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Without irony, cops just nicked four Just Stop Oil supporters in the middle of ACTUAL race riots

Two-tier policing

30 comments
  • Why does the UK have so much more of this type of action than the US?

    • They've had longer to marinate.

    • Far older social system, with power far more entrenched in the hands of a few families and passed from generation to generation (and I don't mean just Royals - it's like an onion with layer after layer, most of which pretty static as that country has the lowest social mobility in Europe)

      Further, England's social order never really got upturned by any kind of revolution from the lower classes or occupation by other powers - the closest it got to it was the Barons revolting against the King centuries ago, leading to the Magna Carta, which was a "revolution" of the elites.

      Also the mindset of "know your place" and "look up to your betters" is well entrenched in the UK - there was a period of far more social movement and freedom in the Post War years, which is when things like the Punk movement came to be, but the conditions for all of that have been rolled back by now. That doesn't mean the English lower classes are peaceful, it means they only fight amongst themselves, never against "their betters", as demonstrated just now by what's happening there and for years in the form of Hooliganism.

      Politically the UK has First Past The Post like the US (so, politically a power duopoly), only with a King who inherited his post rather than get elected and who has some real power (he can refuse to pass certain Laws and it has been shown that the Royals have used that in the past to get or change laws), and in addition to Parliament a second chamber, which is not elected and contains members who inherited their position and, maybe the worst part, no actual Constitution, which means that whomever gets more that 50% of seats in Parliament (which with FPTP only requires about 35% of votes) can make, removed and change any laws they want without being constrained in any area by a Constitution and the higher vote requirements for changing a Constitution.

      Last but not least, the way people are coerced in that society it's by using "rules & regulations" to justify legal force - coppers don't run around and shot people (most don't even carry firearms) but there are plenty of vague enough laws that something can always be found if they want to detain somebody and the system is such that anybody detained who can afford a Solicitor with a knighthood (i.e. Sir Something) who went to the same private school as Judges and highly placed members of State - or, even better, is him or herself such a person - will have it sorted out in no time and the coppers will probably get into trouble with the chief for having detained such a person, but that's not so when one of the "riff-raff" is detained.

      Personally and as an European, having lived in various countries of Europe including over a decade in Britain, I think right now that country is THE most Right-wing and Authoritarian country in Western Europe but it's all done in a "posh" way rather than the "in your face" way done in many other countries.

      • I think maybe my comment wasn’t clear. I meant why do we hear so much more about organized civil disobedience from the UK compared to North America, despite all of what you said. The anglophone countries tend to be fairly right wing as you point out, but only the UK seems to have this major resistance campaign going on, despite the repression.

      • Are you implying that this isn’t protest? Lol

        It’s a miscarriage of justice that the driver of that vehicle went free after committing attempted murder.

        Her name’s Jennifer Watson from Denver. If anyone meets her please do whatever you can to non-violently even the scales of justice.

30 comments