but was here pre-brexit under EU freedoms) I see absolutely nothing wrong with the host state requiring me to carry an ID card. In fact, many countries require this for their own citizens, see Germany.

As an EEA citizen living in the UK, let me tell you that you’re missing the plot.

Whether you agree or not with the requirement of ID cards for EU nationals in the UK, doesn’t change the fact that David Davis repeatedly voted against extending one’s civil liberties, based on their nationality.

This is what the previous commenter noted, and is factually correct!

David Davis is a joke and his word is not worth more than his EU trade deal that never happened.

So, just like most other governments. I often wonder how these people seem to almost inevitably get into power.

Is it just because they really want to, compared to people with a more "live and let live" attitude?

Are there any five eyed nations where I can get a group of my friends together then block a major arterial road to protest some issue without expecting to be arrested?

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