I'm not for the violence, but I don't understand what people think is going to happen. People in this country are strongly opposed to an authoritarian government, as they are right to be. Authoritarian government won't listen to peaceful protests in the first place, so what course of action is there for the public? Just stand around 2m apart with masks on asking nicely for these cunts to not take away their right to protest?

They aren't helped by the fact that last week a load of women who were stood around 2m apart with their masks on trying to hold a vigil for a woman murdered by a police officer were subsequently kettled and arrested by the same police force.

Then there were the stastics on domestic abuse and other criminal investigations around serving officers which came out.

If you are angry that people have resorted to violent protests but you aren't fucking incandescent at the shameless attempt to prevent the known civil unrest from the handling of the pandemic response, not to mention the effects of brexit kicking in when this is all over, as well as the closed ranks, protect your own, do as I say not as I do behaviour from the police then I dunno what to say, enjoy your boot leather I guess because you're going to be licking a lot of it for the next 4 years at least.

I really loathe the idea that protest is only acceptable until it inconveniences anyone. imagine the state of class, race or gender struggle had that always been the case. 'Ask nicely and if the answer is no  forget about it and move on'

edit- poor wording on my part. I guess it was actually always the case, but people didn't listen.

Bang em up. Idiotic twats. Not only undermining their own cause but, through giving the government pretext to remove protest, undermining any other protest-able cause for the foreseeable future. 

There was one statue pushed over and the right have spent nearly a year milking that. What are they going to do with this?

All people seem to have been able to do about anything structurally dire in recent years is protest marches, and have made slim to no difference. I don't really understand why this admin is now alarmed by them, but I guess if you're taking part hence you can at least feel a bit more impactful than before? It's very satisfying to annoy the right people.

So it goes. If a previously tolerated thing becomes suddenly and conspicuously less so, it does make the public's next course of action pretty unambiguous - keep doing the thing.

On other hand, a narrowing of conditions such that previously benign activities becomes all Dangerous again is pretty depressing and suggests we were never going to and will never come up with more effective activism tactics than what we were already doing.

poprock wrote:

It would probably be stupid paranoia to wonder whether the violent side of the protest was deliberately stoked by a government hoping to push through dictatorial controls on protesting. Probably.

Yerp

b0r1s wrote:

Erm that’s kinda playing into govs hands no? There’ll be more support for this shit heap of a bill now. Tin foil hat part of me thinks who instigated the violence?

b0r1s wrote:

Tin foil hat part of me thinks who instigated the violence?

I think the tactical decision to send in the riot police always has the potential to ignite a riot where there otherwise wouldn’t have been one.

I think the riot police were going to go in regardless of the peacefulness of the protest.  
Yeah, there will be those who want to make trouble and will escalate things. 
But the main thing is the Tories want to ban any protest, regardless of whether it is peaceful, so the riot police would be sent in to break things up in future anyways.

The use of marches and peaceful protest as far as I see it is it forces the discussion.
They get reported on the news and people start talking.

That doesn't always lead to action or success but they can do. The message normally needs to be broader than a single parliamentary bill though.

Looking at the BLM marches last year I think they did make a difference despite the occasional violent surges. They made people listen, its not job done by any means but the gears turned another tooth in the right direction.

I would agree with that. They are basically a counter to the mess that is out news media.

Public opinion in the UK is malleable but powerful.

davyK wrote:

The online message needs to move away from just criticising MPs' empty words and instead provide evidence of their deeds , how they vote in bills etc. The data is there but needs to be well presented. And then those empty words can be shown in the proper context.

Providing evidence isn’t nearly enough, this has been shown time and time again.

https://theconversation.com/why-facts-alone-dont-change-minds-in-our-big-public-debates-25094

I don’t know if it’s entirely ineffective, large numbers of people publicly expressing a viewpoint might make it feel safer and easier for others to come around to that viewpoint, but I have no idea if that ever has been, or even could be quantified.

Yeah, they definitely aren’t the answer in and of themselves, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have any role to play.

And attitudes towards the Iraq war changed pretty quickly, the U.K. public was broadly in favour when it kicked off, despite those huge protests. That didn’t last long, and those protests may have helped with that.