Posted on 01/01/2025 6:56:36 AM PST by MtnClimber
As a free-speech campaigner, I was deeply alarmed by the prospect of a Labour government. But it turns out, I wasn’t nearly worried enough.
The unrelenting assault on this essential human right since Sir Keir Starmer entered Downing Street in July has shocked even the most jaundiced of observers. Who could have predicted this time last year that scores of people would be prosecuted for offensive speech on social media following a brutal knife attack? That two police officers would turn up at the door of an award-winning journalist on Remembrance Sunday to interview her about a year-old tweet that she’d deleted within hours? That Britain’s record on freedom of expression would be so bad that it has turned us into a global laughing stock? All of which means that when speculating about what will become of free speech in 2025, we should assume the worst.
Let’s start with the threats already in the pipeline. The Employment Rights Bill, which will almost certainly receive royal assent next year, contains a clause that will extend employers’ liability under the Equality Act to third-party harassment – ie, the harassment of employees by customers and the like. That means that owners of pubs, bars, restaurants, hotels, sports stadia, concert venues, etc, will have a legal obligation to take ‘all reasonable steps’ to protect their employees from ‘harassment’ by anyone they come into contact with in the course of doing their jobs.
When you bear in mind that under the Equality Act ‘harassment’ includes overheard conversations that might upset or offend someone with a protected characteristic, the implications of this are deeply sinister. Pubs will have to employ ‘banter bouncers’ to police the conversations of customers to make sure no one is saying anything risqué that could be overheard by a member of staff. Hotels will have to stop anyone entering the lobby wearing a ‘Woman: Adult Human Female’ t-shirt. Football clubs will have to ban anyone who shouts ‘Are you blind?’ at a linesman, in case they’re overheard by a partially sighted steward. In short, the chilling effect that the Equality Act has had on workplaces, in which everyone is constantly looking over their shoulder to make sure they’re not overheard, will be extended to every area of our lives.
Then there’s the Football Governance Bill, another piece of legislation bound to go through next year. It includes several clauses that will require football clubs to promote equality, diversity and inclusion even more aggressively than they do at present. When you consider that Newcastle FC has already given a gender-critical feminist a two-season ban for saying on X that she doesn’t think transwomen are women, the mind boggles.
We already have Kick It Out and Rainbow Laces. Stonewall hovers over every boardroom in the Premier League. Not long ago, footballers would religiously take the knee before each match. Does the Labour government want fans to produce a certificate proving they’ve had unconscious-bias training before being allowed into a stadium? In future, when visiting fans at the Emirates chant ‘Is this a library?’, Arsenal supporters will be able to point to Sir Keir in his executive box and then put their fingers to their lips. If Starmer has his way, every stadium in the country will be a library.
Labour also promised a ‘full trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices’ in its manifesto and it’s a racing certainty that this will happen in 2025 as well. What does that mean, given that what’s commonly thought of as ‘conversion therapy’ is already illegal in Britain and, in any event, all but disappeared about 25 years ago? The answer is that Labour wants to criminalise parents and health professionals who deviate in any way from the ‘gender-affirming care’ approach, whereby any adolescent suffering from gender confusion is encouraged to embark on an irreversible medical pathway rather than pause and reflect, or undergo a course of psychotherapy....SNIP
The left does not recognize their own mass psychosis. I hope I don’t get extradited to Britain for typing that.
The pendulum in the UK must swing and soon.
It is doing so in many countries on the continent.
The Government is afraid to put away actual criminals. Too much work. So they keep law abiding citizens in line by going after them.
The antichrist’s empire is going to have its hq in Rome so the EU is being readied. This sort of thing doesn’t happen overnight. They’ll all be wearing the burquaas (sp?) soon
IF you let someone else tell you what you can and can’t say don’t blame it on on someone else. you might go to jail.
> Starmer is so loathed that I think he will be removed before long. <
Starmer doesn’t have to call an election before 2029. And Labour has a huge majority in Parliament (no coalition was necessary).
Are there enough reasonable people remaining in Labour to force Starmer out?
I was going to visit some friends in Somerset this year. I think I will cancel that visit. I would hate to be arrested while there and not be able to leave.
Here’s an old Soviet Union joke. Sadly, it looks like a modern version would be appropriate for today’s UK.
Foreign reporter: What is your opinion on farm collectivization?
Soviet citizen: I agree with the policy of the party.
Foreign reporter: What is your opinion on the steel production goals?
Soviet citizen: I agree with the policy of the party.
Foreign reporter: What is your opinion on the increase in food prices?
Soviet citizen: I agree with the policy of the party.
Foreign reporter: Don’t you have any opinions of your own?
Soviet citizen: Yes. But I don’t agree with them.
islam is a totalitarian death cult founded by a child rapist and trannies are wack.
Blasphemy codes have returned.
Mohammed was a pedophile.
King Charles’ Christmas speech was rather disjointed, not appropriate for the season of hope and joy and made little sense speaking mainly of war. The little that did come across was proof, once again, he merely plays at being Christian. He is planning a visit with the false pope who is also playing his subjects on a show of being Christian.
There are reasons the 13 British colonies in North American fought a war to escape British rule. The First Amendment to the Constitution poignantly addresses these reasons and was written to guarantee liberties not allowed by the English King and Parliament.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
With the heavy hand of tyranny slamming down on them in the modern era, it appears the British people are facing the same decision the American colonists were presented in 1775-76. So far it appears most are choosing to willingly submit. Not unlike their Canadian brothers and sisters who stayed in their homes failed to stand with the trucker convoy against the tyranny of their government in 2022.
The reelection of Donald Trump in 2024 does not mean the descendants of the revolutionaries of 1775-76 have escaped the heavy hand of the globalist elites who are imposing their will on the people of the planet. During the next four years we will likely be tested and given the choice of risking our lives, our belongings and our sacred honor to preserve liberty or accepting the chains offered in exchange for life and a position in the New World Order.
We know from the recent election about half of our fellow citizens will willingly reject freedom. When the day of reckoning comes, how many in the other 50% will make the alternative choice Patrick Henry described over two centuries ago, “Give me liberty or give me death”?
He got about a third of the vote in July. And yet,he and his Maoist pals have a huge majority in Parliament and they have 4.5 years left to cause chaos in Britain.
I expect J K Rowling will be threatened with imprisonment for her comments on transgenderism and copies of Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 will be banned from circulation and likely burned publicly.
An Ipsos poll from mid-December 2024 reports that only 27% of Britons are satisfied with Starmer's performance, while 61% express dissatisfaction, resulting in a net satisfaction score of -34.
Additionally, a recent poll suggests that if a general election were held today, Labour could lose nearly 200 seats, reducing their count from 411 to 228. This would result in a highly fragmented political landscape, with no party able to form a majority.
Of course, since an election isn't imminent, these numbers serve only as a warning rather than an immediate threat.
That said, I don't think we'll have to wait until 2029.
This is the time in history where the U.K. completely collapses
There is some hope: Free speech is essential to oppose the tyrannical actions of a government; the less free speech, the more tyrannical a government will certainly be, but it is not always absolutely necessary to bring down such a government. The Eastern Bloc fell without free speech within because people recognized it was wrong, and the world around them illuminated where internal tyranny tried to darken.
Starmtrooper lacks a mandate in the most fundamental way; he governs only because the opposition was deeply divided in first-past-the-post elections. He won an utterly enormous parliamentary majority with only 33% of the vote, and his party’s support is already down massively since then.
The House of Lords is loathe to act against majoritarianism, even when that majority exists only in the House of Commons, and especially when that majority empowers the government, but they may also be loathe to rubber-stamp such obvious tyranny, so I suspect that the Labor Party will act with the sort of administrative measures and rulings that are easier to reverse.
The key is to act like Gandhi, or at least the J6ers who shouted “FBI, FBI, FBI” against the speakers who called for violence. Do not take their bait. Let the masses see their evil. There are still elections; if the masses don’t reject them in spite of their oppression, it will do no good to make their slanders true.
I like Reagan’s better. I don’t remember it word for word, so I’ll use your version’s set-up:
Foreign reporter: What is your opinion on farm collectivization?
Soviet citizen: I can’t complain.
Foreign reporter: What is your opinion on the steel production goals?
Soviet citizen: I can’t complain.
Foreign reporter: What is your opinion on food shortages?
Soviet citizen: I can’t complain.
Foreign reporter: Don’t you have ANY issues with your government?
Soviet citizen: I can’t complain.
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