Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/16/london-metropolitan-police-ser.html
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What if I just want to show up and be there while caring about the future of the human race on a planet the habitability of which we’re rapidly degrading?
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Are you asking for a friend?
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Interestingly enough, that Section 14 order contains a significant loophole.
The ban applies to The Metropolitan police area and the City of London Police area. It therefore doesn’t cover all railway stations, lines and depots (Including the Underground and the DLR) that are the responsibility of the transport police.
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Yes. Asking for seven point eight billion friends.
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The London Underground and the lines and stations of the national railway network within the MPD are primarily policed by the British Transport Police but are not excluded from the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police.
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This seems shortsighted.
It’s well known that a lot of the sunny commonwealth protectorates that serve critical roles in highbrow money laundering are rather close to sea level as it is. Not to mention the risk of acidification to the calcium carbonate needed by shell corporations.
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Fair enough. I thought that they had been missed out in a rushed bit of paperwork, but real life is boring.
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Is the UK still a country of laws? When is Brexit again?
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A badge of honour on par with being on Nixon’s enemies list.
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I understand that the badge in the image is owned by Stephen Fry.
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For what it’s worth, Broccoli Man was released without charges following his recent arrest.
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13 days and 22 hours away.
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After 10 years of tory austerity and authoritarian laws on airstrip one brexit will only amplify what’s happening now.
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Have the media done any comparisons with HK or Russia?
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I’m sure that News Corp has done comparisons with China and Russia, but more as internal benchmarking for their own toxic work than for public consumption. After all, Murdoch wants the UK to be yet another corrupt authoritarian sinkhole like those two countries, and thus sees them as models to be emulated.
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primarily in Trafalgar Square
I mean, yeah. Where the hell else in london would there be a protest?
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There is also the risk that the police will arrive too late.
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Warning: Off-topic. Regarding the picture, it’s always annoying when uniforms make gratuitous differentiations based on sex. What a coincidence that the male version of the bobby’s hat/cover is larger (and, thereby, connotes greater importance).
The US Armed Forces suffer from this also, but it appears some branches are starting to get the message:
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Pedantry ahoy (and IANAL):
An order under section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 can be made by “the senior police officer”, who is the highest-ranking officer on the scene if the protest is already underway, and the chief officer of police otherwise – so in this case, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner (presumably in cahoots with the Commissioner of the City of London Police, given the ban applies there as well).
BUT a section 14 order is supposed to comprise “directions imposing on the persons organising or taking part in the assembly such conditions as to the place at which the assembly may be (or continue to be) held, its maximum duration, or the maximum number of persons who may constitute it, as appear to him necessary to prevent such disorder, damage, disruption or intimidation”, rather than an outright ban.
I guess the police are working on the theory that they can specify a place of nowhere, a maximum duration of nothing, and a maximum number of persons of zero.
XR disagree, and have indeed launched a legal challenge.
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