JaeMy Quaker meeting house has been raided by the police, again. The Met have arrested 12 activists at a publicly advertised Take Back Power meeting at Westminster Quaker Meeting House. Apparently more arrests have taken place outside of people who arrived late. (Source: various WhatsApp chats I’m in)
This is clearly now the police looking to intimidate Quakers into not allowing protest groups to meet on their premises – part of the Home Office’s overall goal of intimidating and legislating peaceful protest out of existence
This is the event the police raided this evening. This is the type of event they now consider illegal to organise in Britain, and which they want to intimidate religious and community spaces out of hosting
The Met are saying they foiled a plot to commit "mass shoplifting". Let's see how well that story holds up, shall we? https://news.met.police.uk/news/arrests-made-to-disrupt-plans-for-mass-shoplifting-by-activists-506808
Alex 🇵🇸
"Mediocre Bunny" Evelyn@alexpalacefan @considermycat
Yeah, the line between "planning to organize a conspiracy to [some sort of illegal action]" and "thought crime" is pretty darned tenuous, & sometimes/often drawn by whoever has the better lawyers.
Yeah, the line between "planning to organize a conspiracy to [some sort of illegal action]" and "thought crime" is pretty darned tenuous, & sometimes/often drawn by whoever has the better lawyers.
Andy Fletcher@Gorfram @alexpalacefan @considermycat
history has shown it is the Quakers who come out on top in these incidents. Met police are almost certainly going to end up having to make a humiliating apology.
peter@considermycat whenever I read a police statement I'm left wondering why we gave such power to such a bunch of complete dweebs
@peterdroberts Yeah, except it won’t stop the media from uncritically framing the incident in those terms. But I guess that’s the whole point: they may be dweebs, but they have the power, and this is what power looks like
Hugs4friends ♾🇺🇦 🇵🇸😷@considermycat Oh my giddy aunt! This is religious persecution. It is absolutely hysterical behaviour on the part of the Met, and those who are abusing police powers.
Angela Glansbury 🚽@considermycat
phew at least now the profits are safe 🙄
phew at least now the profits are safe 🙄
Glen T, heated, not stirred@considermycat Doesn't matter if the prosecution doesn't proceed. The disruption is the whole point.
@glent Exactly. The Met does a lot of this: spurious arrests of protesters (or potential protesters) to disrupt planning and intimidate people
Martin Vermeer FCD@considermycat @glent Process as punishment. MAGA gets that too.
Rachel Wright@considermycat They are really slow to learn these days, aren't they. I can't remember the last time the Quakers were on the wrong side in a question of ethics.
Kevin RussellWhat is, I'm not laughing, what is the horror the police forces are preventing?
Seriously can anyone cite the offence?
Oh my, this is the Magna Carta country, the fight them on the beaches land.
Starmer's party isnt interested in returning to power.
Violet MadderDirect action, that's what.
It can be genuinely effective, you see. Can't have that.
Christine Malec@considermycat Arested? This is terrible!
Billy Smith
john.brown_typeface@BillySmith @considermycat
"THINK, THINK
IT AIN'T ILLEGAL YET"
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain (Live at Monroe Civic Center, Monroe, Louisiana 15-4-78)
https://youtu.be/fUyl5Snre7k
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain (Live, One Nation Under A Groove Album)
Alathea@considermycat This is wild, but I can all too easily imagine it happening in the US. Except it won't be local police, it'll be the feds. And it won't just be a "raid", it'll be mass arrests and terrorism charges. We're not there yet, but it sure feels like it's coming.
Seb@considermycat It’s the vegan meal isn’t it? Dangerously radical.
Davva"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" JFK
EndlessMason@considermycat
And what is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent vegan meal?!
And what is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent vegan meal?!
Christo. London, England@considermycat
The Met Police are following government direction. The current Labour Party are authoritarian and no longer represent working people let alone democratic socialists
The Met Police are following government direction. The current Labour Party are authoritarian and no longer represent working people let alone democratic socialists
Jones Murphy@Christo_459 @considermycat thankfully Reform will do a better job of representing working people.
Biggles 20X6!@jonesmurphy @Christo_459 @considermycat hahahaha
'Nazis will be better for working people somehow' is one hell of a take.
@Taco_lad @Christo_459 @considermycat working people in Britain certainly think so. They are the backbone of Reform's support. It's a parallel situation here in the USA. Trump and Republicans(Nazis) won the working class here in 2024.
@jonesmurphy @Christo_459 @considermycat yup, it's how they get in.
Nazis: "shit sucks, so elect us and we'll punch down instead of up. We'll kick the puppies and lick the boots."
Poor, disenfranchised and undereducated people: "That sounds great because I can't understand it's rich cunts ruining my world and the only place I can personally perceive using power is against people worse off than me"
@Taco_lad @Christo_459 @considermycat what you write is not generally true. It's specifically Nazi people who support Nazis. Poor people are very divided. It's the worst bigots who support Nazis, NOT the least educated.
@jonesmurphy @Christo_459 @considermycat The overlap between bigotry and the uneducated is historically very high in the Eurocentric colonialist countries.
Uneducated & poor is even more highly correlated with conservative/populist voting. (it's likely not to hold across indigenous or historically enslaved populations though)
There's even a study on how less education is correlated to conservative voting, spanning decades of data and done both in the UK and Australia.
It's also how the original Nazis got in. They promised the downtrodden and disenfranchised a way out, and once in power, ground those same supporters up in a war fighting for ideals they'd never benefit from.
@Taco_lad @Christo_459 @considermycat indigenous American populations vote more like white Americans than like blacks. The person replacing Kristi Noem is a Federally registerd Cherokee from Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin. The only other Federally registered Native American, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, also left the Democratic Party to become a Republican. There's a LOT of white supremacism among indigenous Americans. Blacks stand alone in degree of opposition to Nazism.
@Taco_lad @Christo_459 @considermycat the least educated blacks vote more strongly against Nazism than the most educated non-blacks. Education is a minor factor compared with race and racist attitudes.
@jonesmurphy @Christo_459 @considermycat Indigenous people in Australia consistently vote against Nazis unless they consume too much Murdoch media (which holds true for all demographics).
Unfortunately in both Australia and the UK, the Black/Blak voting population is very small - (thanks to racism/genocide).
Recently white supremacy was absolutely unacceptable to voice here, but that has changed over the last few years.
@Taco_lad @jonesmurphy @considermycat
It's why they called themselves National Socialists, then once in power put trade unions folk in jail
It's why they called themselves National Socialists, then once in power put trade unions folk in jail
ChookMother 🇦🇺🦘@considermycat Quakers are not easily intimidated when it comes to their pacifist beliefs.
@anne_twain @considermycat Or any other beliefs rooted in ethics.
makarySuch good advertising of the rights freedoms a Labour government is capable of protecting.
Arresting Quakers talking, there's your reelection campaign.
Juggling With EggsI am so sorry this has happened…again. While not a Quaker myself, I know many environmental activists who are and have appreciated their support over the years. Personally, I see a thread between Starmer maligning the Green Party and its leadership, arresting non-violent protestors under terrorism laws and this latest arrest at a Quaker Meeting House tonight. This is about delegitimising the Left. How many folks on horseback at trail hunts have they arrested, hmm?
Duncan Bayne@considermycat Speaking as an atheist, I cannot imagine a group of humans I'd less worry about from a terrorist / crime angle than those attending a Quaker meeting.
@considermycat
The Met Police are out of control
The Met Police are out of control
Frans Super 🇺🇦🇵🇸🍋 FKNZS🔻@considermycat So, now those meetings need to be held secretly; all the good people go underground. Orwell's 1984 is complete now. And not just in your country, but globally.
What the fuck has happened and when did that start? Can anyone tell? When has the world gone from 'probably leftish, peaceful, progressive and scientific' to 'bluntly far right, authoritative, totalitarian, oppressive, toxic and anti-science'? When was that tipping point?
nico beastie boyce@considermycat that's absolutely ridiculous, why is this not a big story? What is going on here in britain now? I hope everyone is okay
PetraI am a Quaker from the north of England and I am holding those arrested in the light, and also those of you whose meeting house has been violated in this way.
In Friendship