Starmer’s meddling with the legal process bodes ill for democracy and the rule of law
Keir Starmer is barely a month into his borrowed tenure in Number 10, yet his police-state instincts are already being paraded – and his demand that courts must convict fascist rioters and issue ‘substantive’ sentences ‘within days’ is a gross interference in the legal process that is completely unbefitting for a political figure, but entirely unsurprising from a former Director of Public Prosecutions who was once keen to obtain long custodial sentences on black demonstrators for stealing a bottle of water worth a couple of pounds.
Starmer’s order to the judiciary to accelerate the prosecution and conviction of the rioters has passed without much comment, probably because it’s easy to think that fascist, racist thugs deserve whatever comes to them – but even in cases of such terrorism the legal process must be allowed to take its due course without interference or even undue pressure from political figures.
And – as Starmer and his place-people have already begun to do – it is a question of when, not if, such interference is turned against peaceful left-wing, or even anti-murder, activists.
Starmer has, of course, long shown his true ‘state pawn’ colours in his collusion with the Tories in laws against protest and to protect criminal police officers and agents from prosecution – and his contempt for the environmental and Black Lives Matter movements could hardly be plainer. But Starmer is a grave threat to what’s left of UK democracy and rule of law, without even the notional commitment to individual freedom of his Tory predecessors.
One legal expert told Skwawkbox:
When an individual has high judiciary links that brings them into contact with the highest levels of the police, for example as Director of Public Prosecutions, there is a strong argument he or she should not be allowed to run for an elected position. Linking the judiciary, executive and parliament is the antithesis of the UK’s unwritten constitution and should alarm everyone.
Starmer, the ‘long-time servant of the security state’, is outing himself with each passing day – and UK ‘mainstream’ journalists who should be challenging and scrutinising his positions and decisions are grotesquely failing to do so.
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I don’t like Starmer, for many reasons; he has wrecked the Labour Party, he has treated good Labour MPs very badly and seems to think stamping out democracy within the Party is acceptable. It isn’t. BUT: I agree with fast action in dealing with (and being seen to deal with) such harmful outright thuggery on the streets. It’s in everybody’s interest to do so.
Interresting. So which demonstartors would you support? JSO? The Gaza protestors? Welsh farmers? Those protesting in Bristol against the Slave Trade? BLM? Pride?
I ask because demonstrating is a right. So are you against using that right or ONLY against people who turn violent? Do you see ANY justification for the demonstrations at all, whether you agree with it or not. Because, as I see it, if you ONLY clamp down on protest without asking if the protestors have a point, it just leads to more protests and more violence. I believe Starmer is an autocrat, have ALWAYS said so from the day he set up to become Labour leader, and will never allow ANYONE to counter his rather unpleasant views.
You are right JoeRobson. The evidence supports you. Keir Starmer is a principle-free autocrat and a ‘long-time servant of the security state’. We trust him at our peril.
Although PM Starmer has not – yet – tried to forbid peaceful demonstrations, DPP Starmer did. As John Simkin on Spartacus Educational (and Oliver Eagleton in The Starmer Project) put it:
“Prosecution of Peaceful Protestors : After the acquittal of Alfie Meadows, Starmer drew up prosecution guidelines that made it easier for the CPS to prosecute peaceful protesters. He wrote that the “potential for a number of protests over the coming years” had heightened the need to target “disruptive” activists who turn up to demonstrations “anticipating trouble or disorder”. First, if “significant disruption was caused to the public and businesses”. CPS lawyers were encouraged to take action, so effective forms of protest were criminalized from the outset. Second, anyone carrying a weapon should be held accountable. As Oliver Eagleton has pointed out, on the surface this seemed a sensible provision. However, Starmer did not explain what constitutes “a weapon”, so “police and prosecutors were given the latitude to construe anything from placards to drinks flasks as such.”
“The third point Starmer made was that anyone who made “threats… against an individual or business” which “could have caused alarm, fear or distress” would be targeted, which turned direct action against politicians or corporations into a prosecutable offence. Lastly, Starmer wrote that those who took “steps to conceal their identity” or wore “items that could be considered body protection” were more likely to be charged.”
Very few would disagree that these imbecilic gobshites need dealing with, and the quicker the better.
BUT.
Who gets released early to free up these 600 or so ‘new’ prison spaces?
Who DOESN’T get jailed, instead?
I have a very strong suspicion that a certain noncecase, recently convicted, will – surprise, surprise – receive a very lenient, suspended prison sentence.
Because keef wrote the sentencing guidelines for the likes of that and they get jail as often as plod faces charges of ANY sort.
As for the ones who stole bottled water…how keef must yearn for a faraway colony to send them to.
…Hang on a minute…The kigali government haven’t handed over the dough they were paid for NOT taking any failed asylum seekers yet, have they?
The toolmaker’s lad has fiscal responsibilities after all.
TwoTierKier
(And for those who are enthusiastic about rapid court processing, wait until it’s your turn)
Compared to sentencing on Just Stop Oil for organising a traffic jam online, sentencing for rioters has been light and because of the situation in Prisons that Cons left to rot, a thirty month sentence is likely to be 7 month in reality. Prison won’t of course solve anything. It certainly feeds Starmer’s authoritarian instincts. While self righteousness and lack of discipline has always been a weakness of the left, Starmer’s authoritarianism disguises a profound weakness, Thatcher had a similar nature. But of course, the underlying issues of poverty, ignorance, terrible housing, social media disinformation, that stokes hatred against minorities as easy targets, are not areas that Labour will be able to change for decades….and because they have neither the will nor ability to change much within five years, the whip and prison has become the default position. ( MPs who voted against the two child cap were instantly and wickedly suspended for 6 months Yet this alone could have helped families in flashpoint communities -). Meanwhile I await Starmer and Cooper actions to reverse Braverman’s anti protest law !
Yup poetrymuseum. Braverman’s anti protest law is vile. It is actually unlawful, and the High Court has just given Liberty permission to take her to court. But remember it was DPP-Starmer’s prosecution guidelines that made the whole thing feasible.
In Labour party terms, Keir Starmer is actually a bigger class enemy than Gordon Brown.
This article is right.
And let us not forget this:
“In December 2009, Westminster Magistrates’ Court issued an arrest warrant for Livni over war crimes allegedly committed during Operation Cast Lead.
With disregard for the separation of powers between government and the judiciary, then prime minister Gordon Brown and foreign secretary David Miliband both phoned Livni to apologise for the incident.
Brown subsequently pledged to make procedural changes to “universal jurisdiction legislation” in England and Wales, whereby a person committing serious crimes overseas can be prosecuted in another country.
This was intended to allow Israeli officials to visit Britain without fear of prosecution.”
https://www.declassifieduk.org/censored-keir-starmers-emails-about-israeli-war-crimes-case/
King Charles is also overtly sticking his nose into political matters with no comment from the MSM
Brian is merely testing the water and paving the way for what that molerat of his (the ‘lovely’ prince wills) will be doing when he inherits the stool off his arl fella, complete with a fawningly sycophantic and complicit establishment
& MSM.
Magna Carta MY ARSE. Not worth a w**k and hasn’t been for ages.
Oh! But he’s (molerat) sooo in touch with the people, you only have to look at how much he cares when he’s speaking to his public”
SHITE.
Any bastard can tilt their head to one side and look sad while nodding like a fooking dashboard accessory.
Even Eddie Hitler shows more sincerity ffs.
https://imgur.com/rVZluvL
Thank fook I won’t be around fifty years from now.
Herr Starmer is doing what was easily predictable – and many of us predicted it – in extending the practice of doing away with any pretence of due process within what passes for the ‘Labour’ Party to the rest of the UK now that this sociopathic cabal has been elected with a landslide on around only 20% of the voting populace.
Statute law on incitement and planning to riot or engage in violence via any existing medium of communication has always existed. Social Media merely being one of many, more recently, available channels.
However, in the present context, what is problematic is what definitions are being applied, who is applying those definitions, for what purposes, and to what ends?
In a context in which usage and dissemination of particular words, phrases, and even ideas, in a critical way which contradict The Official Narrative (TON) – “Zionism”; “Capitalism”; “the immutability of sex”; etc – is being criminalised as a ‘hate crime’ which is given at least equivalent status to that of actual planning of and incitement to violence, the present usage of existing statute of rioting etc takes on a whole new and unprecedented dimension which is problematic.
Examples already provided, such as recent violent offenders receiving far lower sentences than recent cases of non-violent offenders, suggest a context where opponents of the Zionist Genocide, for example, however peaceful their protest will be treated as being far worse than those committing actual violence and rioting in the hierarchy not only of racism but of oppression* which is being applied.
*A wider hierarchy of oppression – going beyond the hierarchy of racism – which applies the same techniques, methods, and approach to those who do not toe The Official Narrative line from a faux ‘left’ doing all the heavy lifting for the Randian and Thatcherite political right on sex and gender issues.
Dissent itself, as it has been over the past several years in what passes for the ‘Labour’ Party, is being criminalised.