From The Independent
‘If and when 10,000 people sit in a street and refuse to be moved, then what the police will ‘allow’ is neither here nor there’
- Andy Gregory
- Thursday 18 July 2019 19:06
Extinction Rebellion have dismissed Scotland Yard‘s claim that the force would not allow large-scale London protests planned for October.
The climate change activist group said the matter would likely be ”out of their hands, however hard they try to arrest us”.
The group is planning demonstrations on a bigger scale than those in April, when they occupied four sites in the capital for 11 days with one of the UK’s largest civil disobedience campaigns in decades.
Deputy assistant commissioner Laurence Taylor of London’s Metropolitan Police told reporters those protests had been ”wholly unacceptable”.
He said: “It went well beyond the realm of what was reasonable and we would not tolerate that level of disruption again.”
In response, Extinction Rebellion spokesperson Rupert Read told The Independent his comments were “interesting”.
He said: “When masses of people take non-violent direct action, the matter is no longer entirely in the police’s hands. If and when 10,000 people sit in a street and refuse to be moved, then what the police will ‘allow’ is neither here nor there. There aren’t enough of them to arrest us all and when they arrest some of us, others take their place.”
Police said they had been forced to divert officers from tackling crime and policing neighbourhoods to deal with April’s protests – which saw a pink boat block Oxford Circus and Waterloo Bridge fitted with greenery and skateboard ramps.
Activists called it “Garden Bridge”.
Mr Taylor said officers arrested more than 1,150 people during the protests and around 180 have been charged so far. He has previously said he wants the Met to push for every one of those arrested to be charged.
“We absolutely respect people’s fundamental right to protest, but we do not accept that extends to causing misery and mass disruption to everybody,” Mr Taylor said. “Absolutely I can assure Londoners we will do everything we can to avoid that situation again.”
But Mr Read said “any disruption that we cause is just a vanishingly-small fraction of the disruption to our entire civilisation and utter misery that ecological breakdown and climate breakdown are starting to bring.”
He added: “Blocking a few streets or even closing an airport for a while does not begin to compare with the permanent flooding of those streets or to super-hurricanes or tornados.”
Extinction Rebellion, which has won the backing of scientists, researchers and academics who worry that the official response to climate change is lagging far behind the severity of the crisis, has said it hopes to cause even greater disruption in October than it did in April.
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As usual, the attitude of the climate extremists is that “the ends justify the means”. That way lies either anarchy or totalitarianism, but I suppose that is what they want.
There is only one effective way to deal with terrorists.
It should be getting a lot colder in October – perhaps a few water cannons over everyone and let them freeze will do the trick. Being wet and cold will be a strong disincentive to participate in any protest. Their claim that
“There aren’t enough of them to arrest us all and when they arrest some of us, others take their place.”
Will look stupid.
Bingo, you beat me to it.
Let them sit there for a few days. Once they run out of alcohol and pot they will go home. Do nothing to them and they will disperse as soon as their bladders fill.
Check out San Francisco and then tell me they’ll go home when their “bladders fill”. Or anything else.
I suggest super-gluing them all together to make a very large raft, attaching a sail and sending them to the continent. Let the French deal with them.
This, right here, is the one best idea I have heard all day.
Just tear gas them . of course the Brits would rather coddle rioters than put them in jail
That is, actually, the problem, Sumdood.
UK police are now super competent at dealing with large scale football hooliganism, but the political will to deal with “environmental” protesters is completely absent.
It’s a very curious situation, possibly related to historical problems in Northern Ireland.
Liverpool and Man U should hold a big match in London when ER plans their protest.
Then when the ER tries to disrupt things in London and bring traffic and The Underground to a halt, let the Liverpool soccer “fans” deal with them by doing what they are known for.
When I was young the older generation who had fought and died in WWII, looked at us protesting about going to war with Argentina or Coal miners jobs and sighed. Now I’m the older generation I look at the youth and see them protesting about plant food & sigh.
Seeing how each new generation seems to pick an even more trivial thing to go nuts about, I wonder what on earth will the youth be lying down on the street when this lot are old?
Maybe it’s not the majority of the students causing the trouble. Al Capp, the creator of Li’l Abner, had something to say about that:
All it needs is for someone at Porton D..n to develop a spray that causes an instantaneous loosening of the bowels. Crowd dispersal at its very best. And make them all walk home while being photographed and filmed.
How the UK police usually act with groups like Extinction Rebellion…
If the UK police act as they usually do they’ll already have their undercover people in such groups. Either real undercover police, or well trusted informers and maybe ven a few MI5 types. Each of them will sit and wait, calculating when is the best time and which are people they need compromise, or arrest, or ‘take for a long drive’, or feed them some ‘really good stuff’, etc., etc. Or just keep encouraging the line ‘that the police have informers in their ranks’ just to keep the stress levels high with the organization.
The police may even let much of the October protest happen so that they can target the ‘middle ranking minions’ of the organization, getting them arrested and caught up in the legal system, hurting the organization’s structure, disheartening the lower ranks, while giving an opening to the police insiders to move up Rebellion’s ranks.
Then sit and wait while the police insiders get to work on the bigger fish, fomenting ideas for more radical actions, and encouraging them to make some more useful mistakes, mistakes that will have the lower ranks questioning what they are doing.
With groups like this the police will usually play a long game, they’ll change if they see any evidence of planned violence appearing. Then the tactics will be very different, with more ‘special ops’ people, more MI5 boys.
“Never interrupt your enemy when they’re making a mistake”, especially if you’ve encourage them to make it.
You are placing a great deal of faith in the police and related services. You could be right, but I’m not going to believe it until it happens. Until then, I’ll call it wishful thinking.
Extinction Rebellion are old fashioned anarchists.One hundred and twenty years ago they were throwing bombs at people.
The Rule of Law determines the outcome here.
When you break the law you don’t get to plead that “ the vibe” gives you an excuse.
Snipers using paint bullets come to mind.
Come October a few of those arrested on the last go will have been processed through the courts, and taunting the power of the state to enforce order is not likely to make Magistrates feel beneficent ? So I’d imagine that a few of these nice middle class folk experiencing what being a criminal actually involves may well diminish the ardour of those who wish to save humanity.
Added to which, its pretty certain that the police undercover blokes will have made up for lost time with this ER crowd, so future conduct prejudicial will almost certainly be nipped in the bud 🙂
I’m sure you’re correct. 🙂
Extinction Rebellion, which has won the backing of (grant seeking corrupted) scientists, researchers and academics who worry that the official response to (fraudulent non-existent) climate change…(is going to get “Trumped”).
But Mr Read said “any disruption that we cause is just a vanishingly-small fraction of the disruption to our entire civilisation and utter misery that ecological breakdown and climate breakdown are starting to bring.”
Mr Read is a complete idiot!
I’m trying to figure out how the heck a climate “breaks down”.
Does this mean that gears and screws are going to start falling from the sky?
There’s a simple solution.
Don’t arrest them for protesting.
Box them in, they will leave eventually.
As they leave, get their names and addresses and send them fines for obstruction or whatever.
Those that refuse to give their names can then be arrested.
If you can’t take ’em to gaol, bring the gaol to ’em, I say.
The basic problem is our legal system and the fact that a very high percent of our so called “Representatives first study and become lawyers.
This has the advantage that when they stand for a seat in a Parliament, if thelose, and most do, then they can fall back on a living as a lawyer.
Biot if they succeed and finally become high enough to bring in laws, theywill always make sure that such laws favour them. Make them complicatedso that we the people in our real world have to hire them to understand what its all about.
Its a Giant Sized “Make work scheme”.
Such protests are designed to create as much chaos as possible, and only Emergency Legislation will solve it, but such legislation will be fought tooth and nail by our so called Representatives in Parliament.
The other problem is that the legal system will be overwhelmed by such large numbers. So what to do. Create a simple law such as “Did behave in a riotous manner”” we used to have it until the lawyers convinced he Court to have the Police identify each perron as so behaving, a impossible task.
Second problem, what do you do with thousands. Solution but presently against the law , to fence off a large field and simply put them in there, no building, no toilets a case of back to nature.
Toss over army rations and water. A few days of that, problem solved.
But you would then hard the cry, “”How can you a first world nation treat your citizens in such a way.””.
Of course water cannon and tear gas, but again you would here the same cry from the lawyers
Another problem is the Media, its their Bread and Butter, so ban them, oh but what about our freedoms etc.
Of course then we have the peoples own Media, we have created a monster.
Sounds a bit like the old Chinese cure, “”May you live in interesting times.””
MJE VK5ELL
Any one from Extinction Rebellion arrested should be put on the No Fly List to stop them becoming accidental climate hypocrites by flying to holiday destinations. In addition they should be forced to over winter at the Iron Age Village, Butser Hill, Hampshire which will provide them with a short sharp dose of reality about life without fossil fuels and modern technology.
10,000? Really? Don’t these people have jobs or other responsibilities? Where do they find this many sheep?
I’ll bet you couldn’t get even a tiny fraction of these fools to help volunteer at a local hospital or shelter, yet they’ll all be there to yell at the sky and get their mugs on TV.
I would have thought water cannons and pepper spray would encourage them to move.
Notice how they plan it for October? The weather is a bit nicer them , not to hot or cold, doesnt interfere with the summer vacation. Bit like how the teachers rev up the kiddies for a climate protest which is always on a Friday at a nice time of year so it can segue into a nice long weekend.
The layers of politically correct UK government agencies that would have to initiate and follow through with arrests and potential convictions for mass civil disobedience are thick ( double entendre ) One clue would be to look at who they *have* spent immense resources on to hound and convict of literally innocuous “offenses”.
Count Dankula for a pug joke, ( beware John Cleese aka Mr.Hilter in The North Minehead Bi-election skit ! There is *no* Statute of Limitations on P.C. ThoughtCrime).
And, Tommy Robinson for video-reporting on the Islamic rape gang sentencing.
Then, count on the UK media to plant their boots solely on the heroic victimhood of the Extinction Rebellion.
This is an excellent opportunity to bring back that old Roman Legion practice of ‘decimation’ (in its true original meaning). That will get some attention.
Gas them relentlessly.
Napalm
[pruned] [I know its supposed to be “kids” but I take poetic license.]
I still have some small scars on my arms from being a bit close to a napalm strike in Vietnam. Whatever kills your enemies is good.
2019 OK a meteor, passed by earth last week (Wednesday the 24th, 2019) at a minimum distance of about one fifth that of the distance to the moon. Measuring between 57 and 130 meters wide puts it in the realm of “City Killers” if it were to hit an inhabited area. It wasn’t spotted until just a few days before it passed by. “It took us by surprise” was the quote from the Melbourne Astronomer involved in the calculations.
Someday we won’t be so lucky, in either the near miss, or the size of a potential impacting asteroid. Generations of our forebears have brought us to the point where for the first time in the earth’s human history we have the potential to reach out to avert future near, or full extinction level cosmic impact events.
And what is the target of the bulk of the political, and academic class ? Fake CO2 Warming. If the ghosts of the Tyrannosaurs aren’t slapping their foreheads in disgust in the nether world right now, it’s only because their arms are too short.
From the article: “But Mr Read said “any disruption that we cause is just a vanishingly-small fraction of the disruption to our entire civilisation and utter misery that ecological breakdown and climate breakdown are starting to bring.”
He added: “Blocking a few streets or even closing an airport for a while does not begin to compare with the permanent flooding of those streets or to super-hurricanes or tornados.”
The Climategate Charlatans must be real proud of themselves. Look at all the insane panic they have managed to instill in the gullible people of the world.
I’m hoping Karma is part of the “Universal Plan”. I sure do hate to think that the guilty will get away with their treachery. I like the “reap what you sow” part.