UK News and Discussions

[Time_Traveller]

'A dark day for UK human rights,' says UN adviser after Just Stop Oil activists jailed

Saturday 3 August 2024 10:45, UK



Five Just Stop Oil activists have just been jailed for up to two years after they climbed gantries over the M25 motorway and caused temporary gridlock.

For many of the 181,000 motorists the Highways Agency estimated were delayed in November 2022 by the coordinated four-day-long campaign of disruption, it may feel like justice served.

But there has been international condemnation of the increasing severity of sentences for non-violent protest.

"There can be no justification for the level of sentences that are being imposed," says Raj Chada, a solicitor at Hodge Jones & Allen who represented one of the activists - a 77-year-old woman.

"These are sentences which have traditionally been reserved for violent offences. And in the UK, we've always said that no matter what the protest, even if it is disruptive, you get credit for it being non-violent," said Mr Chada.

https://news.sky.com/story/a-dark-day-f ... d-13189749

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

[firestar464]

https://www.against-inhumanity.org/2023 ... -leveille/

Good article on why they aren't just staying in France

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

[Time_Traveller]

Shamima Begum loses final UK court bid over citizenship

7 August 2024, 13:17 BST

Shamima Begum will not be allowed to challenge the removal of her British citizenship at the Supreme Court, judges have ruled.

The 24-year-old hoped to overturn the government's decision to revoke her citizenship on national security grounds after she travelled to Syria as a teenager to join the Islamic State group.

Justices at the UK's highest court said Ms Begum could not appeal against an earlier Court of Appeal ruling as the grounds of her case "do not raise an arguable point of law".

It was Ms Begum's last chance to challenge the revocation of her citizenship within the UK legal system. But her lawyers told the BBC they would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Ms Begum, who left Bethnal Green, east London, with two schoolfriends in 2015, was later found in a Syrian refugee camp.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2n8xv61x3o

[Time_Traveller]

Chancellor eyes Canada-style pension reform to drive UK investment

Wednesday 7 August 2024 14:26, UK

The chancellor has confirmed she is considering plans to consolidate local government pension schemes and use their £360bn of resources to invest in the economy.

Rachel Reeves said she was interested in following the example of Canada, where pension funds are used to invest heavily in infrastructure projects to help drive growth.

It comes after Sky News revealed that the chancellor would be meeting with a group of Canadian retirement funds in Toronto during a three-day trip to North America this week.

Currently, local government pensions in England and Wales are fragmented into 86 individual funds, across about six million members.

Ms Reeves said: "The size of Canadian pension schemes means they can invest far more in productive assets like vital infrastructure than ours do.

I'm intrigued what the Canadian pension is compared to our one at the moment.

[Yuli Ban]

Did some sleuthing
Interesting, but not surprising

[wjfox]

[Time_Traveller]

Top Tories fuelled riots with ‘divisive language’ on immigration, say party grandees

Sat 10 Aug 2024 18.00 BST

Tory grandees have accused senior figures in their own party of using divisive language that inflamed anger over immigration before the recent rioting, amid warnings that too many Conservatives have “turned a blind eye” to a shift to the right.

The criticisms come as fears grow on the party’s liberal wing that the leadership election risks pulling the party further into populist polices designed to take on Reform UK.

Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak, who remains Tory leader, was in the US last week and has not commented on the violence since last weekend, or on claims by X owner Elon Musk of “two-tier” policing and “inevitable” civil war in the UK.

Some rioters held up signs emblazoned with “Stop the boats”, the slogan used by Sunak in the election campaign designed to show he was tackling illegal Channel crossings.

Robert Jenrick, one of the Tory leadership frontrunners, drew criticism for saying police should “immediately arrest” any protesters shouting “Allahu Akbar”, the Arabic phrase that means God is great.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/art ... mmigration

[Time_Traveller]

Heathrow says it lost 90,000 transfer passengers after new £10 fee

Mon 12 Aug 2024 08.43 BST

Heathrow airport has said it experienced a 90,000 decline in passenger numbers on routes included in a £10 a person government scheme. It described the electronic travel authorisation (ETA) system as “devastating for our hub competitiveness”.

The Conservative government introduced ETAs in November 2023 for people entering or transiting through the UK without legal residence or a visa.

ETAs, which cost £10, are required for nationals of Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

The programme is scheduled to be extended to the rest of the world this autumn, although for travellers from the EU, the European Economic Area and Swiss nationals it will be introduced early next year.

The airport said: “While Heathrow continues to attract new routes and record passenger numbers, the latest data following the introduction of the ETA shows that Heathrow has lost 90,000 transfer passengers on routes operating to and from the seven countries included in the scheme, since its introduction in 2023. This is devastating for our hub competitiveness.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/art ... eta-scheme

[Time_Traveller]

Pro-foxhunting group says UK hunters should be protected ethnic minority

Mon 12 Aug 2024 11.07 BST

A pro-foxhunting group says it has prepared a legal case to try to prove that hunters are an ethnic minority whose hunts should be protected under equality laws.

Ed Swales, the chair of Hunting Kind, claims he has been advised by a leading human rights lawyer that hunters unequivocally qualify for legal protection under the UK Equality Act 2010.

Speaking to the FieldsportsChannel podcast, Swales said: “The qualifications of an ethnic group, there are five of them, and we hit everyone straight in the bullseye.”

He said he had spent three years preparing a legal challenge that had now been reviewed by a human rights KC “who sits on the council of the European court of human rights”.

Swales said: “The outcome of that from the human rights silk is that as a protected minority group under the Equality Act, we qualify, undoubtedly 10 out of 10.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/art ... c-minority

Highly unlikely, they are classed as one at all. Is it because people care more about Foxes than this out of date sport.

[Time_Traveller]

English councils to gain new powers to buy cheap green belt land

Mon 12 Aug 2024 12.16 BST

Councils and public bodies in England are to be handed powers to compulsorily buy cheap green belt land as part of the new Labour government’s drive to build 1.5m homes by 2030.

Green belt landowners who are unwilling to sell would face compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) that would force them to hand over their land if the site could host a “quality housing scheme” in the public interest.

Under the proposed rules, which are being consulted on, these landowners could be forced to sell at a benchmark value that the government has said will provide “fair but not excessive return” for the landowner, as well as “maximising community benefits”.

The proposals come two weeks after the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, set out wide-reaching planning and housing policy reforms aimed at accelerating housebuilding.

These included the introduction of new mandatory housing targets for councils, under which authorities would have to identify enough land in their local plans to meet housing need.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/art ... -belt-land

[Time_Traveller]

High-risk flood areas face cuts to key council services as flood defence costs spike

Wednesday 14 August 2024 16:38, UK



People living in areas at the highest risk of flooding face cuts to key services due to a sharp rise in flood defence costs, councils have warned.

The government is being urged to overhaul funding for the bodies overseeing flood alleviation as soaring costs have seen an average rise of 28% over the past two years, according to data from the District Councils' Network, which represents 169 English councils.

Higher energy and fuel prices - needed for pumping stations - increasingly extreme wet weather and wage increases are the main causes of the cost of flood defences being pushed up for the current 2024/25 financial year.

Public bodies called internal drainage boards are responsible for reducing flood risks and managing water levels to protect nearly one million properties across England, 50,000 farms, 56 power stations, and hundreds of miles of motorway and railway.

Councils have to collect funding for those internal drainage boards and do so through council tax, meaning areas at severe flood risk have to use more of taxpayers' money for flooding than areas without any, or with little flooding.

https://news.sky.com/story/high-risk-fl ... e-13196977

[Time_Traveller]

Labour urged to scrap £4bn Tory mega-jails plan and fund rehabilitation

Wed 14 Aug 2024 17.00 BST



Ministers should scrap Conservative plans to build new mega-jails and pour £4bn into the prevention of crime and rehabilitation instead, the former chief inspector of prisons has said.

Nick Hardwick, who is also a former head of the Parole Board, said a huge expansion of the prison system would not solve the problem, especially when average custodial sentences are rising.

Keir Starmer inherited a crisis in the prisons system when he took office, and blamed the previous government for letting prisons operate at 99% capacity for 18 months with a net number of 100 prisoners added every week. He announced an expansion of the Tory scheme of releasing tens of thousands of inmates early to try to prevent jails becoming full.

On top of the early release scheme, Labour has suggested it will keep the Conservatives’ plan to expand the prison system by at least 14,000 places in England and Wales, up from about 89,000 now, including six new prisons, at a cost of £4bn. Planned “super-prisons” in Lancashire, Leicestershire and Buckinghamshire have been hit by delays.

Pressure on prisons has only increased with riots across England this month leading to more than 1,000 arrests.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/art ... bilitation

[Time_Traveller]

Misogyny to be treated as extremism by UK government

5 hours ago

Extreme misogyny will be treated as a form of extremism under new government plans, the Home Office has said.

Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has ordered a review of the UK's counter-extremism strategy to determine how best to tackle threats posed by harmful ideologies.

The analysis will look at hatred of women as one of the ideological trends that the government says is gaining traction.

Ms Cooper said there has been a rise in extremism "both online and on our streets" that "frays the very fabric of our communities and our democracy".

The review will look at the rise of Islamist and far-right extremism in the UK, as well as wider ideological trends, including extreme misogyny or beliefs which fit into broader categories, such as violence.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c15gn0lq7p5o

[Time_Traveller]

Clapping for NHS in pandemic may have been 'dangerous', health ombudsman says

Sunday 18 August 2024 16:29, UK

Clapping for the NHS in the COVID pandemic may have been "dangerous" because "no organisation can be a national religion", the health service ombudsman has said.

Rebecca Hilsenrath also warned that "no organisation should be beyond constructive criticism".

Ms Hilsenrath is the parliamentary and health service ombudsman, whose office investigates complaints against government departments, public organisations and the NHS in England.

She has submitted evidence to a review of the NHS launched by the new government, with the probe being headed by Professor Lord Ara Darzi.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has declared the NHS "broken" and wants to reform the health service to fix it.

https://news.sky.com/story/clapping-for ... s-13199032

[Time_Traveller]

Jacob Rees-Mogg ‘very strongly’ considering standing for election again

Sun 18 Aug 2024 17.20 BST

Jacob Rees-Mogg has said he is “very strongly” considering standing at the next general election after losing his seat to Labour.

The former Tory cabinet minister told an audience at the Edinburgh fringe festival that the Conservatives had “deserved” to lose the recent election, and that he was not shocked after losing his North East Somerset and Hanham seat to the mayor of the West of England Dan Norris by more than 5,000 votes. Rees-Mogg had won it from Norris in 2010.

While he said he was not “absolutely certain” that he would seek election in 2029, he said his love for politics and parliament still stood.

Speaking as part of The Political Party show with Matt Forde on Sunday, Rees-Mogg said he did not think the Tories could have “overcome a 20% deficit in the opinion polls”, adding: “I wrote to my children at boarding school before the election to say ‘Look, I will probably lose.’ I tried my best to warn them that I was going to lose my seat.

“We governed badly, we hadn’t done what we told people we would do. We put up taxes when we said that we wouldn’t, we hadn’t dealt with migration, and we hadn’t governed well. I can’t pretend we didn’t deserve it.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... tion-again

Looks like we are going to see Rees-Smugg again in 2029.