Protests Descending Into Mob Rule, Rishi Sunak Warns Police

[naomi24]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68429902

 

Right or wrong?

[ToraToraTora]

Bang on, plod needs to get a grip.

[davebro3]

Marching peacefully with banners is allowed.  But what's happening now in some cases amounts to public order offences & intimidation & is illegal. So yes the police should make arrests & charges should follow.

[ToraToraTora]

What we are seeing is not protesting but intimidation, violence and out and out support for terrorists. The old bill needs to break out the riot gear and shut them down.

[naomi24]

I don't believe he's wrong and neither, it seems, does Labour's  Harriet Harman.  Her suggestion that MPs work from home has been rejected.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/mps-harriet-harman-parliament-downing-street-covid-b2503433.html

[miser]

Following six weeks of public engagement, the Mayor of London has now announced that he has agreed to support the Metropolitan Police’s call to purchase water cannon to help enhance their response to riots or other serious and exceptional public disorder. The final decision on whether to license the water cannon for use on the UK mainland now rests with the Home Secretary.

I'll not hold my breath

[Khandro]

He's right, but as in most things, what he says & what he does are two different things.

The rules about protest marches are much clearer in Germany. Those responsible for anything like the disgusting Big Ben outrage, would now be under arrest and facing a stiff sentence.

https://www.dw.com/en/israel-gaza-demonstrations-what-is-allowed-in-germany/a-67276649

[douglas9401]

Was it not decided years ago that water cannon were impractical on the streets of London? Too big and cumbersome.

Are we to have specially built, word-class mini cannon made by a friend at a grossly inflated price, as usually happens in matters like this?

 

[davebro3]

It was a mistake selling the ones we had - they could have been useful on several occasions recently to break up demos & act as a deterrent.

[nicebloke1]

14 years of the cons chopping the police force to bits, its was always going to lead to law and order breaking down and a lack of protection for the public. But now its affecting MPs millions are going to be invested for their protection. Strange that, or to little to late.

[gulliver1]

Douglas 10. 11 Spot on again. Perhaps Baroness Mone might  help out.

[Ellipsis]

Maybe Rishi is right, maybe the two comments below are right ... probably somewhere in between.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68429902

Justice minister Mike Freer, who is standing down at the next election due to safety fears, said the extra funding for security measures would "not go to the root cause" of why people felt emboldened to target MPs.

He said unless you deal with the cause you would just have "a ring of steel around MPs" and then "our whole style of democracy changes".

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/mps-must-kept-safe-campaigners-194500411.html

Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: "All of us will know that in the past few years we've seen two MPs [Jo Cox and Sir David Amess] killed.

"But what's going on at the moment, is the attempt to use those sorts of threats to MPs, which should be managed through proper security processes, to conflate that, with legitimate and peaceful protest, and to suggest that somehow people protesting peacefully, including outside MPs offices, including outside Parliament, somehow carries with it a security risk.

"It's a grotesque conflation, and it's designed, we know, to delegitimise all of those who are out on the streets because they want a ceasefire to stop a genocide and it's indicative also of a wider attitude about the legitimate right to protest."

[Gromit]

Hope we are not about to repeat the farce when London Mayor Boris Johnson bought 3 water cannon for £320,000 only to be told they were illegal. They were sold years later for scrap at a huge loss to the rate payers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-46258584

[naomi24]

//Current Mayor Sadiq Khan said "we have managed to finally get rid of them".//

 

He could soon be going shopping.

[Ellipsis]

> He could soon be going shopping.

So Sadiq Khan, who Lee Anderson said is "controlled by Islamists" [and many ABers agreed] could soon be going shopping for a water cannon! Really?! If he bought one, what do you think he would do with it? 🙄

[davebro3]

They could have flushed "stop oil" off the motorways for one.

[naomi24]

Ellipsis, 'He' wouldn't do anything with it - but the police could find a use for it

[Ellipsis]

So Khan would buy a water cannon, and give it to the police to use it for ... what? Dispersing protesters about Gaza makes no sense, if he's under Islamist control ...

[Mozz71]

//So Sadiq Khan, who Lee Anderson said is "controlled by Islamists" [and many ABers agreed] could soon be going shopping for a water cannon! Really?! If he bought one, what do you think he would do with it? 🙄//

 

Hosepipe ban?

[nicebloke1]

Hoespipe ban, ha ha, not if they line em up along the beaches to stop the mobs landing here. :0)))))