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Comment by kypro

8 days ago

> just mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up

This significantly underplays the situation here. The UK state views "anti-migrant" views as extreme: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/07/26/elite-police...

In the UK attending a protest against putting illegal immigrants from Afghanistan in a hotel by your kids school is likely to have you on a watch list or arrested. This might not sound that bad to our European friends, but you guys in the US might be quite surprised to hear this.

It's not just "right-wing" positions which are dealt like this either, I should note for legal reasons that I strongly disagree with the actions and views of "Palestine Action", but arrests of peaceful protestors who simply wish to voice support of them as a group (without actually being part of the group themselves) is in my mind absurd. It's one thing to make membership of the group illegal, but to also make debating that judgement illegal is highly problematic in my mind. For those interested you'll find videos of the police arresting elderly women for terror charges for simply peacefully voicing their opinions on Palestine Action. It's vile.

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kypro

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nsteel  8 days ago

Are you referring to https://archive.is/HgLRj ? Your summary is poor.

  • kypro  8 days ago

    No? I linked what I was referring to...

    The UK government has announced a new "squad" who will check social media for anti-migrant sentiment. Even if you are not "anti-migration" (whatever that means), I think we can agree that opposing migration is still a valid opinion to hold in a democratic society.

    • JodieBenitez  8 days ago

      > I think we can agree that opposing migration is still a valid opinion to hold in a democratic society.

      Unfortunately, this opinion gets framed as "hate speech" in many countries, with legal consequences. How convenient to criminalize opinions of opponents !

    • nsteel  8 days ago

      Sorry, you are right, I missed it somehow. Still isn't correct, though.

         Detectives will be drawn from forces across the country to take part in a new investigations unit that will flag up early signs of potential civil unrest.
   The division, assembled by the Home Office, will aim to “maximise social media intelligence” gathering after police forces were criticised over their response to last year’s riots.
   ...
   “This team will provide a national capability to monitor social media intelligence and advise on its use to inform local operational decision-making.
   “This will be a dedicated function at a national level for exploiting internet intelligence to help local forces manage public safety threats and risks.

      Some might say that's a sensible thing to do in 2025. Others, might spin it another way to fuel their immigration-focused political agenda. The quotes from the Tory and Farage are painful.