https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20852/britain-authoritarianism-free-speech
The teenage son of a Rwandan migrant family stabbed three little girls to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop in Southport, a city near Liverpool, on July 29. The murders triggered protests and riots by Britons who have apparently had enough.
Within a day of the first protests, Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave a speech in which he barely mentioned the murdered little girls, yet painted those who protested as “far right thugs…” He added that he was creating a special Violent Crime Unit, dedicated to fighting — guess who — the protesters.
Incredibly, Starmer’s first act after the murders was not, as one might expect, to deal with concerns over the safety of British citizens, but to dedicate funds to new emergency security for mosques.
Starmer could have stopped the demonstrators in their tracks by listening to — and addressing — the concerns of “ordinary” people in the wake of the murders. Instead, he chose to brand them as “far right thugs”, thereby inflaming an entire country…
Police further inflamed matters by setting their dogs on harmless protesters, arresting many, and handcuffing a 73-year-old lady with a pacemaker who had never been arrested before, and was guilty of just peacefully protesting the murders of young girls.
“I’m 73 years old and I’ve here because of them babies that has died and I’m being arrested,” said the woman, who was surrounded by riot police.
In Plymouth, according to one report, while leftist radicals were destroying a church… police were not stopping the radicals, but instead beating the protesters.
The director of public prosecutions of England and Wales, Stephen Parkinson, chillingly warned that sharing and retweeting online material of the riots was a serious offense that would lead to arrest.
So, retweeting posts on X now gets you sent to the pokey. A Muslim brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle on social media, however, while threatening to blow people’s heads off, is apparently acceptable.
What the police did not do was arrest the gangs of armed Muslim men who took to the streets across British cities. In Birmingham, Bolton, and Middlesbrough, “Muslim patrol” members beat white people, whom they accused of being part of the anti-mass migration protests.
Why were no police officers present? When West Midlands police were asked why they did nothing about “an awful lot of people armed with various weapons” (Muslim gangs) in Birmingham, the answer was that the Muslim communities had been allowed to “do their own policing”.
“We have really strong business and community relations [with Muslim communities]… we had the opportunity to meet with [Muslim] community leaders, meet with [Muslim] business leaders… to kind of understand the style of policing that we needed to deliver…” — West Midlands Police Superintendent Emlyn Richards.
He [Richards] then went on to note that the counter-protesters (the Muslim gangs) had “the right intentions” and that only “a small minority” of people had been intent on causing “either criminality, disorder or fear within our communities.”
Curiously, British police did not acknowledge “right intentions” of those protesting the Southport murders and that only “a small minority” had engaged in violence and riots against the police, hotels hosting illegal migrants, and mosques.
Contrary to what the police said, Muslim “elders” appeared to incite members of their community in Birmingham, telling them to “protect the house of Allah” against the “far right” and messaging Starmer that they were fully able to “defend themselves”.
The Chief Constable of the West Midlands… released a video statement addressed to the Muslims in the region, greeting them deferentially with “Salam Alaykum,” and reassuring them of the police’s support and giving “huge thanks” to their “elders” for their “cooperation.”
Using the ongoing protests across Britain to crack down — one-sidedly — on basic rights, Starmer has successfully exacerbated racial conflict, inflamed tensions, created division, penalized free speech and neatly sneezed at legitimate concerns.
