Well, in the UK just planning a non-violent protest can get you 5 years in prison as many people have already discovered. Protesting has been pretty much made illegal by a very broad legislation that defines any protest that causes "disruption" as illegal - what "disruption" means is up to interpretation of course.
Which just means you need a large group to protest. They can arrest 10,000 people no problem, but get several million together and you have an army. Best is to get some of the actually army/police with you so that when (not if!) they try to get violent you can make it clear this is a revolution they won't win.
I hope it never reaches the above level, but always remember that remains an option.
Yeah but to get a million people together you need to plan for it first, and that's where they get you :P It's honestly shocking the state of things in the UK in that regard. I'm surprised there isn't more outrage around it, even the people I know who used to say they hate the Just Stop Oil protesters expressed shock that they've been given 5 years for just talking about a protest, not actually doing it.
I don't support the legislation you're referring to, but I think you're painting an exaggerated picture (unfortunately a common theme of these threads on HN about the UK). You can easily find examples of recent protests in London: https://news.google.com/search?q=protests%20london&hl=en-GB&...
Note how I didn't say that protests don't happen in the UK. They obviously do. But the problem is that now that effectively every protest has been made illegal due to the fluid definition of what "disruptive" means, the enforcement is arbitrary. Just stop oil protesters? Thrown in jail. Protesting in front of the Chinese embassy? Carry on. That's the problem with the broad legislation in the UK - government wants to have the power to spy on everyone, but obviously it doesn't mean everyone will be spied on. Just people who do something the government doesn't like.
Well, in the UK just planning a non-violent protest can get you 5 years in prison as many people have already discovered. Protesting has been pretty much made illegal by a very broad legislation that defines any protest that causes "disruption" as illegal - what "disruption" means is up to interpretation of course.
Which just means you need a large group to protest. They can arrest 10,000 people no problem, but get several million together and you have an army. Best is to get some of the actually army/police with you so that when (not if!) they try to get violent you can make it clear this is a revolution they won't win.
I hope it never reaches the above level, but always remember that remains an option.
Yeah but to get a million people together you need to plan for it first, and that's where they get you :P It's honestly shocking the state of things in the UK in that regard. I'm surprised there isn't more outrage around it, even the people I know who used to say they hate the Just Stop Oil protesters expressed shock that they've been given 5 years for just talking about a protest, not actually doing it.
I don't support the legislation you're referring to, but I think you're painting an exaggerated picture (unfortunately a common theme of these threads on HN about the UK). You can easily find examples of recent protests in London: https://news.google.com/search?q=protests%20london&hl=en-GB&...
Note how I didn't say that protests don't happen in the UK. They obviously do. But the problem is that now that effectively every protest has been made illegal due to the fluid definition of what "disruptive" means, the enforcement is arbitrary. Just stop oil protesters? Thrown in jail. Protesting in front of the Chinese embassy? Carry on. That's the problem with the broad legislation in the UK - government wants to have the power to spy on everyone, but obviously it doesn't mean everyone will be spied on. Just people who do something the government doesn't like.
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