From UK Riots: The agenda becomes clear…
Whatever the truth of this latest incident, and whatever long term aims it might be used to further, this “strategy of tension” has an immediate political agenda already becoming clear – and it’s as predictable as ever.
- Further limit social media/free speech
- Normalise constant surveillance
Attacking free speech is the ever-present, eternal agenda that comes before everything else and it’s been a real pile-on the last few days. ...
You cannot begin to fathom how irritating it is to the ruling class that ordinary people are allowed to just say whatever they want whenever they want – including having the audacity to fact check the media in real time, with no repercussions at all. ...
... it fell to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to formally lay it out in his address yesterday afternoon [transcript].
Pledging to counter the “far-right” with a new police division, and increased use of surveillance and facial recognition technology to “limit their movements”:
Wider deployment of facial recognition technology…And preventive action – criminal behaviour orders…To restrict their movements…
And firing a warning shot across the bows of social media:
And let me also say to large social media companies and those who run them…Violent disorder clearly whipped up online…That is also a crime. It’s happening on your premises. And the law must be upheld everywhere.
He even pointedly made clear his response wasn’t just about now or about countering the “far-right”, rather it was about ALL civil disobedience, for any reason:
A response both to the immediate challenge which is clearly driven by far-right hatred. But also “all violent disorder that flares up […] whatever the apparent cause or motivation – we make no distinction…Crime is crime.”
That means everything.
