Hacker News Reader

Comment by foldr | Hacker News Reader

I can’t find any mainstream news source corroborating the claim that the government has imminent plans to introduce new legislation on the basis of the review mentioned in the article. If you google “hall independent review state threats”, nothing much turns up.

View on HN

HN is becoming so partisan, it's starting to get on my nerves. The bill text is here[1]. It's extremely benign and the article linked, in fact, argues against it's own straw-man, found in another cited article[2]:

> Yet, another way to view ‘cumulative’ or repeated protests is as sustained public action for justice, solidarity and freedom.

So yes, if you interpret some random bill amendment in whatever way favors your side, you can argue against or for anything (the logical principle of explosion[3]). The problem is that some protests were actually quite disruptive and some people think we should curb this. This isn't some insane authoritarian anti-free-speech power-grab that the original article hints at.

It's sad to see folks lacking any kind of media literacy or critical eye. Also, the source itself is biased (it's a left-wing think tank), but that's a whole 'nother thing.

[1] https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3938/stages/20237/amendmen...

[2] https://netpol.org/2025/10/28/resist-new-laws-restricting-cu...

[3] https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~dnp/frege/paradoxes-of-material-i...

> So yes, if you interpret some random bill amendment in whatever way favors your side,

That is how laws often get interpreted. It gives the decision to a police officer. Do you think the police officer will ever make a decision which does not favour their side?

Police officers don't interpret the law, the courts do.

Only if you really want to nitpick the phrasing. In practice there's for example "means such area as the senior police officer considers appropriate" - the officer here has to interpret what is meant by this request and gets to choose.

Indeed. Really the last thing HN needs right now is another overheated, low information discussion about the UK. But for whatever reason UK-bashing seems to have caught the popular imagination in recent times. (There are plenty of negative things that can legitimately be said about the present state of the UK, to be clear, but this sort of low quality reporting shouldn’t be getting attention here.)

The argument - and wholly plausible prediction being made - is that these changes lay the groundwork for a legal definition of ‘subversion’ that could prioritise ideology over conduct, providing the state with a broader arsenal to classify any political dissent as a security risk.

This is ALREADY in play with the proscribing of Palestine Action, and subsequent arrest of protestors on Terrorism charges. They are absolutely spot-on in their conclusion that, "These developments reveal a state increasingly concerned with defending its own legitimacy that is weaponising security itself to shield power from accountability."

The potted history of Shabana Mahmood is a grotesquely cynical exemplar of this relatively new phenomenon.

In 2014, a backbench Labour MP named Shabana Mahmood lay on the floor of her local Sainsbury’s in protest against the sale of products made in illegal Israeli settlements. A week later, she spoke to crowds at a Free Palestine protest in Hyde Park, of the “compassion and humanity expressed for the people of Gaza … from every race and every religion.”

Mahmood is now the UK Home Secretary, and gets to decide if the more than 2,000 people arrested for alleged support of Palestine Action – mostly for holding placards stating: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” – will face criminal trial.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/26/ban-on-pales...

But what changes specifically are we talking about? The amendment that dvt linked to doesn’t have to do with labeling dissenting movements as subversive. It’s still rather unclear to me which specific piece of pending legislation (if any!) the article is referring to.

It's on the back of Jonathan Hall KC and Government Announcements in the recent past following the Palestine Action proscription - e.g. the UK Government recently saying it would amend sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 to further impose conditions on public protests and assemblies.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-police-powers-to-prot...

The changes to the law would allow police officers to consider the cumulative impact of protest when deciding whether or not they are lawful, meaning they could potentially re-route or totally shut down protest they believe could cause serious disruption to local communities.

The Netpol argument suggests that the upcoming annual review of national security legislation is likely to expand the protest-related clauses of the National Security Act in a similar fashion - providing the groundwork for a legal definition of ‘subversion’ that could prioritise ideology over conduct.

This seems to be mainly based on Hall’s ‘Independent Review of State Threats and Terrorism‘, published in May 2025, and his his recent review of the Sentencing Bill, published in late October 2025.

https://terrorismlegislationreviewer.independent.gov.uk/wp-c...

He has been sabre-rattling in the UK media since May in an effort to drum up support - whilst simutaneously playing up to the far-right agitators by supporting 'anti-woke' figureheads like Graham Linehan and his anti-trans agitation.

""I am thinking about the measures that may one day be needed to save democracy from itself. What do I mean? I am referring to counter-subversion"

https://news.sky.com/story/britain-may-have-to-resort-to-ant...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/21/jonathan-hall-kc...

This seems to confirm that the headline claim is based on little more than a hunch. At least, you haven’t pointed to any pending legislation or official government announcements relating to a new legal definition of ‘subversion’.

So HN is having an entire discussion on the basis of one journalist’s irresponsibly sloppy headline writing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You may think that the journalist’s hunch is justified in this case, but to report that the government is planning something, when that is merely a somewhat informed guess at what the government may eventually do, is just bad journalism.

Considering what is happening to the Palestine Action protestors right now in the UK, your waiving away of concerns is hard to read. Give an inch and they (current, or future governments) are given more scope to attempt to take a mile through interpretation or overreach.

- Broad discretionary powers

- Vague thresholds

- Pre-emptive justification

- Lack of neutral limits (time, geography, number of events)

- Expansion of police control over public assembly

Your post to waive away concerns as partisan or alarmist is either an intentionally bad act or, sorry, naive.

One of the problems with Palestine Action is the violent protests they have previously engaged in.

There is a trial in progress at the moment relating to an attack on Elbit Systems where one of the "protestors" seemed to attack a WPC with a sledgehammer. Apparently having caused serious harm to her spine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79727zeqyvo

So the folks holding signs expressing their support for the group once it has been proscribed (I believe under the TA 2000) are somewhat ill advised.

If they disagree with the proscription, what they should probably be doing it assisting in the Judicial Review of that proscription which is currently ongoing. Certainly they should be waiting until after the review before expressing any support.

As even if the proscription is overturned, those who expressed support for what is currently viewed as a terrorist org may not have the personal consequences of their support undone.

You're conflating the actions of an individual with the goals and aims of the PA organisation. I'm certain their intent is not to harm people. You've described one incident where an individual got carried away with serious consequences for the victim and, likely, the alleged perpetrator.

Also, your reasoning is a little backward about the Judicial Review. I am 100% certain than one of the reasons the Judicial Review was granted at all was due to the strong support and the arrests of thousands of PA supporters.

Lastly, those who stepped up to get arrested did so in the full knowledge of the personal consequences they may face. They used their apparent right to protest to make all of the above happen. If they'd listened to you, nothing would have happened.

That would be a good example of the chilling consequences of the Authoritarian creep we're talking about in this thread.

Well in america we had some "disruptive protests" (e.g. rodney king race riots) which were fundamental drivers of fixing systemic injustices in racial equality.

In fact, perhaps most progress toward justice required "disruption," and that's a bargain price to pay.

There are two of more things driving the cumulative protest legislation push. The test will come when the first use it, and we find out which they want to use it against.

1. We have had various highly disruptive repeated "climate" protests (Just stop Oil, etc)

2. We have had over a year of "pro Palestinian" hate marches, more or less every weekend.

3. We have had repeated protests outside various hotels repurposed as hostels for housing illegal migrants.

Of these the latter is the most recent, least disruptive, but most embarrassing for the regime. The regime seems to be complicit with the second.

I suspect most folks expect this power to be used against '2', but I'd not be surprised if it was used against '3' instead.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com