Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

What's the experience in other government sectors? Do senior police chiefs adjust their professional activities because of threats from criminals?

Well, to be fair the more chance of resistance there is at a public event, the less forceful the police is. Cases in point: violently putting down a peaceful protest by women vs stepping aside for football hooligans to ransack their way into Wembley

[The Brain]

What's the experience in other government sectors? Do senior police chiefs adjust their professional activities because of threats from criminals?

Well, to be fair the more chance of resistance there is at a public event, the less forceful the police is. Cases in point: violently putting down a peaceful protest by women vs stepping aside for football hooligans to ransack their way into Wembley

Is that because of threats against the persons of police chiefs, or is it because of other considerations?

[Josquius]

Yeah, I would agree all of that would be great but as you say that's more long term and as a result cold comfort to people dealing with issues now.

What do you think should be done in short term? It feels like taking claims seriously would be a first step and this recent experience shows we aren't even doing that minimum.

The same reaction that we're getting here, taking the threat very seriously, but for all such threats, not just the Palestine related stuff.

What's the experience in other government sectors? Do senior police chiefs adjust their professional activities because of threats from criminals?

Yes.
My parents know a guy who is a semi-retired senior detective.
I don't know the details but he did some work around organised crime. As a result he always parks his car in the garage (super weird in 2024), tends to drive a different way every time he goes somewhere, and a few other little quirks around keeping his home secret.
Its pretty well known that in Northern Ireland during the troubles  the lives of cops families would be massively altered due to their job and security considerations.

[The Brain]

Obviously you take various security measures. What I'm after with "professional activities" is if they decide not to go after certain criminals or similar because they've received threats?

[crazy canuck]

They weren't sued for legal fees. They lost a court case and everyone who loses a court case has to pay the other side's costs.

That's a really terrible article.

It really is. Did their lawyer not tell them that if you go to court and lose you will be liable for the otehr side's costs (or at least a portion of them)?

In the UK< opponents to schemes are not liable for costs of opposing the planning for a scheme even at inquiry but will be liable if they seek to judicially review a decision.

Well whoops. Thanks for the clarification guys.

You would have no way of knowing that you should not take that article at face value.  It goes to a wider issue we as a group have been discussing for a while.  A robust free press is critical to the proper functioning of a democracy, but the economic model for news is broken.  And so we end up with this sort of junk from the private sector.

A cynic might observe that is the very reason right wing parties want to get rid of publicly funded broadcasters.

[Sheilbh]

Speaker's apology today:

[Sheilbh]

Well, to be fair the more chance of resistance there is at a public event, the less forceful the police is. Cases in point: violently putting down a peaceful protest by women vs stepping aside for football hooligans to ransack their way into Wembley

There were huge policing failures at Wembley but it wasn't that they stepped aside.

I think the Met's approach to policing protests of any sort is basically about the likelihood of it kicking off. If it's already kicking off (far-right on Whitehall, some of the anti-lockdown protests) or it won't kick off if they act (the Sarah Everard vigil), then I think they go in pretty heavy. If it's currently peaceful but they think it will kick off and the protest is large then they are very laissez-faire (but make arrests after the event).

I'm not sure that's actually the wrong approach. But I think you need to be honest about it and I don't think they are.

Stella Creasy, soft left Labour MP on this:

Death and rape threats, bricks through windows: MPs must be able to serve without living in fear
Stella Creasy
Our febrile political culture cannot normalise the idea that politicians' homes and families are legitimate targets for protesters
Thu 22 Feb 2024 13.03 GMT
Last modified on Thu 22 Feb 2024 17.27 GMT

It's the thing every MP fears, but it is increasingly becoming an occupational hazard: the brick hurled at the office window, the rape and death threats that arrive in the post, angry voices abusing you, your staff or your family, both on and offline. In recent years, I've experienced all of these things, and I know I'm not alone. Public life is drowning in hate, and violence and harassment towards political representatives is increasingly being normalised. Unless we take responsibility for addressing this, the outcome will not simply be that the loudest voices and largest wallets win: democracy will lose.

Every MP has not just the shadow of the deaths of our beloved friends David Amess and Jo Cox looming in our thoughts, but also knowledge of the day-to-day violence our colleagues experience. I don't need to agree with Tobias Ellwood or Mike Freer on policy to know that a line has been crossed when their private addresses and constituency offices have been targeted – and they are not alone. As campaign groups seek to be heard, they are taking ever more incendiary directions. Just Stop Oil stated to the Guardian that it would challenge MPs "at their homes", and protests over Gaza have happened outside MPs' houses, with protesters daubing constituency offices with red paint.

Politicians are used to people disagreeing with them – indeed, few would wish to live in a world where they didn't. Listening to those you disagree with is often the best way to learn – or to confirm you're on the right path. A culture that tries to stifle dissent and arouses such anger is not just bad for politicians – many of whom are walking away rather than face the ignominy of wearing protective clothing to go outdoors – it is also bad for the causes and campaigns that drove so many of us into public life, and on which we want to see progress. Draconian efforts by the government to shut protest down have rightly been challenged, and indeed many of us have defended those who do disagree with us, both in other political parties and in community movements.

What we are seeing now is not simply a livelier version of public life. You cannot have free speech if 50% of a conversation is spent living in fear that saying no will mean a risk of harm to either yourself or someone you love. Nor is it OK for protest to become about persecution because you may or may not agree with an issue. Climate protesters picketing MPs' houses is no more acceptable than the threats I have received from anti-abortion campaigners. All would argue that their cause is so vital and important that such tactics are merited – but to allow these behaviours to become the norm for any is to enable it for all.

The ultimate irony is that this behaviour is driving the closure of the public sphere itself, with MPs being told they need to have security at any public meeting, no matter the subject, and not to meet constituents in person. Yet one of the best things about Britain's parliamentary system is that we expect our politicians to be part of the communities they're elected to serve. Now that the parliamentary security team requests the details of your daily travel plans – when you'll be visiting your local supermarket, or the pub – it's hard not to feel that something has gone very wrong. Indeed, my local council records me as a safeguarding risk to my own children because of the threats I face as an MP.

Understandably, there is a real fear of talking about this problem among politicians – especially women, people of colour and LGBT representatives, who are targeted the most. We're told that to raise concerns is to show we can't "take the heat" or we're seeking to avoid accountability. Indeed, Westminster has not acted with grace, thought, empathy or inclusivity in recent years. MPs have been found to be abusive or corrupt. Wednesday night in the Commons showed we can lose sight of what matters. The subjects we deal with – economic insecurity, genocide and hunger, fundamental human rights – are messy, complicated and nuanced, and our discussions are too often stage managed, petty and dismissive.

But the answer isn't to go low. It is to reinforce the value of robust and reasoned democracy. If we don't, only those who enjoy conflict and fear will go into politics. It may make for entertaining viewing, but it will lead to terrible policymaking, setting back the progress we've made in achieving a consensus around important issues such as net zero. Finding someone to scream at may make you feel better, but it is not a healthy political culture. When shock tactics become commonplace, the quality of public debate suffers. We begin to lose the ability to have conversations with people we disagree with, to discuss contentious issues with constituents, and to learn to live alongside one another. And that, surely, is what politics is supposed to be about.

    Stella Creasy is the chair of the Labour Movement for Europe and the Labour and Cooperative MP for Walthamstow

Why were you reading Owen Jones?

He's important - very influential and I think will probably especially matter once there's a Labour government (which he'll be trying to destroy).

[garbon]

No, Owen Jones is not important and his strain of ideological purity is the kind of shit that keeps Labour out of power.

[Sheilbh]

Right - but I think that's why he's important, no?

Edit: And, incidentally, being wildly disingenuous on this issue - hard as that is to believe

[Josquius]

Since Russel Brand went absolutely insane and flipped to the far right Owen Jones is basically the only quasi famous far left figure around bar Corbyn and his crowd of MPs. So he's as important as the far left is.

I have read some of his books before and it's sad as he does make some great arguments in a good way... But so much blinkered nonsense alongside just destroys the valid points.

[Tamas]

I can't fathom anyone not already a dedicated far-lefty being swayed by Owen Jones arguments.

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally one of the things I was thinking yesterday was that there is a distinction between the violence/risk of violence and intimidation. There's been three MPs who've been stabbed in the last 15 years, plus one attack on Parliament (leading to the death of police officer) - one was by someone on the far-right, the other three by Islamists. From what I've seen most of the convictions for threats have been from the far-right. So I, was going to say, I think the risk/threat of violence is higher from extreme Islamists and the far-right; while the "intimidation" stuff trying to break into people's offices, homes, vandalism etc seems to be more of a thing with the left (Just Stop Oil, the Gaza protesters).

Then I saw that today a far-left anarchist has been found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism to murder at least 50 MPs to "stand up for working class people". So maybe that's not actually a distinction anyway. I should add that I find the teddy bear in this picture he took of himself quite funny:


I posted her tweet here but I think there's a lot to this by Marie Le Conte:

MPs and the threat of violence
Too many politicians in Westminster live in fear of their lives
Marie Le Conte

"If I get killed one day it will be by him", she told me. "The police know it, there won't have to be much of an investigation – it'll be him".

Had an interloper with a poor grasp of English overheard our conversation, they probably would have assumed that we'd been talking about the weather. That's how casual this female MP sounded, talking about her stalker and the various death threats she'd been receiving. She'd grown too used to them; in fact, her office had stopped reporting most of them to the police.

If they really did try to take action about every person threatening her safety, she said, her staff wouldn't have time to do anything else. I remember standing there, hand firmly holding the strap of my handbag, unable to come up with an appropriate response.

I wish I could tell you who she is, because I think that going through something like this and managing to keep doing your job, out there in the open, should be celebrated. I also wish I could tell you, in more detail, about another attempt on a different MP's life.

I was told about it by someone who worked for him and whom I knew well, on the condition that I never wrote about it in a way that could identify any of the parties involved. It was several years ago, before David Amess but after Jo Cox, and the details still stick in my mind. They were chilling.

I want to tell you about them but I won't, because those politicians have their reasons. They don't want to put targets on their backs, or draw attention to the security measures they've had to undertake. That would defeat the point.

We often talk of omertas in Westminster but they are usually about the tawdry stuff: the shagging, the cheating, the overindulgent boozing. We know something and you don't, and isn't that fun – that sort of thing. This is the one exception.

Everyone who works in British politics is aware of how bad things have got for MPs. We've all heard countless stories, first and second hand. This is why it wasn't entirely shocking to hear that Mike Freer would be standing down at the next election.

The Finchley and Golders Green MP had his constituency office firebombed late last year, and he revealed that he'd been one of Ali Harbi Ali's potential targets, before the killer settled on Amess instead. "There comes a point when the threats to your personal safety become too much", he told the Daily Mail.

The news was met with sadness and consternation by Westminster denizens, but not much surprise. Freer may have explicitly singled out abuse and harassment as reasons for leaving Parliament, but he's hardly an exception. A lot of MPs are standing down at the next election. Many of them will, in private, cite similar concerns.

The question here is obvious: why isn't this talked about more? The answer is complicated because, well, the answers to the other question are complicated. Why are MPs being threatened so much more now than even 10, 15 years ago? There is no single culprit.

Those on the left may argue that tabloids' constant, hysterical screeching over the Brexit and Corbyn years helped radicalise faithful but unstable readers. They may also point to coarser and coarser language from the politicians themselves, especially on Conservative benches. Those on the right would probably turn to the polarising effects of social media, and the depths to which some of its users have plunged over the past decade or so.

Campaigners on both sides may look at the bigger picture, and wonder if the internet in general may have been a mistake, especially as we all spent so much time lonely and online during the pandemic. Hell, some may even wonder if drastic cuts to mental health services could be to blame, with everything else serving as a convenient distraction

I have no idea who's right. I suspect – well, worry – that everyone is. No single thing or person is to blame for this rise in abuse, assaults and threats. This means that there is no single solution anyone could reasonably point to.

It is a dire state of affairs, and one that cannot keep getting swept under the carpet, only ever mentioned when one brave MP decides to briefly open up. It is possible to have sympathy for politicians not wishing to go public with their experiences, but something must be done. Only by being honest about the scale of an issue can we begin to solve it.

We owe it to our political class and, perhaps selfishly, to ourselves as well. What would Parliament look like if only those with the thickest skin remain? Would we really want them to be the ones running Britain?

3 February 2024 12:00 AM

Also I know that we all think the Met is not great. But I read stuff like that where you've got basically stalkers and I just can't help but wonder if the police have ever considered that maybe policing could be a solution to some issues?

Because if you know who it is, you've got all the threats etc, that feels like something maybe the police should maybe use as evidence to arrest the person responsible.

This is where I slightly wonder if just enforcing the law, arresting people, prosecuting them etc might be more effective and have less unintended consequences than, say, the whole Online Safety Act stuff. Stalking, death threats etc are already crimes after all.

[Duque de Bragança]

Incidentally one of the things I was thinking yesterday was that there is a distinction between the violence/risk of violence and intimidation. There's been three MPs who've been stabbed in the last 15 years, plus one attack on Parliament (leading to the death of police officer) - one was by someone on the far-right, the other three by Islamists. From what I've seen most of the convictions for threats have been from the far-right. So I, was going to say, I think the risk/threat of violence is higher from extreme Islamists and the far-right; while the "intimidation" stuff trying to break into people's offices, homes, vandalism etc seems to be more of a thing with the left (Just Stop Oil, the Gaza protesters).

Then I saw that today a far-left anarchist has been found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism to murder at least 50 MPs to "stand up for working class people". So maybe that's not actually a distinction anyway. I should add that I find the teddy bear in this picture he took of himself quite funny:

Indeed!

[Josquius]

Those on the left may argue that tabloids' constant, hysterical screeching over the Brexit and Corbyn years helped radicalise faithful but unstable readers. They may also point to coarser and coarser language from the politicians themselves, especially on Conservative benches. Those on the right would probably turn to the polarising effects of social media, and the depths to which some of its users have plunged over the past decade or so.

Campaigners on both sides may look at the bigger picture, and wonder if the internet in general may have been a mistake, especially as we all spent so much time lonely and online during the pandemic. Hell, some may even wonder if drastic cuts to mental health services could be to blame, with everything else serving as a convenient distraction

I have no idea who's right. I suspect – well, worry – that everyone is. No single thing or person is to blame for this rise in abuse, assaults and threats. This means that there is no single solution anyone could reasonably point to.

Huh?
The far right blame social media and the left don't? Facebook is an absolute fasc-put these days.
Obviously social media is the problem. Thats how the ridiculous outrage bait of the traditional media (and others) is mostly spread these days.

And poor bear

[Sheilbh]

Interesting that your immediate split is between the "left" and the "far right"

But I think she's broadly right on that - and both sides are right in their own way but it's probably all of the above.