George Monbiot: Protest is criminalised and the huffers and puffers say nothing
What is most remarkable is that until Mr Wolfgang was held, neither parliamentarians nor the press were interested. The pressure group Liberty, the Green party, a couple of alternative comedians, the Indymedia network and the alternative magazine Schnews have been left to defend our civil liberties almost unassisted. Even after “Wolfie” was thrown out of the conference, public criticism concentrated on the suppression of dissent within the Labour party, rather than the suppression of dissent throughout the country. As the parliamentary opposition falls apart, the extra-parliamentary one is being closed down with hardly a rumble of protest from the huffers and puffers who insist that civil liberties are Britain’s gift to the world. Perhaps they’re afraid they’ll be arrested.
Posted on October 5th, 2005 at 10:36am under Affronts to democracy, Chicken Nuggets, Civil liberties, UK politics
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• 2 Comments |
As commented in Worstall’s blog here, it’s not really just the people in the quotes. “Dodgy lefties” like thee and me are complaining all over the place, but a lot of Tory commentators have been kicking up a fuss about the infringements on liberties as well.
You can also look to the House of Lords. When Habeas Corpus was abolished earlier this year it was left to the Lords to defend our civil liberties. They would have succeeded had not the Labour Life Peers been so heavily leant upon – they were threatened with the loss of their sinecures – that the government finally prevailed. We live in strange times when the unelected House is called upon to defend democracy against the elected one.