Bad things are happening in the UK. I made a video about the situation and how to fight against it.
Essentially, the government is trying to push through a bill that will effectively ban all protest. This is a human rights violation, although they insist that it’s not.
You could get a prison sentence of up to 10 years for any protest-related action that the Home Secretary Priti Patel deems “impactful” or “causing serious annoyance”, such as sitting in a road, spray-painting a monument or making too much noise.
Furthermore,the proposed bill gives the Home Secretary the power to amend the law afterwards without parliamentary approval. This gives her unprecedented control over any and all protest and is dangerous for democracy.
In this video I discuss the bill, why it is so sinister and how we can fight against it. If you found this video helpful, please share it with others and encourage them to act! Share with your UK friends!
I’ve made a list of resources you can use, including MP email templates. I will be updating it with new info as the situation changes.
As of now (March 16th 2021, 22:38), the bill has passed its Second Reading, meaning that it will now be scrutinised and amendments will be proposed. If you are in the UK, write to your MP and ask them to either propose amendments that will scrap the anti-protest elements of this bill, or support specific amendments, such as this one by MP Bell Robeiro-Addy. Also,sign Netpol’s petiton asking UK to protect protest rights.
Please spread this information. The Conservative party wants to turn the UK into a police state where only their opinions are heard. We cannot allow them to get away with this.
Our prime minister has been fined for breaking the law during lockdown - the first sitting prime minister of the UK to be found to have broken a law whilst in office. The “ministerial code” which is a loose selection of rules that ministers are meant to follow on and honour system says he should resign.
He’s not resigning. And his party is openly backing him.
The excuses offered are feeble. The war in Ukraine in of no relevance. The cost of living crisis was caused by him. And no, everyone else wasn’t doing the same thing.
The fine is pocket change to him, and even then Boris tried to block the investigation and the report and was clearly held to different standards than a “private individual” and given far more courtesy by the police. This undermines the principle of rule of law which is supposedly a “British value” and a cornerstone of liberal democracy.
It is a sign that we are sliding ever further towards authoritarianism.
It is very clear that Boris can do literally anything and his party will back him. MPs know it would be a bad time for an election, that there’s no one on the front bench who could easily steer them through it. They don’t want to lose their seats or their spot on the gravy train.
Meanwhile, people will die of cold or starvation or suicide or not being able to get vital medication or of panic and despair at not being able to pay their bills leading to suicide. Children will go cold and hungry.
But it’s alright, because we’re protecting the profits of energy companies, and your taxes are going straight into the pocket of Tory party doners.
They know the end is nigh, but they’re determined to get every last bit of cash they can out of the British people first.
This is a democracy that is no longer functional, a country being run solely for the benefit of the super rich. It’s not enough to say “hold on for two years and we can vote them out” because very clearly the whole system is broken. And anyway, people will be dead by then.
Electoral politics, party politics are not the answer. We need something more radical.
I remember the sick dread I felt after the last election, knowing that as a result of Johnson’s win, people would die. Disabled people, poor people, Black people would die unnecessary deaths.
But god, I could never have imagined how many. So many tens of thousands of additional lives lost, still being lost, to these authoritarian, plutocratic kleptocrats.
Below you have Gainsborough’s stately portrait of a Prime Minister in perfect control of both himself and his elegant setting (note the neatness of Pitt’s attire and how the line of the pen matches the line of his right arm – very orderly is the young Mr. Pitt) and to the upper left you have Gillray’s less than flattering print of Pitt the Younger as a “An Excrescence; – a Fungus; – alias – a Toadstool upon a Dung-hill”, as Gillray believed Pitt’s power to stem solely from rotten royal favor. Note the rosy nose, which is a pot-shot at Pitt’s habit of drinking three bottles of port a day.
William Pitt the Younger became Prime Minister of Great Britain at 24, a position he held (except for two years) until his death, which not only makes him the youngest Prime Minister in history, but also one with the second-longest term in office. Many people, including Pitt himself, who was an MP at 21 and Chancellor of the Exchequer at 23, were quite surprised when George III tried to bully Pitt into taking office in 1782 just as Pitt was about to complete his gentlemanly education by taking a Grand Tour of the Continent with two of his friends, William Wilberforce (who spearheaded the British Abolition movement) and Edward Eliot (who later married one of Pitt’s sisters).
Being bullied by a monarch is enough to put anyone into a tizzy, which is probably why none of these gentlemen thought to get a letter of introduction. In the 1780s, letters of introduction served not only as a passport into a country, but a passport into society. The three gentlemen managed to secure a letter to a certain Monsieur Coustier in Rheims just before they had to leave England.
In the words of Mr. William Wilberforce: “From Calais we made directly for Rheims, and the day after our arrival dressed ourselves unusually well, and proceeded to the house of Mons. Coustier to present, with not a little awe, our only letters of recommendation. It was with some surprise that we found Mons. Coustier behind a counter distributing figs and raisins. I had heard that it was very usual for gentlemen on the continent to practice some handicraft trade or other for their amusement [Marie Antoinette liked pretending to be a milkmaid, herself], and therefore for my own part I concluded that his taste was in the fig way, and that he was only playing at grocer for his diversion; and, viewing the matter in this light, I could not help admiring the excellence of his imitation; but we soon found that Mons. Coustier was a ‘véritable epicier,’ and that not a very eminent one.”
They thus spent what one can assume was an extremely boring week at Rheims, since their friend the grocer did not even sell figs to the local aristocracy and could not introduce them to anyone. Since they spoke no French (Wilberforce had slacked off at Cambridge; Eliot had studied law, not languages; and Pitt had studied classical languages like Greek and Latin, which, though helpful for becoming a famous Parliamentary orator, was of no practical value in Rheims) and kept to themselves, they were almost arrested as spies.
Fortunately for them, the bishop of Rheims knew Pitt the Elder, the late Earl of Chatham/Pitt’s now-dead father, and took them in as guests, causing Mr. Wilberforce to note: “N.B. Archbishops in England are not like Archeveques in France; these last are jolly fellows of about forty years of age, who play at billiards, &c. like other people”.
Sage words, Mr. Wilberforce, sage words.
Thus concludes the first part of what will be an admittedly long series on Funny Things That Happened to Pitt the Younger.
![Tory Leadership Possibilities: Tag Yourself [x]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/24ef22a37caabc3d86d88e8a72258428/tumblr_orge9dJcf21w8r8xio1_1280.png "Tory Leadership Possibilities: Tag Yourself [x]")
