Free Republic

EHRC calls for clearer guidance for officers to avoid creating a ‘chilling effect’ on freedom of expression The UK’s official human rights watchdog has written to the government and police expressing concern at a potentially “heavy-handed” approach to protests about Gaza and urging clearer guidance for officers in enforcing the law. In the letter to Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, and Mark Rowley, the head of the Metropolitan police, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said the perception that peaceful protest could attract disproportionate police attention “undermines confidence in our human rights protections”. ...

The UK’s largest teaching union has called Reform UK “far-right and racist” and its leader has dismissed Nigel Farage as “a poundshop Donald Trump,” as the union pledged funds to oppose the party’s candidates in elections. Delegates to the National Education Union’s annual conference backed a motion stating that “far-right and racist organisations, including Reform, seek to build on the despair, poverty and alienation in our society by scapegoating refugees, asylum seekers, Muslims, Jews and others who do not fit their beliefs”. The motion also committed the NEU to use its political fund for campaigns against Reform election candidates and...