Starmer's Quaker Raid BACKFIRES HILARIOUSLY!

Right, so last week the right to protest once again came under attack, but in the most unprecedented way yet as the Met Police, some 30 of them, raided a place of worship, turned it upside down and made 6 arrests amongst those gathered for the crime of daring to plan a protest, we’re not allowed to any more it seems, Keir Starmer doesn’t like it.
Now as I said this was a place of worship, but it seems its largely OK in this case, because who cares if it’s a Quaker Meeting House right? It’s not like it was a synagogue or a mosque, you can really imagine the outcry if this was a Jewish place of worship right now can’t you, those antisemitic Met Police officers, how dare they? We wouldn’t see it would we? Perhaps that is what the protest group in question, Youth Demand, should have chosen as a location instead, but that is hardly the point. This is a massive escalation in the clamp down on peaceful protest, free speech and freedom of expression as well as an assault on the right to free worship, but it has also deservedly backfired badly on Starmer in the most hilarious and righteous way, in a show that the British people are not going to put up with his heavy handed draconian authoritarianism and his arbitrary shutdowns of anything he doesn’t like.
Right, so last Thursday the Metropolitan Police carried out a heavy-handed raid on a Quaker Meeting House in London, smashing down doors, turning the place upside down and arresting activists associated with the protest group Youth Demand. The raid wasconducted under the guise of preemptively disrupting a planned protest, has been widely condemned as a draconian overreach by authorities because it undermines the fundamental right to protest which is enshrined in both British tradition albeit weakened by legislation, yet is still protected and is our right under international human rights law. And Starmer knws this as a former human rights lawyer, even if he doesn’t believe in them any longer, if he ever did.
The optics of all of this have of course been damning: a place of worship, historically associated with pacifism and social justice as the Religious Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers, they who quake before the Lord, hence the name, are best known for, was violently intruded upon by state forces. Had this been a mosque or a synagogue, as I’ve already said, you can imagine the outcry, the backlash would have been immediate and overwhelming. Yet, because the target was a Quaker Meeting House—a faith group often overlooked in mainstream discourse, a minor Christian denomination in the grand scheme of things—the raid has been met with muted outrage shall we put it, there has been outcry, you just might not have heard much of it.
This incident is not an isolated one, though it’s the latest in a whole bunch of crackdowns by police on protests, much of which we have seen during the protests against the Israeli genocide of Gaza as a far more high profile example. It is all part of a broader crackdown on dissent under the Starmer government, which has embraced and expanded upon the authoritarian anti-protest legislation introduced by the Tories before them of course.
The right to protest is a cornerstone of democracy. We cannot call ourselves a democracy if this is being clamped down on. It is a human right, it is protected under Article 10, the freedom of expression and Article 11, the freedom of assembly of the European Convention on Human Rights, the ECHR, which the UK is bound by through the Human Rights Act.
Historically, protest has been a driving force behind social progress—from the suffragettes to the civil rights movement and funnily enough the Quakers were heavily involved in the promotion of both.
The Quakers emerged in 17th-century England during a period of intense religious persecution. The movement rejected hierarchical church structures, instead emphasising direct communion with God, pacifism, and social justice, which is why their Meeting Houses resemble plain ordinary houses, because that is the point and that is exactly what they are. Their commitment to equality led them to be early abolitionists, prison reformers, and advocates for women’s rights even as far back as the 17th century they were treating women as complete equals.
Aside from the aforementioned examples they were also instrumental in protesting and campaigning for the abolition of slavery quite notably. Another example is that of Elizabeth Fry the great prison reformer who used to be on the £5 note, she was a Quaker as well. As much as I pointed out that perhaps Youth Demand if they’d picked another place of worship would have been left alone, arguably there was no better place of worship given the foundation of the Quakers for them to have picked.
Yet, in recent years, successive governments have systematically undermined all of these rights. The Public Order Act 2023, expanded under Starmer’s Labour, grants police sweeping powers to shut down protests before they even begin, criminalising "disruptive" demonstrations and allowing for preemptive arrests. Criminalised before you’ve done anything, its full Minority Report stuff. The Met’s raid on the Quaker Meeting House is a direct result of these oppressive laws, treating peaceful organisers as criminals before any action has taken place.
Quakers have also been historically persecuted for their beliefs—jailed, beaten, marginalised for refusing to swear oaths or participate in war, pacifist movement as it is. That the Met Police would violently raid one of their meeting houses, spaces dedicated to silent worship and nonviolence, makes this act particularly egregious and grotesque.
Around 30 Metropolitan Police officers forcibly entered the Quaker Meeting House in Westminster, breaking down doors to arrest activists from Youth Demand, a group opposing UK complicity in global conflicts, including that ongoing genocide in Gaza, which Starmer is basically supporting by continuing to arm and aid Israel not least in the provision of intelligence through pretty much daily flights from RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus.
The activists had gathered to plan a protest, but no illegal activity had taken place. They were sat there eating hummus with breadsticks apparently! Vicious weapon a breadstick in the hands of a protester! Here’s hummus in your eye Rozzers! Anyway, despite this, the police invoked the Public Order Act and all the rest to justify the raid. Six people were arrested on suspicion of "conspiracy to cause public nuisance," a charge so vague it could criminalise almost any form of dissent, literally anything you do or say could be criminalised if taken the right way, this is where we are as a society, it only gets brought up in regards to protest, but no protest had yet taken place, and we have a right to protest anyway, no crime has been committed here, we simply have governments so right wing now this is deemed acceptable and the media present this as if these protesters are criminals. Where will this lead next?
The Quakers swiftly condemned the raid. In a statement, they said:
‘The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 have criminalised many forms of protest and allow police to halt actions deemed too disruptive.
Meanwhile, changes in judicial procedures limit protesters’ ability to defend their actions in court. All this means that there are fewer and fewer ways to speak truth to power.
Quakers support the right to nonviolent public protest, acting themselves from a deep moral imperative to stand up against injustice and for our planet.
Many have taken nonviolent direct action over the centuries from the abolition of slavery to women’s suffrage and prison reform.
Paul Parker, recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, said: “No-one has been arrested in a Quaker meeting house in living memory.
“This aggressive violation of our place of worship and the forceful removal of young people holding a protest group meeting clearly shows what happens when a society criminalises protest.
“Freedom of speech, assembly, and fair trials are an essential part of free public debate which underpins democracy.’
Christian Aid, the major humanitarian organisation, Christian as you might imagine by the name, sponsored by various Christian Churches and Orthodoxies including the Quakers, also denounced the operation, calling it "an alarming escalation in the suppression of legitimate protest."
But what of the apparent crime of Youth Demand though? Youth Demand is a group focused on climate justice, anti-war activism, and opposing UK complicity in human rights abuses, I don’t think there is a lot there most of us wouldn’t agree with therefore. Their tactics include civil disobedience, together with nonviolent resistance and you might not agree with those methods, but I would humbly suggest with a government like ours, how else do you get attention these days? Protest is meant to disrupt, it wouldn’t be protest otherwise would it? And it is our human right to do so for issues that matter to us. This is where the hilarity comes into this story.
You see, the Met’s heavy-handed tactics have only galvanised support for the group and as a direct result of this raid, which has possibly brought more attention to Youth Demand than even their protest might have and as a result of that Youth Demand have seen a "massive surge" in new sign-ups following this raid. One organiser hit the nail on the head by saying: "When the state starts raiding places of worship to stop dissent, you know you’re doing something right." Hard to disagree with that isn’t it?
Keir Starmer’s Labour government, who conned their way into power by pretending to be a progressive alternative to the Tories, have instead doubled down on anti-protest measures becoming even worse than the Tories. By continuing the legacy of the Public Order Act and endorsing police crackdowns, instead of abolishing it all, Starmer has revealed his government’s contempt for civil liberties and his own contempt for human rights. A former human rights barrister who I’ve often wondered if he ever believed in them himself and am more and more convinced he was only ever in it for the money.
This raid was not about maintaining public order, it disturbed that—it was about silencing dissent. When the state can violently disrupt a gathering in a place of worship, simply because it fears protest, democracy is in crisis.
The Met’s raid on the Quaker Meeting House needs to be a watershed moment in the UK’s descent into authoritarianism and it has to stop here. It exposes the hypocrisy of a government that claims to uphold human rights while dismantling them in practice.
But the backlash—from Quakers, Christian Aid, and the surge in support for Youth Demand—shows that we, the british public will not accept such overreach quietly. The right to protest is not a privilege granted by the state; it is a fundamental liberty that must be defended or we are going to lose it – this is literally the state trying that on.
So will we stand by as our freedoms are eroded, or will we demand better as our youth demands?
Speaking of our youth, Starmer might be looking at a convenient use for them as possible cannon fodder for Ukraine perhaps as an alternative to unemployment and the stripping of their benefits and lets throw the disabled and mentally ill into the mix whilst we’re at it. Think this a tad fanciful? It was done before, it was a human disaster and now Starmer might be looking to repeat it, because if anyone is callous and stupid enough to, he seems to be. Check out the details of that story in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch. Please do also hit like, share and subscribe if you haven’t done so already so as to ensure you don’t miss out on all new daily content as well as supporting the channel at the same time which is very much appreciated and I will hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.