Steve Bray Meets The New Fascism

Those out there on the right sneered dismissively at anyone getting caught up in Met Police “kettling” as a result of protests: the Rotten Lefties™ deserved all they got, the cops were only doing their job. Then the Countryside Alliance protested, the Met drew blood, and all was so different when the boot was firmly on the other foot. It is a reminder few on the right have heeded since.

Steve Bray

They were not heeding it yesterday as the Met’s finest celebrated the new powers given them by Tory anti-protest legislation by swarming and then nicking protester Steve Bray, confiscating his amplifier and telling him that he would be prosecuted. Twenty cops available to pick on a protester, none to catch Downing Street lawbreaking at the height of the Covid pandemic. And some still wonder why the Met has been placed in special measures.

Charlotte Lynch of LBC noted “On the day that ‘noisy’ protest becomes unlawful under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, at least 20 police officers have just surrounded anti-Brexit protestor Steve Bray outside the Houses of Parliament and seized his loud speaker”. Emma Kennedy was not alone in passing severely adverse comment on the Police action.

“20 police officers because this govt wants one man to shut up. This doesn’t happen in healthy democracies”. And members of that Government could not wait to smear Bray, not least the mildly scary Andrea Leadsom, who sniffed “Steve Bray has spent six years screaming abuse through a loudhailer at me and many others as often as he saw us for the ‘crime’ of trying to fulfil the democratic decision of the UK to leave the EU. This action by the police to stop his violent protest is very welcome”. Free speech is now violence!

Mike Fabricant, representing the unfortunate voters of Lichfield, as well as his Irish, applauded the confiscation. “What a joyous day for all who live and work around Westminster!” That’s the same Mike Fabricant who last year warned “Cancel Culture is is becoming invasive and dangerous to free speech”. So he’s just another stinking Tory hypocrite and authoritarian, then.

But the Police action did not go unnoticed, and soon Jolyon Maugham was able to report “We are getting a lot of questions about [Steve Bray]: we have offered our help. And our new law firm, Good Law Practice, is actively recruiting a solicitor to work on right to protest cases”. Bray’s fighting fund has been swelled overnight: the Police action has already backfired badly.

That has not stopped the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog - slow handclap for the great libertarian, folks - from cheering on the Police action, thus confirming that this so-called outsider is just another establishment crawler, fully invested in perpetuating alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson in power, along with the tendency to authoritarian, even fascist, jackbooting of protesters.

Even the Free Speech Union, domain of the loathsome Toby Young - who goes back a long way with Staines and his gofers - has noted its disapproval after seeing Bray’s right to protest curtailed. Libertarians choosing to back Bozo are no longer libertarians. They are enablers of fascism.

This is a further slide down the slippery slope towards the F-Word. Some journalists know this is wrong: Liam Thorp of the Liverpool Echo observed “Just today we’ve had a Tory MP suggest women should not be able to make decisions about their own bodies, we’ve had a protestor the government doesn’t like apprehended by police and we’ve been told that only the Prime Minister can approve an investigation into his own conduct”.

And Bray has not been deterred by yesterday’s events: “Bella Ciao on the amp at Parliament …. We are not going away and we are never giving in to fascism. #UpYoursPriti”. Also, he is determined to force the Met to prove their case in court, which should make for interesting viewing.

Behold the bringer of the new fascism

But the conclusion is an ominous one: Bozo and his pals have no problem with sliding - not accidentally - closer to outright fascism. The increasingly inept Metropolitan Police have no problem being Bozo’s enforcers. The press boot boys, even those who consider themselves libertarians, have no problem with it either. We were warned; now it is coming ever closer.

Democracy itself may be in the firing line next. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

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