Two-Tier Keir, or as he is now known ‘Starmer the Stalinist’ following his Soviet-style attack on farmers, has proposed ‘Respect Laws’ to target anti-social behaviour. Falling afoul of these laws could lead to a two-year jail term.
The UK Prime Minister, who is so unpopular that over 200,000 people have signed a petition to re-do the election, has said that these new laws will empower the government to ban non-criminals from places and activities enforced by an integrated system of facial recognition and data-sharing.
Instead of having to prove that a person has caused mischief, the accusation of likely to cause harassment, alarm, or distress will now be enough to issue a ban.
If this sounds like the creation of thought crimes, that’s because it is.
The chances of this law being used in the soft and fluffy way it has been advertised are low. As the UK government has repeatedly proven, laws for public safety are swiftly repurposed into tools of political intimidation.
On the surface, these laws are attractive because the underlying premise is true. There are plenty of people who feel unsafe on UK streets. Statistics suggest this is related to illegal migrants where around 12 per cent of the UK prison population are foreign offenders and another 578 individuals have no nationality recorded. There is also a total lack of interest from the police and the legal system regarding hundreds of thousands of unsolved crimes every year leaving business owners utterly defenceless and exhausted from fighting the criminal class.
Having created a lawless environment, the government’s solution appears to be turning non-criminals into criminals to stop them from complaining.
At least, this is the fair assumption being made by right-wing figures following the announcement. They have cause to be concerned when a tweet can land you in jail.
This is how Keir Starmer announced the policy:
‘Too often people have tried to tell me that anti-social behaviour is low-level crime. Anyone who thinks that simply doesn’t get it. Try telling that to someone scared to walk down their street in the evening, the person trying to get to work has to put up with a vandalised bus shelter, or a young family who can’t enjoy their local park because of intimidating, drunken, or loutish behaviour.’
Or the people who have to put up with machete-wielding men on public transport…
‘When I was this country’s Chief Prosecutor, I saw the terrible effect of anti-social behaviour first-hand – and fought for justice for victims. I know it blights out streets, makes people feel less safe, damages small businesses, and undermines any sense of pride in our communities.’
Wise words from the man whose government released thousands of dangerous criminals back onto the streets early to free up the jails… At least 37 of these were released by mistake, according to the BBC, because their offences were ‘wrongly recorded’. Dozens of those released almost immediately re-offended and ended up back in jail, proving the point that society puts people behind bars for a reason.
Instead of rapidly expanding the prison system to take on the hundreds of thousands of criminals who go free every year, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has expressed a preference to change the way sentencing works. What that means, is anyone’s guess.
‘In our manifesto, we promised we would tackle anti-social behaviour. Now we’re delivering. This Labour government is cracking down on hooligans who cause misery and wreak havoc. They won’t be able to get away with it anymore.
‘Today, we are announcing tough new Respect Orders. We’ll root out anti-social behaviour and make people face the consequences of their actions, as well as tackle the root causes.
‘We’re giving police and councils more power. With our plans, perpetrators will get unlimited fines. Police will be able to seize vehicles, bikes, and e-scooters that are dangerous and a public nuisance. Strict community orders and curfews will be handed out. The most serious offenders will face time behind bars. These new orders will be piloted prior to national rollout, to make sure they are as effective as possible.’
Hands up if you think these laws will be used to arrest people who fly terrorist flags, damage statues of English historical figures, drive around in super-cars bought with drug money, take over the streets for prayer sessions, set up black market street stalls, let off flares and fireworks in the streets at night, intimidate students and prevent them from entering university, or harass women coming home from work?
No one?
‘We’re also bringing back neighbourhood policing, putting thousands more neighbourhood police officers on the street. More bobbies on the beat means that people can be confident that if something goes wrong in their community, the police will come.
‘This is about restoring respect – for each other and our society. It’s time to take back out streets.’
It is a concerning manifesto.
The UK public are right to call these new laws chilling and vague.
Following the Southport riots, Keir Starmer hinted at this new capability which he hoped would deal with, in his words, a tiny, mindless minority in our society.
It was around this time that the Prime Minister sent a warning to social media companies, ‘…violent disorder clearly whipped up online is also a crime and it is happening on your premises.’
These comments were made in early August.
‘These thugs are mobile, they move from community to community. We must have a policing response that can do the same. Shared intelligence, wider deployment of facial recognition technology and preventative action, criminal behaviour orders to restrict their movements, before they can even board a train. In just the same way that we do with football hooligans … and I would personally like to see more use of those orders in the same way that they’re used in football hooligan cases to stop people travelling, identify, and prevent their patterns of behaviour, because these are not people going to protest.’
In these cases, Keir Starmer appears to have an obsession with what he calls the far-right and very little interest in rising Islamic terror cases in recent decades which has set the native-born UK community on edge.
These comments, and subsequent arrests, are what gave rise to his nickname of Two-Tier Keir.
It now looks as though the Labour government has decided to make criminals out of people concerned about the safety of their communities instead of arresting the actual criminals.
Considering part of this dream means linking the sale of public transport tickets to facial recognition, how far away is the UK from a biometric state that enforces travel restrictions on those guilty of thought crimes?
