Starmer’s Britain, where you get 5 years in prison for a Zoom call.

Right, so it comes to something when you can be sentenced to years in prison not even for actually going on a protest, but just planning one on Zoom, but that is what 5 Just Stop Oil protesters have been sentenced to, our human right to protest criminalised by the former human rights barrister now our Prime Minister in his first authoritarian display that so many of us warned was coming when the reality of a Keir Starmer premiership becomes more apparent to more people. This is Minority Report criminality, just thinking about doing something the powers that be don’t like, is enough to get you locked up and in this case the longest sentence ever handed out for non-violent protest – 21 years between the 5 of them, for doing something that is our human right to do – protest. You don’t have to agree with them, but you absolutely should defend their right to say what they have to say and when things didn’t even get that far, remaining at the planning stage so to speak, we’re descending into fascism within two weeks of Starmer taking power.
Right, so that was Chris Packham there, part of a speech he gave outside of Southwark Crown Court, where the 5 Just Stop Oil protesters were sentenced laying out in stark terms the ramifications for us all, because this goes beyond just climate protesters and the issue of climate change, which literally threatens all of our existences of course and should be taken seriously by governments and isn’t, but more than that, this is an assault on our human rights, this was all done under the Tories Police, Crimes, Sentencing & Courts Bill, draconian as that was and here’s Starmer overseeing even harsher deployment of it, than they were. Absolutely you can be critical of the judge involved too, I have been, I’ll come onto him in a moment, but if you think I’m being overly harsh in my assessment of Starmer in relation to this, having only been in the job 2 weeks, under this same law, for the crime – thought crime as this is – Section 78 of the PCSCA Act 2022, for conspiracy to commit a public nuisance – the crime of maybe thinking of protesting in a manner the police can arbitrarily judge for themselves let’s not forget, to be a nuisance, 50 Youth Demand protesters were also arrested elsewhere, protesting as they were against arms sales to Israel and for a free Palestine. Now here we ostensibly have protesters protesting about two things we all know Keir Starmer doesn’t give a toss about, Palestine and Climate change. He’s on record as having said he hates tree huggers and is currently seeing through an attempt to get arrest warrants applied for by the International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Kahn against Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister Yoav Gallant quashed. Facts speak for themselves.
Whilst climate change protesters are heading to our overcrowded prisons though, to alleviate that overcrowding, on the same day this all happened, the new Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said 5,500 currently serving prisoners are to be released early, to avert disaster, to prevent the prison system facing imminent collapse. Who is being released? What crimes are deemed functionally as less of an issue than climate protest? We don’t know. There are claims that those sentenced for violent crimes won’t be let out, but that doesn’t tell us who will. This is also just the first part of some 20,000 early releases under discussion, after serving just 40% of their sentences. If the prison system is in such a state, perhaps privatising it was a stupid idea. Just a thought.
The sentences themselves also give you something of an indication of how severe a crime protest now is under the Starmer regime. Here’s a handy graphic produced by Stats for Lefties, where, despite being sent down for something like domestic violence means you might not be eligible for one of those early releases, your sentence is less than that of one of these protesters. Same goes for drug crimes and robbery, that is one royally messed up set of priorities, but then, the judge wouldn’t even let the defendants mention climate change as part of their defence.
The judge involved here is a guy called Christopher Hehir and to give you a flavour of his thinking, here’s an excerpt from the Guardian’s coverage of the case relating to him:
‘Hehir admitted there was a scientific and social consensus that human-made climate breakdown was happening and action should be taken to avert it. “I acknowledge that at least some of the concerns motivating you are, at least to some extent, shared by many,” he said.
“But the plain fact is that each of you has some time ago crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic. You have appointed yourselves as the sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change, bound neither by the principles of democracy nor the rule of law.
“And your fanaticism makes you entirely heedless of the rights of your fellow citizens. You have taken it upon yourselves to decide that your fellow citizens must suffer disruption and harm, and how much disruption and harm they must suffer, simply so that you may parade your views.”’
Now take that attitude towards a Zoom call, and take into consideration that last year a man who you might remember drove his car straight into the gates of Downing Street. Hehir gave him a suspended sentence. Back in April of this year he excused a police officer who had sex in his patrol car with a vulnerable woman he had offered a lift home to as a moment of madness and gave him a suspended sentence.
In 2017, a struck off lawyer who was charging refugees for legal work, taking advantage of vulnerable people saw Hehir hand down a fine of just under £3,000 and in 2019 handed down a sentence of community service to the creator of kids TV show Rastamouse, after they were found guilty of £8,000 worth of benefit fraud.
I just can’t help thinking, he has an issue with climate change protesters when you examine some of his past record. What do you think?
Roger Hallam, the co-founder of Just Stop Oil, but also of Extinction Rebellion and who got the longest sentence of 5 years imprisonment, has written a rather lengthy thread on twitter detailing the ongoings, but in relation to his defence he said:
‘In the trial, I swore before God to tell the truth. The truth is the science. The science is clear. We're heading for billions of deaths and ecological collapse. To prove this, I presented the jury with a 250-page dossier of leading scientists' research as evidence in my defence. This was denied by the judge as an invalid - climate science is now illegal in the British courtroom. I then began to speak about the apocalyptic conditions humanity faces - floods, wildfires, mass heat deaths - and was silenced by the judge. He sent out the jury and threatened to arrest me if I didn't stop. Instead, I stayed in the dock and argued that until I was given the right to complete my defence – I would not move. Even the prosecution tried to argue in my defence and the judge let me continue.’
What a sham. You can agree or disagree with them, you might not even like their methods of protest, but for God’s sake defend their human right to do so, or it’ll be something you do relate to next. How long before it is striking workers protesting that get locked up instead? Trade Unions completely neutered? Where does it end?
Look at it this way, to get the vote, women smashed windows, threw themselves in front of horses, chaining themselves up and landing themselves in prison, their slogan being ‘deeds not words.’ Do you disagree with women having the vote? Because this is what they had to do to get it and once again, on a different subject, in this day and age, to draw attention to a critical issue of our time, protest is needed to get attention again.
Also, compare this to other examples of heavy handed imprisonment. In 2012, members of the Russian band Pussy Riot got locked up for the crime of ‘premeditated hooliganism motivated by religious hatred or hostility,’ they had a pop at Putin was more like it, but they were sentenced to two years imprisonment for thought crime as well, and at the time a minister in the foreign office described that sentence as unjust and disproportionate. A judge here, just sentenced 5 climate change protesters to 21 years between them, for thought crimes too.
Another example from another perspective is the 72 people killed and 70 injured in London in 2017, that nobody has been held accountable for in a criminal court of law. Sounds like a massive travesty put like that doesn’t it? Well the Grenfell tragedy absolutely is, for that is what I’m talking about.
A further nasty little detail going around about this story is how the police were tipped off to what these people were planning and that is down to the alleged infiltration of the Zoom call by a reporter, and I use that word in the loosest possible sense, from the Murdoch Scum, who then tipped the police off. Allegedly, the same reporter was then invited along to witness the arrest of Roger Hallam. That rag is the absolute pits.
Obviously social media has had it’s say, but I’m drawn to comments from politicians in relation to this.
Former security minister and one of the remaining Tory MPs Tom Tugendhat simply said good, to the sentence, but then he would.
Former Labour MP Claudia Webbe however took an opposing view, saying:
‘Wow! Imprisoned for five years, for taking part in a Zoom Call. This is fascism, a total miscarriage of justice and in breach of basic human rights. It is not wrong to peacefully protest against climate injustice, denial and disaster.’
And Green Party Deputy Leader Zack Polanski said:
‘"Conspiracy to commit a public nuisance" is a deeply authoritarian description that should send shivers down the spine of all of us who want to live in a free society. Even worse when the real crime is consecutive governments who have played down the climate emergency.’
The trial was also attended as it happens by the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders Michel Forst who said of the sentence:
‘“Today is a dark day for peaceful environmental protest” in the UK, he said. “This sentence should shock the conscience of any member of the public. It should also put all of us on high alert on the state of civic rights and freedoms in the United Kingdom.
“Rulings like today’s set a very dangerous precedent, not just for environmental protest but any form of peaceful protest that may, at one point or another, not align with the interests of the government of the day.”’
Factually, Labour should already be dismantling Suella Braverman’s nasty Police and Crime Bill, instead of taking advantage of it to attack people campaigning on issues we know Starmer has little sympathy with. Solidarity to the Whole Truth Five.
Meanwhile as far as Gaza goes, Starmer is apparently working on a way to rid himself of Independent MPs and election candidates by delegitimising those outside of a political party from standing or becoming MPs. Nothing quite like consolidating your power like legislating your rivals out of existence, but check out that story in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.