SS GB - we're there 🙁

I always enjoyed Len Deighton"s books. I’m sure I’ve read them all. “Bomber” for example, led me off to read many of Martin Middlebrook’s excellent books on the RAF WWII bombing campaign (quick synopsis; Harris, the commander, was a war criminal, the bomber crews were the bravest of the brave).

But let’s focus on SS-GB. This rotates about Germany having won the war and the UK being under SS control.

Well Germany needn’t have bothered, , Tory legislation and the malevolent, incompetent Starmer have brought Hitler’s dream to the UK.

Bearing in mind that Section 12 (1A) of the Terrorism Act 2000 states that;

(1A)A person commits an offence if the person—

(a)expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation, and

(b)in doing so is reckless as to whether a person to whom the expression is directed will be encouraged to support a proscribed organisation.]

it becomes debatable as to whether it is even possible to lawfully discuss the subject of the above Guardian article in this forum.

It could be said that expressing an opinion that a particular organisation should not be ‘proscribed’ is of itself an expression of support for that organisation. Bearing in mind that all posts on this forum can be read by all the members, it could be said that all posts are ‘directed’ to all members.
It is arguable that as no ‘poster’ can know the likely impact of a particular post on any particular reader, and that it is possible that the reader may be ‘encouraged’ to form an opinion which is in agreement with the original poster stating their belief that a particular organisation should not have been proscribed, that making such a statement is ‘reckless’.
The offence is punishable by up to 14 yrs imprisonment.

My own view is that it is a badly written law that stifles public debate, and that this particular section needs to be re-written to make ‘intent to encourage support’ a required element of the offence being complete.

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The blame lies with the organisation itself, and its childish, destructive behaviour.

We’ve debated ad nauseam what they did.

I’ve expressed the view that protest is no longer about persuasion: now, it’s all about making the protesters feel satisfied. Just Stop Oil, Greta, PA.

If you don’t want to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation, don’t practise terrorism. And if you can’t persuade people of the justice of your cause - which seems to be the case here - then maybe pack up and go home.

It’s all a crying shame because we should be standing up to Israel and denouncing it as a genocidal. Instead, we have idiots like PA providing a sideshow.

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Did you see the footage of the riot plod knocking a bloke’s tooth out with a riot shield?

It would seem that the SS GB establishment has deployed Einsatzkommando to police the replacement of the native population.

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I haven’t seen that. Do you have a link to the video you can share ?

Here you go. As you can imagine, the language used by the assaulted man and other protestors is NSFW.

This was the riot against the asylum hotel in Essex where several police officers were injured and vehicles damaged, the Palestine Action demos were peaceful.

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So you’re happy with folks getting their teeth knocked out by the people paid to to maintain order?

Good to know.

Given he was probably one of the only fine, upstanding citizens there who actually had a few teeth in his head, it was incredibly unfair the police removed them. He can join his mates as having the same number of teen as brain cells now; one of each.

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Great post Robert :slightly_smiling_face:

Maybe I’ve got the wrong riot, but weren’t there just forty “rioters” surrounded by police and eight police got injured? Not to put a tooth in it (:face_with_hand_over_mouth:) that’s not a great result for the forces of law and order.

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I hope not but better than being shot dead.

The “protester” was very objectionable, but the police officer should not have just hit him. He should be investigated for assault. I think he let his colleagues down by smacking the guy.

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As most of the posters are residents of France I don’t see a problem for most of us in this respect. However, for others …?

A very badly drafted law and whom were the legislators’ intended targets?

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In the US he could have just shot him and killed him. Might delay his promotion or expedite it

True, but we ain’t quite there… yet.

Indeed so.
I find it notable that I cannot find anywhere in the Terrorism Act that mentions causing, or even being likely to cause, a state of terror. The furthest that it goes is to mention ‘intimidation’ of the public, which in my opinion is a far cry from ‘terrorising’ the public.

Right from the outset, the main thrust of Section 1 of the act is to prevent action “designed to influence the government”, and by virtue of Section 1 (4) (d) this includes the government of any country anywhere.

The ‘action’ to be prevented includes “serious damage to property” by virtue of Section 1 (2) (b) but the question of what is, or is not, to be regarded as “serious damage” is not specified. What one person considers serious may be thought to be relatively minor by another.

Also good to keep in mind that Section 1 (4) (a) tells us that “action includes action outside the United Kingdom”, and also to note that Section 1 (5) states that "In this Act a reference to action taken for the purposes of terrorism includes a reference to action taken for the benefit of a proscribed organisation" and not being proscribed would be an obvious benefit.

So I think that anyone who either resides in the UK, or indeed goes to the UK for any reason, needs to be aware of the provisions of the legislation that seem more intended to protect all governments everywhere than anyone else.
In many ways the Act seems to be something of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

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It seems they can’t win, strike someone who’s in their face threatening them and they get criticised, wait until someone actually physically attacks them and they get criticised. Who would be a police officer?

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That’s because you’d have to be a very lily-livered bunch to be provoked to being terrified by terrorism.

I quoted the relevant Act a while ago in a thread on the same topic - A very angry and, I think, accurate editorial - #8 by Porridge - and it’s clear that the definition of terrorism it contains mirrors the way we use it in everyday speech. It’s just that, when people approve of an organisation’s aims, they don’t want to accept it’s actually a terrorism organisation, because that would mean they were supporting terrorism.

But it’s easy to check. Just consider the actions of an organisation whose aims you disapprove of and plug them into the definition.

Sadly, I think the crazy notion that Palestine Action should be placed in the same grouping as ISIS or Al Qaeda is indicative of the government’s handling of many of today’s issues affecting the UK and the rest of the world.

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