UK Politics: Welcome to the Age of the Boris

[LexW]

Sigh the van-burning in Bristol is exactly the kind of unhelpful shit we need to avoid, but the message still isn’t out that they’re not even reconsidering the bill until June 24th. The papers haven’t reported anything about it that I can find, and I saw an activist meeting last night where people still seemed to think it had passed and was just waiting royal assent, not had been rejected and delayed. That impression was corrected but still…

That said for better or worse given the delay to June rhetoric/rioting in either direction won’t mean shit right now, because it will be long-forgotten. If it keeps happening though it may strengthen the case for the bill, which, ironically, will cause massively more rioting if it goes through (when all protest is illegal, which seems to be the intent, there’s zero reason to protest in a “civil” way).

[Zephro]

The bill is only getting blocked by Tory backbench rebellion, so this is probably the exact kind of thing that will give said rebels the fear of looking soft suddenly.

[LexW]

Yeah which is why it’s a terrible idea. Fortunately it didn’t seem to be particularly big on the news, so as long as the genii in Bristol can keep a lid on it it’ll probably be fine. But the Tories should meditate on the fact that if the bill passes, rioting and any protest at all will essentially become the same thing, and last time the police decided to take on “all comers” riot-wise, i.e. the Poll Tax riots, they got their collective ass handed to them and had to basically run and hide. And there were a hell of a lot more police back then.

On the upside I just purchased an amazing pen and paper RPG called “Shadow of the Mogg”, which is set in the tunnels of the Underground in post-Brexit Britain, after the Event. It’s astonishing: https://manicproductions.co.uk/

[Zephro]

Haha excellent.

Though because this bill has so much shit in it like extra laws against paedophilia it’s never not passing. Its all to do with amendments around the right to protest etc.

I’m not sure about the rioters. I’m beginning to suspect that the whole “Culture Wars” shit has made people (of all political stripes) think the entire English speaking world have the same polity. Though in fairness the Tories try to force the issue, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. So some people have gone full abolish the police like in the USA, but that’s not really a serious position here. Where the police are fundamentally different and the debates we have about them are very different.

In recent memory the Tories and the left of Labour have all stood on platforms of more, better police and reform. Theresa May did a lot around curtailing stop and search and telling the Met to go fuck itself. One of the very few things she can take any credit for. So it just doesn’t feel like an argument anyone but a weird minority are even having, and that mostly plays in to the Tories wanting to import the “Culture Wars”, so its best not to play into their hands?

Suspicions mind, it’s hard to tell only engaging with the world via the internet during lockdown.