alt.hn

5/15/2026 at 8:28:44 PM

London Police Deploy Facial Recognition at Protest for First Time

 https://reclaimthenet.org/london-police-deploy-facial-recognition-at-protest-for-first-time

by Cider9986

5/15/2026 at 9:29:01 PM

I'm old enough to remember when my colleagues were vigourously expressing concern about the potential for Oyster cards to be used to track who was protesting where.

What remains astounding about the UK is how few people benefit from this enormous scale privacy invasion. David Cameron, while leader of the opposition, managed to get his bike stolen twice, and neither time did CCTV being literally everywhere help to find who did it. Given things like that you really have to wonder what is all the surveillance for exactly?

by fidotron

5/15/2026 at 10:39:31 PM

There isn’t the resources to watch all of this cctv. Sure someone could spend weeks watching all the feeds in the city to track the thief down. But the cost quickly exceeds the value of the bike.

Something that’s changing with computer video and AI powered video search tools. I’m very in two minds about it. Being able to solve bike thefts would be great, but a lot of evil could come from a system that actually can monitor and sort through all this video.

by Gigachad

5/16/2026 at 2:44:09 PM

> There isn’t the resources to watch all of this cctv. Sure someone could spend weeks watching all the feeds in the city to track the thief down. But the cost quickly exceeds the value of the bike.

Precisely. So why exactly did they deploy so much of it when they had no way of using it? This isn't new, it's been the case since like 2005 that people walking around London generate more CCTV footage time than real time.

There was another farce when they had that second round of attempted bombings on the Underground and despite having very clear video of it happening they absolutely struggled to deal with it ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_July_2005_London_attempted_... "described by the Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Ian Blair as "the greatest operational challenge ever faced" by the Met"), leading to the whole shooting of the Brazilian at Stockwell incident.

All this surveillance demonstrably isn't a deterrent to actual criminals or would be terrorists in the slightest.

by fidotron

5/15/2026 at 11:42:34 PM

What do you mean? Pulling a few camera feeds to track down or identify a theft occurring at a known location at a roughly known time is a few minute's work. It's worth the value of the bike let alone the value of prosecuting a criminal.

by andrepd

5/15/2026 at 11:57:27 PM

In my experience they will pull the video of the bike literally being stolen, but it simply shows someone in a hoodie and mask at night cutting the lock and walking off. There's nothing further you can do with this video.

What you need is something like being able to search all of the cameras from a wide area which contain a bike and x color hoodie so you can follow the person back to some other location that identifies them further. This is the part that's missing in most cities. It could be done manually, and it would be if it was a very serious crime like terrorism, but for normal theft it isn't worth the time. The tech does exist now though.

by Gigachad

5/16/2026 at 4:27:04 AM

This is very naive.

1. The odds of the actual bike itself being covered by CCTV during the theft is pretty slim. Nearby? Sure, but probably not recording the offence. Then unless you're got a precise time window/know where the thief went, you're stuck watching hours of footage hoping to spot the right bike.

2. Even if you do get a clear, high quality facial picture of the thief, you have no magic way of figuring out who that is. You essentially email it to all the local cops and hope someone's recognises them.

The result is your bike theft turns into quite a big investigate, with a sub 5% likelihood of a position outcome.

by crimsoneer

5/15/2026 at 9:39:28 PM

Omniscient government surveillance in practice will be of far more use for harassment and suppressing political dissent than it ever will be used for the public good.

by unethical_ban

5/15/2026 at 10:49:34 PM

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

Even if the people who are putting all of this surveillance in place genuinely do want to do good, the surveillance will still be in place if someone less scrupulous gains power

by bluefirebrand

5/15/2026 at 11:52:21 PM

This news from the UK is concerning and the UK is slowly turning into a dystopia but still your reasoning is flawed.

The cameras are there to discourage crime and for use in court as evidence. Solving a crime still requires time and energy. Policing is a resources game.

So of course petty crimes are still going to be committed because it’s resource intensive to have someone monitor all the cameras. That is until it isn’t and you have a backlog of video footage of crimes and AI powerful enough to detect crimes being committed in real time. Even then though police work is still required if AI isn't using face or gait detection and/or these systems aren’t hooked up to a database that has linked identifiers to real people. But even those can be defeated with a bally and a limp.

by CTDOCodebases

5/16/2026 at 2:07:50 PM

Middle eastern countries forbid there citizens from studying in the uk out of fear of radicalisation. The uk is really adrift especially as the elites ignore the anti immigration wishes of the population that already led to the first brexit.

by warumdarum

5/16/2026 at 1:13:00 AM

> slowly turning into a dystopia

*has already turned into a dystopian hell hole FTFY

At least China has more good weather

by greenavocado

5/16/2026 at 9:49:49 AM

[I have lived in the UK. I do not live in the UK. I am not British]

well, I guess you can always try moving there. It's my suspicion that more people move from China to the UK than the other way around. Why is that? Maybe they haven't heard the news about it being a terrible place.

I get it though. As other posters have said, various British police forces seem to get ahead of themselves and then have to climb back off their hill when confronted with skeptical press [remind me, do you get much skeptical press in China?] and although I do not greatly care for the marchers who carry pictures of ultralights (because yeah! Kill civilians!!) I don't think the people who are nearby and telling us that bombing civilians is wrong (hint: bombing civilians is wrong) should be penalized for doing so. The courts and the electorate will have their say, and (slowly) grind any disagreeing gov't into a policy change. As it should be.

That said, while I would like to respectfully disagree with your statement, I can't because, well, because it's stupid. It's a stupid thing to say. You should reflect more before you type.

by colinb

5/16/2026 at 1:37:36 AM

Where in the UK are you living, what's dystopian about it?

by pbhjpbhj

5/16/2026 at 2:11:46 AM

Arresting 1000s of pensioners for holding a disallowed placard

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/11/met-police-mak...

by deletedie

5/16/2026 at 9:25:22 AM

And arresting them still, despite the high court ruling the ban was unlawful.

People are arrested for holding placards that do not even mention the banned group.

It's important to mention that the seemingly unlawful ban was imposed after the group broke into the airbase and spray-painted planes.

Prime minister Keir Starmer was called a hypocrite for calling for the ban, because he was defending an activist in court after they committed pretty much identical act 20 years ago in the airbase Fairford while acting as a human rights lawyer.

by subscribed

5/17/2026 at 8:54:49 PM

>and spray-painted planes.

You mean, of course, sprayed paint into the turbines of military planes, causing a £million plus in damages. It's certainly not behaviour that a government can allow to continue.

Maybe people don't understand the job a lawyer has? I'm assuming people here aren't as ignorant as to assume a) a lawyer supports the activity of the accused they defended, b) a PM can support actions seeking to damage infrastructure of the country they represent whether they personally might have in the past or not.

Palestine Action have acted like a terror group. Weakly, compared to those we've seen act in the UK, I'd accept. Israeli action against Palestinians has been reprehensible. Calling for genocide of Israelis is still not okay.

People decided to make it about supporting a censured group, and attacking Israelis (and Jews in particular) rather than protesting for an end to violence. It seems none of those people called for Hamas to return the people they kidnapped - any pretence of wanting peace fails right there.

Hamas got what they wanted, I guess. Such evil.

by pbhjpbhj

5/16/2026 at 9:16:29 AM

Arresting a person minding their own business, walking on the street for refusing to uncover their face because busybodies decided to put thousands of the people on the virtual line up on that day.

Arresting a person yelling "not my king!"

Proscibing a group protesting genocide while openly supporting the genocide. Later the ban was overturned by the court, but the government appealed and the police keeps throwing people in jail for wearing "I oppose genocide"

Arresting and prosecuting the grandma for holding a placard quoting text visible on the wall of the criminal court (old Baileys).

Arresting a man wearing "I support PLASTICINE action" (that's not a typo).

Throwing in jail people sitting on the zoom call and discussing nonviolent, peaceful protest against the environment collapse and the governments role in accelerating it.

Forbiding people from explaining to juries WHY they decided to break the law (as with the law, not all law is fair: slavery was legal, outing Jews to Nazis was mandatory, child marriages were legal)

Asking a neuroscientist to verify harms of the commonly abused substances, firing him for proving alcohol and tobacco are MUCH more deadly and harmful than some of the banned substances. At the same time the government claims there are no medicinal benefits of cannabis , Britain is the home to the biggest cannabis plantation, run by government-connected people. Yield is sold to be processed into Sativex, medical cannabis.

I could go on for hours.

by subscribed

5/15/2026 at 9:51:15 PM

Did that risk materialise? I suppose it would be only the same as credit cards. With a valid warrant authorities can gain access to information. But that's within a legal system designed by an elected parliament. I'm more concerned about ensuring the legal powers are checked and balanced, and stay that way.

by krisbolton

5/15/2026 at 10:05:34 PM

Warrants aren't all you think they are (this is for the USA, but the UK is not exactly a beacon of liberty in comparison, so I doubt it's much better): https://web.archive.org/web/20140718122350/https://www.popeh...

> But that's within a legal system designed by an elected parliament.

Ah well if it's an elected government then the risk of it turning hostile to its people is zero, of course!

And ask "did that risk materialize?" to the people in China, or North Korea, or Russia, or Belarus, or Germany [1], or USA [2]. There are countless examples of the dangers of surveillance, in the present and in history - you don't need a specific example of exactly Oyster cards being used, to know they are a danger.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/03/german...

[2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-administration-argues-it-ca...

by like_any_other

5/15/2026 at 11:01:07 PM

> I suppose it would be only the same as credit cards.

The cards seem to accept cash

by jolmg

5/16/2026 at 6:12:10 AM

He means the tracking potential is the same. Is the Oyster card anonymous?

by chadgpt3

5/17/2026 at 10:34:16 PM

> He means the tracking potential is the same.

If you can buy and use with cash, then it isn't.

by jolmg

5/16/2026 at 4:30:17 AM

It's worth recognising that unlike oyster cards, LFR in it's currently form doesn't store any data. It looks at faces, compares them to currently wanted offenders, and if it matches, alerts the officers operating that camera "live". Nothing is stored or processed beyond that

by crimsoneer

5/15/2026 at 11:54:25 PM

Bugger Oyster and bugger CCTV! How well protected do you think all those video doorbells are?

Your comment is right minded but miss-guided.

You are right to insist on privacy but you failed to note that your neighbours are not twitching their curtains beyond noting your cat is crapping on their veg. To be fair, they probably are but those door cams are probably available in forn parts, way beyond Gladys at no 9's wildest dreams.

I'm old enough to remember Badgers flying across the UK! Those are fucking huge Russian four engined plodders, wheezing across at high altitude in an attempt to cow us into ... some sort of submission. Invariably a flight of Phantoms or Starfighters would whizz on up. In the good old days we'd strap a decent chap onto a firework called a Lightning. I did see a pair do that job - spectacular and I'm sure the pilots probably ended up swallowing their teeth.

Russia does steam punk in some bloody odd ways.

Anyway, I would avoid worrying about our state watching you and worry about other states instead.

by gerdesj

5/15/2026 at 9:38:02 PM

I’m sure we can find a better anecdote than a bike being stolen…

by dgellow

5/16/2026 at 2:20:25 PM

It's like they watched 'The Running Man' and said 'How cool would that be...?'

by jaybrendansmith

5/16/2026 at 3:00:11 AM

To control the "non elite"

by drekipus

5/15/2026 at 11:52:26 PM

Illusion of Control. Oct 7th, 9/11, Snowden, Epstein are all examples of illusion being broken. The reactions are to restore illusion. But its getting harder and harder as things changes faster than reactions can happen. So we get Moises Naims prediction on the End of Power - power is easier to get, harder to use, easy to loose.

by hgs6

5/15/2026 at 11:36:39 PM

> David Cameron, while leader of the opposition, managed to get his bike stolen twice, and neither time did CCTV being literally everywhere help to find who did it.

Are we talking about flock cameras and the disapparence of Nancy Guthrie?

by monksy

5/15/2026 at 10:05:05 PM

> Live facial recognition will scan the faces of those heading to the “Unite the Kingdom, Unite the West” rally in the borough of Camden, marking the first time the technology has been authorized for use at a protest in the UK. The rally was organized by activist Tommy Robinson who says the rally is for “national unity, free speech and Christian values.”

Let's have a look at Tommy Robinson's Wikipedia article*:

> Robinson has a history of criminal convictions,[5] including for crimes such as assault,[6] threats,[7] harassment,[8] and fraud,[5] as well as contempt of court rulings relating to his videos, and has served five prison terms between 2005 and 2025. In June 2022, Robinson said that he lost £100,000 in gambling before declaring bankruptcy in March 2021. He also said he owed an estimated £160,000 to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). In August 2024, The Times said that he owed in the region of £2 million to his creditors, and was the subject of a HMRC investigation over unpaid taxes.

The Metropolitan Police are (justifiably) expecting this protest to turn into a violent riot, and have planned accordingly. British police forces have a long-established procedure for collecting CCTV evidence during riots, and then using that to prosecute rioters afterwards.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Robinson

by cjs_ac

5/15/2026 at 10:57:18 PM

> The Metropolitan Police are (justifiably) expecting this protest to turn into a violent riot

Robinson has organised 4 London rallies in recent years and this is the second Unite The Kingdom rally. So what makes you think this will be the one which turns violent?

It's basically families listening to speakers on a stage.

by krona

5/16/2026 at 1:04:31 AM

"Dozens of officers injured as up to 150,000 join Tommy Robinson rally"

Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist said officers had "policed without fear or favour", knowing it would be challenging.

"There is no doubt that many came to exercise their lawful right to protest, but there were many who came intent on violence."

Assistant Commissioner Twist said officers had suffered broken teeth, concussion, a prolapsed disc, a head injury and a possible broken nose.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwydezxl0xlo

by bcraven

5/15/2026 at 10:44:40 PM

Yes. It's alright to do it when I don't like the person. Should a person I don't like really have rights, or privacy? Also, I'm sure that the people who don't like him like me, right?

by pessimizer

5/15/2026 at 10:46:47 PM

> Should a person I don't like really have rights, or privacy?

For a society striking a British balance between security and privacy, I'd say it's fair to require people with violent convictions to (a) register public protests they plan to attend and (b) consent to facial-recognition surveillance in public. (One could hash, locally store and potentially hardware enforce the restriction on the device level.)

That doesn't mean I think it's okay for everyone around him to have to give up those rights. And I wouldn't support even that in America unless the individual is on probation.

by JumpCrisscross

5/15/2026 at 10:55:10 PM

People need to be allowed to speak in public without having their identities recorded by the police. Also, if you want to follow somebody around who has "violent convictions," you don't have to release them, you can parole them ("released on license" I think I want to say?)

There's a reason you choose to do this during a political protest.

Also, you included a bunch of gambling and tax debts for some reason? Do you think that they are justified because he, and the people who join him, will be publicly avoiding taxes and bookies?

edit: It's also important to note that in the 15th year of future Reform rule, when a "reformed" Tommy Robinson is appointed Home Secretary, he will entirely support drones doing facial recognition during protests. How else are you supposed to catch the anti-Semites?

by pessimizer

5/15/2026 at 11:06:35 PM

> People need to be allowed to speak in public without having their identities recorded by the police

Sure. But this isn't an absolute right. To be trivial, you don't have the right to do fraud in public without being recorded by the police.

I'm saying for a convicted violent criminal, particularly one with a history of inciting violence, I think there is a place where a reasonable line could exist.

> you included a bunch of gambling and tax debts

Where did I do this?

by JumpCrisscross

5/17/2026 at 11:51:12 AM

> it's fair to require people with violent convictions to (a) register public protests they plan to attend and (b) consent to facial-recognition

I don't think it is, for many reasons. One is most "violent convictions" are in fact bullshit; at least here in France it's very common to get condemned for violence against officers of the law (« violences sur PDAP ») despite ample video evidence of the contrary (i.e. being assaulted by the cops).

Another one is unlike protective measures against harassment and in-person violence, which are meant to keep a person's physical/mental peace, who do we protect by pre-preventing someone from protesting? If a person effectively assaults someone, then let them get condemned for that crime. How is it acceptable for an administration to decide that someone is going to commit a crime in the future?

Likewise, facial recognition is wrong for many reasons. Not only because it's many times wrong in its assessments, making innocent people face severe consequences. But also because in the cases when it's right, it's gonna be used against do-gooders, just like every power given to the State.

Two examples from here in France: the laws about dissolving non-profits were invented in the 30s against fascist militias, however in the next years (even before the war) they were used against anti-colonial/anti-racist leagues. They've been used again lately against ecological and antifascist groups. Likewise, the laws about "associations de malfaiteurs" designed to help combat the mafia have in fact been used and abused to imprison activist groups.

by selfhoster1312

5/16/2026 at 4:31:06 PM

Oppressive governments have long used the tactic of using invalid or irrelevant convictions to legalize all kinds of ways to control and abuse their targets. They can usually find some law that is being violated - the legal code is enormous - at least sufficient to arrest people and make their lives difficult. Also, they can pass laws that criminalize behavior that their political enemies engage in.

In the US, the constitutional amendment banning slavery makes an exception for people in prison; you can guess who gets imprisoned. I've read (can't confirm) that in the 1970s, Nixon's criminalization marijuana was intended for oppressing black people and left-wingers, who were the predominant users of it. Since then the US has used mass incarceration, partly a result of that War on Drugs policy. Also, long post-release probation periods are also used to control people; look up the rapper Meek Mill, for example. Most recently, authorities in many countries have found many reasons to arrest left-wing protestors such as pro-Palestinian activists, sometimes applying very serious charges.

I'm not writing here in favor of the causes Tommy Robinson, Reform UK, left-wingers, or pro-Palestinian protestors. I'm writing about freedom; we've long known that if you can take it from some, you can take it from anybody.

How do you allow the surveillance of the entire Tommy Robinson protest, or even just Robinson, and yet protect freedom? Are our freedoms lost forever if we are convicted once?

by mmooss

5/17/2026 at 11:42:23 AM

As the old saying goes, a good nazi is a dead nazi. However, does that justify amplifying police and surveillance powers? Do you truly believe CCTV and armed cops will be used to protect the population, despite most of the State apparatus being fascistoid?

by selfhoster1312

5/15/2026 at 10:30:34 PM

[flagged]

by Vaslo

5/15/2026 at 11:25:03 PM

From the article:

> a pro-Palestinian march marking “Nakba Day,” happening in London on the same day with an estimated 30,000 attendees, will not face the same biometric surveillance.

by mrighele

5/16/2026 at 3:47:13 PM

Mods here are getting ridiculous- who is the mod that removed my comment for just saying literally the opposite opinion of the original commenter? Why would my comment come down but not the OPs??

by Vaslo

5/15/2026 at 10:36:23 PM

[flagged]

by multjoy

5/15/2026 at 10:51:15 PM

This is absolutely irrelevant. I don't fucking care whatever the police thinks a protest, any protest should turn into, because I don't want the police to have this power, because it will be abused.

by elzbardico

5/16/2026 at 1:00:09 AM

Unfortunately the outcome of massive division. People are gullible enough to go along with it while it's not being used against "their people" until it ends up being too late.

by aliasxneo

5/15/2026 at 9:30:50 PM

Perhaps it will be the first protest where FR is used, but the first pilot (which ended in March) just put 2 FR cameras on a street in Croydon and they arrested "170 wanted criminals" in 6 months.

https://news.met.police.uk/news/met-makes-one-arrest-every-3...

by krona

5/15/2026 at 9:37:13 PM

wondering about that line:

  A 36-year-old woman who had been unlawfully at large for more than 20 years and was wanted for failing to appeal at court for an assault in 2004.
so she was 16 when she "disappeared" (how, where, sleeping in the streets?) and the camera can link a 16 y.o. face to a 36 y.o. one after probably rough years?

by croisillon

5/15/2026 at 11:09:49 PM

What's the argument here? Thats crimes should be forgiven after 16 years, or that facial recognition is demonstrably robust?

by nomel

5/15/2026 at 11:23:32 PM

He is implying he doubts the accuracy of that 'match'.

by novok

5/16/2026 at 9:57:15 AM

not understanding written words is one thing, but your lack of basic maths is appalling

by croisillon

5/16/2026 at 6:12:17 PM

Please re-read your comment. What you wrote is as a question not a statement. And, you did it in a way that suggests it's loaded. Forcing others to infer the motivation of a disingenuous question, so they can try to extract some statement it might be making, is a poor way to communicate, because they will get it wrong, because it required understanding the mindset that you're asking the fake question from.

It's best to state statements and leave the questions for queries.

by nomel

5/16/2026 at 6:07:10 AM

> Thats crimes should be forgiven after 16 years

That’s very common, yes.

by walletdrainer

5/15/2026 at 11:13:33 PM

That it's a fishy story?

by sverhagen

5/15/2026 at 9:57:30 PM

This is a bit of an oversell on their part. The offenses include:

> A 36-year-old woman who had been unlawfully at large for more than 20 years and was wanted for failing to appeal at court for an assault in 2004.

> A 31-year-old man who was wanted for voyeurism for more than six months.

> A 41-year-old man who was wanted for rape in relation to an incident which took place in November in Croydon.

> 37 arrests for breaches of court‑imposed conditions

> Darame was found to be in breach of tag conditions, in relation to an intentional strangulation and two counts of assault on an emergency worker on Monday, 8 September 2025 and arrested.

> Kastriot Krrashi, 35, of Dingwall Road, Croydon, was stopped by officers for being wanted on suspicion of breaching his conditions as a registered sex offender.

> Neville Cohen, 55 (25.05.1970) of no fixed address, was stopped by officers for being wanted for failing to comply with a condition on a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) which required him to attend Croydon Police Station in October 2025.

These are all pretty low-hanging fruit. Most of these are misdemeanors. None rise to the level of murder. None are "persons of interest." This is literally the "overpolicing" of petty crime critical race theory bemoans. Great job, UK-- fish are quite easy to catch once you've tagged them.

The ISIS-linked kid that bombed Manchester Arena was known to every intelligence agency and was even physically stopped by venue security before being released due to concerns about racism in enforcement. He went on to commit the deadliest terrorist attack in British history: 22 dead, 1000+ injured. The cameras would not have done anything everyone in a position to intervene refused to do. He wasn't a wanted criminal until after he was vaporized by his own bomb.

It doesn't matter what your politics are, if you let the state become this efficient at catching people for offenses are minor as "failure to appear," god help you if you ever turn whistleblower. They'll spend every resource tracking you down, but that stranger you were talking to before your "suicide" will never be found. No public or private agency should have this much power.

by suburban_strike

5/15/2026 at 10:32:03 PM

I'm not sure what your argument is since the police enforce the law as it is, not as it should be. "Without fear or favour."

> The ISIS-linked kid that bombed Manchester Arena was known to every intelligence agency and was even physically stopped by venue security before being released due to concerns about racism in enforcement.

The bureaucratic solution to situations like the Arena bombing is to remove human judgment and replace it with 4k video analytics. The technology already exists. I don't like it either but if there is ever a way to remove decision making power from a person by means of technology or process, the bureaucracy will gleefully use it.

by krona

5/15/2026 at 10:32:21 PM

> Most of these are misdemeanors.

That's a very poor read. Most of these look like breaches of previous conviction release terms. Failure to appear isn't a non-issue. It's a bail skip to dodge a conviction.

I'll agree they're not fresh murders, but if you don't enforce the terms of a release on licence, it makes it a joke, and more importantly puts the public at risk.

by oliwarner

5/15/2026 at 11:21:36 PM

> A 31-year-old man who was wanted for voyeurism for more than six months.

> A 41-year-old man who was wanted for rape in relation to an incident which took place in November in Croydon.

>> These are all pretty low-hanging fruit.

>> This is literally the "overpolicing" of petty crime critical race theory bemoans.

You listed voyeurism and RAPE. I'll take one less rapist on the streets thank you very much.

by basisword

5/16/2026 at 12:00:42 AM

People who give up privacy for security will get neither.

by malfist

5/16/2026 at 1:45:07 AM

You think we should just let sex offenders roam the streets without apprehending them? Or it's only OK if you spent a lot of money to apprehend them, rather than picking people from a camera feed?

by pbhjpbhj

5/16/2026 at 2:00:37 AM

The minimum standard for a "sex offence" in the UK seems to include [0] "Sharing or threatening to share intimate photograph or film" and "Sending etc photograph or film of genitals". Which (1) don't do either of those things. Ew. and (2) In a practical sense they can be pretty harmless. Maybe a fine or a strongly worded letter would be appropriate in more serious cases.

So there isn't any problem, in the abstract, with some sex offenders wandering the streets.

[0] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeand...

by roenxi

5/16/2026 at 1:54:00 AM

I don't think I said either of those things.

by malfist

5/15/2026 at 11:25:40 PM

Regarding the broader picture, it’s interesting that despite the ineffectiveness of even major protests over the past decades—Iraq being the prime example—governments are introducing more obstacles to disincentivise them. From the perspective of government, why not simply ignore such events, use existing (extensive) laws which cover them? It’s like states are unconsciously preparing for the large-scale disruption which may yet come to pass.

by Cassell

5/16/2026 at 1:59:16 AM

You think police should ignore situations in which violence and destruction of property are highly likely?

Why? How does that benefit society?

At what point do you allow intervention? After they've destroyed £x,000 of property? After people are assaulted? How are you proposing police get deployed safely in those circumstances with 10s of thousands of protesters/rioters in the streets?

Don't you think maintaining law& order is a necessary activity of the state in a democracy?

You can't seriously think we should stand back and give over or streets to whoever can be most violent?

by pbhjpbhj

5/16/2026 at 6:26:23 AM

No, I didn’t say police should ignore violence, I actually said that existing laws would be sufficient. I was referring to governments ‘ignoring’, i.e. not further restricting rights to protest, not the police ignoring protests.

To address it though, I think we are in a bad situation when widespread violence is even a risk; it indicates that civic pride has completely broken down.

I don’t know what the answer would be in that situation, and I’m not proposing a solution to it. (I’m not sure we’re there quite yet either)

More important than people trusting authority is authority trusting the people. The more trust in a society, the less ‘law and order’ needs to be handled by structures external to the social mass.

by Cassell

5/16/2026 at 4:04:58 AM

"Why not ignore such events?"

Because then (when mass protests are simply ignored) the "Russian disinformation" about UK not being precisely a "democracy" suddenly starts looking true?

If you have no protests, it means that the public is ok with what the government is doing. In a democracy (whatever one understands by it) that is.

by nuyarusskii

5/16/2026 at 6:05:11 AM

I’m assuming here the government isn’t inherently altruistic, and that citizens have to fight for their rights rather than simply be handed them.

My question is, what is the reason that more restrictions on protest are being brought in now specifically (ever since the Extinction Rebellion protests); is there a deeper motive. If there is, I don’t know what it would be.

by Cassell

5/16/2026 at 6:14:29 AM

A loud minority can look like a majority. (I'm not sure if there's a way to solve this)

by chadgpt3

5/16/2026 at 3:05:10 PM

I've just finished watching 'The Capture' which is a UK spy show about AI facial recognition and deep fakes, which takes all of this one step further. While it's fictional, they're show these central command type rooms with big screens that let a group of people on PCs manage automated tracking of people based on criteria they pop in, and various probability statistics of recognizing people. I've always wondered how it looks, all these thousands of camera feeds, when the authorities are searching and monitoring all those feeds.

by mancerayder

5/16/2026 at 12:24:55 AM

It's crazy how little hardware is required to do facial recognition, OCR and CLIP. Immich on my little raspberry pi swiftly chewed through 100k pictures over night.

by sureglymop

5/15/2026 at 9:18:12 PM

The UK is one of the most effective and longest running surveillance states so this should not be a surprise to anyone.

by phyzix5761

5/15/2026 at 9:42:18 PM

Well, Orwell wrote about what he knew.

by Joker_vD

5/16/2026 at 2:33:52 AM

And Alan Moore

by xeonmc

5/15/2026 at 10:15:56 PM

Whether they're 'effective' is unclear but that this has been a long-growing trend is clear and with that I wonder why this post was downvoted.

by Leonard_of_Q

5/15/2026 at 11:54:03 PM

Yes, the fact that large number of criminal activities have effectively been decriminalized would tend to beg the question why this is being deployed at a political protest.

The implication of police state is that they care about crime, but they do not care about crime. Anyone can turn up in Britain, claim asylum and will be sent to a hotel closed down for their comfort. Many visas were denied for speakers at this protest.

It is a politician state, not a police state. Facial recognition is being deployed against political opponents, not criminals.

by skippyboxedhero

5/15/2026 at 10:19:36 PM

> most effective

I mean its not. Plus with the court backlogs rising, the chances of you getting convicted are rapidly diminishing

by KaiserPro

5/15/2026 at 10:37:06 PM

> the court backlogs rising

Well, I guess they'll have to raise the custody time limits to something more reasonable then, like a year or so. I mean, as long as you get a trial eventually, this is fine, right?

by Joker_vD

5/16/2026 at 2:36:08 AM 

    Remember, remember, the 5th of November,
    Gunpowder, treason and plot.
    I see no reason
    Why gunpowder treason
    Should ever be forgot.

by xeonmc

5/16/2026 at 12:37:26 AM

Tons of terrorists are wondering what to do now.

by yamillove

5/16/2026 at 12:44:14 AM

I'm staunchly pro-Palestinian, despise Tommy Robinson and still think this is not a good thing. The UK has been draconian with its anti-free speech and surveillance. Even if you hate what this guy stands for (I do), it's only a matter of time before these techniques are used against causes you do stand for.

Somehow I don't think Tommy Robinson would take such an approach to say the classification of Palestine Action as a "terrorist" organization by the UK government though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Action#Proscription_...

by lorecore

5/16/2026 at 2:18:01 AM

They hit a police officer in the spine with a sledgehammer. That seems like inspiring terror through attacking unrelated innocent victims.

by nailer

5/16/2026 at 1:52:27 AM

[flagged]

by pbhjpbhj

5/16/2026 at 1:41:16 PM

> acted as terrorists, attacking national defence infrastructure, attacking police with hammers, and called for genocide of Israelis

No, you got it wrong. They acted like people should act during a genocide.

by constantius

5/16/2026 at 3:26:55 AM

[flagged]

by lorecore

5/16/2026 at 4:26:21 AM

[flagged]

by nailer

5/16/2026 at 6:15:35 AM

Notice how you've lumped in "support of terrorist groups" (i.e. holding placards) with raping people's daughters?

by chadgpt3

5/16/2026 at 12:44:54 PM

[flagged]

by nailer

5/16/2026 at 4:51:29 AM

Palestine Action did none of those things. Lying about it may start to give you an answer to your question. I also don’t follow the mythology surrounding religion.

by lorecore

5/15/2026 at 8:54:08 PM

Wow, that's... quite the precedent. Presumably this is a Reform UK event, which I'm not a fan of, but still, I don't think this escalation of surveillance will end well.

The article says that drones "will scan the faces of suspects", suspects of what exactly? What crime has been committed that they suspect people for?

by stavros

5/15/2026 at 10:18:23 PM

> this is a Reform UK event

No, its a Tommy Robinson (not his real name) event. Whilst the venn diagram shows crossover in policy and beliefs, its not actually a reform demo.

I am uneasy about the facial recognition being used here. In terms of actual differences to how "oh shit this is going to be a violent one" protests are actually policed is not that much. There are mobile CCTV units that are deployed with plods being issued cameras to record people doing stupid shit.

However, given what happened last time he organised an event like this, I can see why it might be argued that its proportionate to deploy facial recognition. I still don't like it.

by KaiserPro

5/16/2026 at 12:03:21 AM

There has been no violence at any of the previous marches iirc. I think people assume there must have been because Starmer and co are foaming for violence...but there weren't.

Also, they have banned 11 people from getting visas because they were "agitators" and are deploying 4k police officers.

Just as a reminder though, the UK has people standing for political office who were convicted of terrorist offences, we have people here leading terrorist groups in other countries, we have people turning up illegally who are carrying out terrorist attacks in the UK regularly...it is a very odd situation.

One of the groups at the pro-Palestine protest is also funded by the same groups that fund Labour. There has obviously been quite a bit of violence at these events and adherents of this ideology have carried out terrorist attacks in the UK...but they are allied with a group that funds Labour so...all good.

by skippyboxedhero

5/16/2026 at 8:02:11 AM

> There has been no violence at any of the previous marches iirc.

His last protest was in september, it was pretty violent. 26 police officers were injured.

Tommy robison has the advantage here in that its not illegal to express public support for him and his march, unlike palestine action where its very much illegal to do so (hence why there are >2000 arrests)

> they have banned 11 people from getting visas because they were "agitators"

if this is a march for uniting the british realm why would he need foreigners to speak? Last time Musk incited violent overthrow of the UK government. Which is rich coming from a fucking Afrikaner.

> we have people turning up illegally who are carrying out terrorist attacks in the UK regularly...it is a very odd situation.

Nice I see what you did there. Everyone immigrant is a terrorist. Look, if people turn up illegally, then its fair to process them fairly and return. There is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is changing the law so its impossible to do that, unless we pay £300k a year to send 4000 people to an african country. yes, just 4k people, not a year, total.

The biggest issue facing the UK is that we have not had a working government since 2007.

We also have foreigners people paying people £300 to fire bomb ambulance stations. Its almost like theres a vested interest in fomenting unrest...

by KaiserPro

5/16/2026 at 9:17:52 AM

> His last protest was in september, it was pretty violent. 26 police officers were injured.

Given the number of people involved, that is a pretty low level of violence.

> unlike palestine action where its very much illegal to do so (hence why there are >2000 arrests)

Specifically the arrests were for supporting a group banned as a terrorist group. I am opposed to that law, but its important to be clear why they were arrested.

> if this is a march for uniting the british realm why would he need foreigners to speak

More fundamentally, visas are issued at the discretion of the government. I can think of people with far better cases for entering the country who have been refused visas - for example, academics attending conferences. I wonder how many of the people protesting about these 11 people getting visas were upset about those?

> unless we pay £300k a year to send 4000 people to an african country. yes, just 4k people, not a year, total.

That is just £75 a year per person. it is a LOT cheaper than keeping them in the UK. I think they get something like £50/week if not in catered accommodation.

> Look, if people turn up illegally, then its fair to process them fairly and return. There is nothing wrong with that

What is wrong with the current process is that it is slow and inefficient. There is also a problem with what to do with those who do not have documents as its hard to return them without evidence of where they should be returned to.

It is also grossly unfair as it actually lets in a lot of people who have no real claim while a lot of people who are genuine refugees cannot get here: look at the ratio of people belonging to religious minorities vs majority from Iraq or Syria. In 2025 there were over 2k asylum claims from Sri Lankans, a safe country (the civil war is long over). There are a lot of other countries I am sceptical about but do not have the same direct knowledge of. Why not send people who are clearly from a safe country back immediately?

> The biggest issue facing the UK is that we have not had a working government since 2007

I think that is optimistic. I would put the date a lot earlier!

by graemep

5/16/2026 at 12:22:29 PM

> That is just £75 a year per person

I was of that opinion, alas it was not £300k for 4000, it was £300k _per_ person. double checking again to make sure I am not talking bollocks the spread is 100k-450k per person depending on how you calculate (ie total cost or ignoring upper bounds on people being processed)

the NAO says it was expensive: https://www.nao.org.uk/press-releases/the-costs-of-the-uk-rw... Migrant observatory says more expensive: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries...

Its was an exceedingly badly designed policy, that meant that it was illegal to process any asylum claims outside of sending people to rwanda. So the actual cost is even higher, because we had to find a fuck tonne of temporary accommodation. Even worse was that we were sending people who were granted asylum to rwanda, not people who failed.

It prioritised optics over solving the problem.

hence my anger.

> Why not send people who are clearly from a safe country back immediately?

because it was illegal to process any claims until the Rwanda scheme was up and running. At its height, there could only be 4000 people processed.

My friend, I think we both want the same thing, We want fair and legal processing of migrants. We want to make sure that those in need are offered compassion and care, those that take the piss, sent packing.

An entire class of commentator and politician decided that performance was more important than delivery, and we end up where we are. The _most_ annoying thing is that it drives a wedge between people who would otherwise normally agree.

by KaiserPro

5/16/2026 at 1:01:28 PM

Ok, £300k per person is ridiculously expensive.

With regard to sending people back to safe countries immediately, I do not mean as part of the Rwanda scheme, but in general. i.e. if someone from a country that is known to be safe claims asylum why not just immediately refuse them?

I agree what the vast majority of people want is a fair and efficient system. I think there are two things going on as well as the focus on optics rather than reality. One is that politicians contempt for the hoi polloi is such that they interpret any opposition to immigration as racist. The reality is that it is a lot more nuanced and most people are opposed to some immigration, not all immigration (e.g. skilled vs unskilled, legal vs illegal, etc.). The current government is very proud of having reduced immigration by reducing the number of skilled workers and students entering the country! The other thing is that it is a useful distraction from other issues and a scapegoat.

by graemep

5/16/2026 at 2:55:43 PM

Almost none of what you are saying is accurate.

The reason it "cost" so much is because it was never used. You have confused stack with a flow. Basic error. In addition, the expectation was that it would be a deterrent because people are coming here primarily for economic reasons. The reason the government believed this to be the case is because the same thing has been tried in other countries and worked, Australia did this and now (in a turn of events that will presumably shock you) people are complaining that the cost of the deterrent is too large...because no-one tries to get there by boat anymore.

We have to find temporary accommodation anyway. Rwanda changed absolutely nothing about that policy, I am not sure how anyone could think otherwise. It is enshrined in our law functionally: if someone comes here illegally, we have to house them in a hotel and then we have to provide them with a council house if their claim is successful.

One of the bills, theoretically, created the legal basis to detain anyone who comes to the UK by irregular means. However, and despite the usual noisy crowd saying it was the end of democracy, there is no functional capacity within the Home Office to effectuate this...quite simply, there is isn't the administrative capacity (or, with Labour, the political will). This power exists and is completely unused. We are also unable to return people which makes indefinite detention of 300-400k people at a minimum challenging.

But this act is used to detain some illegal migrants in prison in some cases. Usually this is terrorism-related but, I believe, this has also been used in the many cases of sexual assault.

It was not illegal to process claims whilst the Rwanda scheme was running. One, it was never started, it was due to start after the last election if the Tories ran. Two, it did not change the status of people arriving, the Tories put substantial resources into the Home Office to reduce the backlog (one of the issues here is productivity because so many claims are accepted and there is a large industry dedicated to helping claimants, average processing time is 14 days...it is very slow).

Labour policy is to create a wedge because, to be frank, reducing immigration is devastating for a party that relies so heavily on voters who feel a kinship with the vast majority of illegal migrants. In some areas, Labour majority is almost all this demographic, and almost all illegal migrants make up this same demographic. We are speeding down the path to balkanization, this happened under the last Labour government and has happened under this one. There is a long historical record here of this happening in other countries that people are determined to ignore. One of the reasons why Labour went for student visas immediately, in addition to the massive level of fraud, is because people from these countries do not vote for Labour in the UK. Leaving Pakistan off the list, when it is a country that also does not accept returns and has huge number of fraudulent student visa was very obvious (and btw, some UK unis no longer accept students from Pakistant because of the fraud...this is exceptional). That is the wedge.

by skippyboxedhero

5/16/2026 at 6:51:43 PM

> Basic error. In addition, the expectation was that it would be a deterrent because people are coming here primarily for economic reasons.

You cannot get asylum on economic grounds.

> Australia did this

And it didn't work. They spent $12 billion(aussie dollars) on ~4000 people. which is a pointless waste of cash, even more so when they had to evacuate those granted asylum back to aus because they were so badly looked after.

> We have to find temporary accommodation anyway. Rwanda changed absolutely nothing about that policy,

Correct, but temporary accommodation is >>£ than normal accommodation. If you can't progress a claim because the destination is blocked, then you need more temporary accommodation. The crucial thing is, when your claim is processing, you can't work, which means we have to pay for everything.

Once the claim is processed and they have asylum, they can work, which means we don't need to pay anywhere near as much to look after them.

> But this act is used to detain some illegal migrants in prison in some cases. Usually this is terrorism-related but, I believe, this has also been used in the many cases of sexual assault.

No this is just the law. anyone who commits those acts are meant to be in jail, because it's illegal. thats how the law works.

> detain anyone who comes to the UK by irregular means.

What the bill actually does is make it almost impossible to claim asylum in a catch 22 style. Basically if you come here any any means, with the intention of claiming asylum, it invalidates any visa you may have. This means your entry in the UK was illegal. So there are no legal routes to claim asylum out side of the two special schemes for ukrainains and Hong Kongers.

the problem is, because they didn't do the ground work that would remove the contradicting laws. Which means its not really possible to defend it in court.

> Rwanda changed absolutely nothing about that policy, I am not sure how anyone could think otherwise

https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/illegal-migration-dealing...

Basically because it was illegal to send people to anywhere other than rwanda, and rwanda was ready, and wasn't legal to send anyone to for processing, it meant that no-one could be processed. This was a known and telegraphed problem of the bill. This act: https://www.legal500.com/developments/thought-leadership/ill... made it legal to process claims again.

> the Tories put substantial resources into the Home Office

Yes, and it was spent on accommodation and rwanda.

> We are speeding down the path to balkanization,

No, we really are not. Go to Rotterdam and look at how integration happens there (hint, it fucking doesnt) In Britain we do integration really well. kids of immigrants have excellent outcomes in education and employment. For example out of the last 8 years there has only been 4 months where someone who isnt a child of a migrant held the top spot (6 out of 8)

> Labour went for student visas immediately,

Actually the tories did that first. The best part? now we have to pay more to bail out universities.

> There is a long historical record here of this happening in other countries that people are determined to ignore.

What record is that?

by KaiserPro

5/16/2026 at 10:45:06 AM

...but it obviously wasn't. 150k people attended, and a lot of the issues with police are because the police come to this stuff tooled up. The same thing happened with the student loan protests 15 years ago. When almost all of the incidents involve police, that is usually an indication.

People outside the UK have been banned from attending because they are "agitators". The reason why Palestine Action is illegal is because they organized terrorist attacks, this protest is not illegal and one of the pro-Palestine groups attending is the largest donor to Labour.

Why would foreigners not be allowed to speak? Britain is a diverse melting pot where all peoples can discuss ideas freely. Petty nationalism and xenophobia isn't welcome here.

I didn't mention anything about every immigrant. I am saying that undocumented people have entered the country and carried our terrorist attacks. It isn't impossible to fix this, Labour changed the laws to push people back aggressively in 2004 (iirc, it was before the GE). What has changed is the electoral makeup of the UK, there is a massive constituency for as many illegal immigrants as possible. That is fomenting unrest because it involves massive social and cultural change in order to make up for the fact that Labour's support collapsed amongst their core vote. This isn't a complex or unusual situation: these things are happening because people are heavily incentivised. Changing the law is "wrong"...of course, you wonder why we have't had a working government at the same time? Lol. If any of this stuff was actually fixed, it would be very bad for political parties.

by skippyboxedhero

5/16/2026 at 2:55:58 AM

Are the Met lying in these FOI request responses?

https://www.met.police.uk/foi-ai/metropolitan-police/disclos...

by adi_kurian

5/16/2026 at 10:49:45 AM

I believe the total number of attendees was 150k. The same thing happened with student loans protest where the police go in very hard and manage to produce the arrests required. But the vast majority of people do not go to commit violence. Same thing happens at pro-Palestine protests and every other protest (although due to the funding situation and the executive structure of the Met, the policing guidance given to those protests tends to be different).

And btw, yes it is possible the Met are lying. There have been multiple FOIs in the recent past where police forces have lied about this kind of thing. Aston Villa policing being one of the most obvious examples. It isn't particularly relevant to this case though but, given the massive changes in policing over the last few decades, it is generally wise to be cautious. This is why the IOPC exists and has been so critical of the Met.

by skippyboxedhero

5/16/2026 at 2:04:17 AM

[flagged]

by pbhjpbhj

5/16/2026 at 4:32:14 AM

[flagged]

by nailer

5/16/2026 at 9:14:01 AM

[flagged]

by pbhjpbhj

5/16/2026 at 12:42:33 PM

All those things happened. The false narrative is pretending they didn’t.

by nailer

5/15/2026 at 8:56:08 PM

Must be some heinous crimes to enable dragnet surveillance. That or the rotten state of Britain really is trying anything from splitting at the seams.

Must be the heinous crime thing tho.

by hactually

5/15/2026 at 10:34:03 PM

Or maybe it's just that whenever Tommy ten names has one of his rallies it ends in violence?

by 4ndrewl

5/15/2026 at 11:42:53 PM

Ever walked through the streets of London after essentially any rally? They all end in violence.

by spwa4

5/16/2026 at 8:09:47 AM

> They all end in violence.

Odd way to say you've never been to london.

by KaiserPro

5/16/2026 at 12:06:31 AM

Are you serious? This is so ignorant it's unbelievable. There are gazillions of marches that have ended without incident.

by asib

5/16/2026 at 9:12:00 AM

The sad thing is that GP is not even being paid to spread this tripe. I just can't understand their motivation to post such patently false info based on what...Tiktok research from Russia?

At least Farage/Yaxley and their hangers-on are clearly on the make.

by 4ndrewl

5/16/2026 at 1:40:15 PM

I mean property destruction, and then it's just true.

by spwa4

5/15/2026 at 9:17:27 PM

Its definitely not heinous crimes. It's just recording people at events to know who's of what political persuasion.

by philipallstar

5/15/2026 at 9:11:28 PM

I don't personally support this surveillance, but that isn't what the articles says. It says they will be "scanning for suspects from above." And later quotes the Met making reference to 'intelligence'. So conceivably they could have information about the plans of specific individuals at this event.

by 1shooner

5/15/2026 at 9:13:17 PM

Right, but suspects of what? Just in general, all the crimes they know about?

by stavros

5/15/2026 at 9:18:05 PM

[flagged]

by futter9

5/15/2026 at 9:27:42 PM

It doesn't matter what the article says. There is no penalty for lying and no incentive to be honest. The media exists to broadcast their lies at scale.

Back in the 2000s, upon arrest it was pretty common practice for cops to page through your phone contacts to see who you knew. I don't know if Cellebrite was used back then or if it was manual but the inferences were made and the point was to map out suspects' social networks to find suppliers and upstream orchestrators they had in common.

They're doing the same thing here but lying about it. By capturing all faces associated with whatever protest is going on and mapping them to known identities (because everyone has to provide ID to do anything nowadays), they gather intelligence on entire groups of dissidents. The crowd ARE the suspects.

By the time you're hearing about it in the news they've already been doing it for years. I wouldn't dare set foot near any anti-Israel rally myself, suspecting the NYPD has been field-testing this for a while and activist NGOs like Canary Mission explicitly performing such recon and mapping themselves. All those DHS counter-terrorism grants weren't spent exclusively on MRAPs and bomb disposal robots. That money trickled down to a lot of interesting places.

by suburban_strike

5/15/2026 at 9:34:37 PM

if protest expects confrontation (for either side reasons), it's possible for roads to be preemptively de-surfaced to get stones to throw at police

by NooneAtAll3

5/15/2026 at 9:07:40 PM

facial recognition is old news, the development of intent prediction is the edge.

by rolph

5/15/2026 at 9:50:29 PM

No, nothing to do with Reform. Organised by Tommy Robinson. The guy Reform think is such a nutcase that they turned down a huge donation from Elon Musk because Elon made it conditional on letting Robinson join Reform.

Its hard to find anyone more loathsome than Tommy Robinson in British politics, but being horrible is not a crime.

by graemep

5/16/2026 at 6:29:36 AM

Reform (Farage) got a different £5m under the table donation.

Robinson is gutter racism. Farage is trying to be its respectable face.

by pjc50

5/16/2026 at 8:22:13 AM

Reform turned down a $100m donation from musk to avoid Tommy Robinson

I assume the £5m did not come with similar strings attached.

The Green Party is now a lot more racist. Have you not read of the comments coming out of people withing the party, particularly its newly elected local councillors?

IMO Labour are more subtle, but are as racist as Reform. They use race to attack politicians in other parties - they portray non-white Conservatives as race traitors, for example. They have a white saviour outlook, and stereotype and condescend us poor inferior groups: remember the Labour MP who said James Cleverly was not properly black because his family are affluent.

by graemep

5/16/2026 at 10:11:51 AM

All of them can be racist, but are you sure it is useful (or independently, accurate) to say they're the same?

While Reform technically didn't exist at the time Farage had his "Breaking Point" poster and all it echoed from the mid 1900s, Farage was very much responsible for it and he literally owned Reform until very recently.

by ben_w

5/16/2026 at 10:53:31 AM

I do not think they are the same, but right now I think the Greens the worst, and Reform about the same as Labour. I also think labour attitudes have more influence on their policy and wider culture so are more dangerous, because they come wrapped in claims to be be anti-racist.

There are also smaller groups that are worse: Restore and the EDL.

My real problem is with people who equate Reform with racism which is dangerous for two reasons. It gives racists on the "left" a free pass, and it ignores smaller but nasty groups on the "right". My biggest concerns are the Greens (who are likely to win a lot of sears in the next parliament), antisemitic independents, and Restore Britain who won all the seats the stood for (albeit in the same area) in the recent local government elections.

Also an underlying attitude that it is OK to be racist about some particular group, or people in the wrong political parties.

by graemep

5/16/2026 at 6:17:17 AM

Would there be any point where a horrible person and 150k of his supporters marching would become a crime?

by chadgpt3

5/16/2026 at 8:35:50 AM

Not if they stuck to marching, no.

If they turned violent, or deliberately intimidated people, then yes.

Under UK law if they said certain things that are considered hate speech laws, then again yes.

There are also laws around protests (where and when, legal mechanisms of bans, orders banning particular individuals from particular actions) so if anyone breached those, again, yes.

by graemep

5/15/2026 at 10:00:47 PM

To Reforms credit while I do think they started off as a bit of a looney party that relied on theatrics they managed to evolve into a more mature party ever since Zia Yusuf joined and you see how the tone of Nigel Farage has already become more serious. To some that will look like they became "Conservatives 2.0" but I don't think we have another real conservative party left anyway.

by hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

5/16/2026 at 8:11:50 AM

> ever since Zia Yusuf joined

The same one that threatening concentration camps in areas that don't vote for them? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c362e9p385yo

Farage is not the most extreme in his party. Sadly.

by KaiserPro

5/16/2026 at 8:23:44 AM

Ironic. You are admitting that you yourself don't want to be near these people who are going to get put in detention centres (who would probably otherwise be free).

by hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

5/16/2026 at 12:06:12 PM

Can you please explain to me how you managed to divine my preference for immigrants from my post?

I would gently point out that if the immigration system worked like it used to, then we wouldn't need large amounts of detention centres. For two years it was illegal to process asylum claims. This meant that the backlog stacked up, costing a fuck tonne of cash.

More egregiously instead of sorting the problem. Various Home secretaries chose politics rather than building systems to track and efficiently process claims.

Detention centres are a massive sign of failure. I don't want them anywhere, I want my money to be spent on sorting the problem not showboating how cruel we are to people we don't like. (Which I would point out is directly against biblical teachings)

by KaiserPro

5/16/2026 at 1:21:55 PM

> Which I would point out is directly against biblical teachings

Which politicians do you expect to follow Biblical teachings? As far as I can see all of the main are fundamentally opposed to Biblical teachings. Which politician can you imagine giving all they have to the poor, for example :)

> Various Home secretaries chose politics rather than building systems to track and efficiently process claims.

That is true. The system is a complete mess, highly inefficient, and ineffective in accurately assessing claims.

> Can you please explain to me how you managed to divine my preference for immigrants from my post

Maybe not you, but as I said in another comment it has made it awkward for some - the Green party in particular have been made to look hypocritical.

by graemep

5/16/2026 at 8:43:01 AM

It was a very clever move. It threatened to put detention centres ("concentration camps" is absurd rhetoric) in areas that voted specifically for the Green Party (not "don't vote for them" in general) that says asylum seekers are welcome, putting the Green Party in the position of saying they did not want them near their supporters.

Interesting that your example of the dangerous racist extremist is a brown Muslim.

Also interesting I got downvoted for a true purely factual comment. Says something about the people doing it.

by graemep

5/15/2026 at 9:22:52 PM

It's worth stating that historically these right-wing culture protests have been a bit more violent in nature than most protests are. I'm not suggesting that everyone in the protest is violent, but there's enough mob mentality that makes me (someone who lives in London) uncomfortable.

by conradludgate

5/15/2026 at 9:31:39 PM

Sure, but there's a difference between surveillance after a crime vs before.

by stavros

5/16/2026 at 4:34:55 AM

[flagged]

by nailer

5/16/2026 at 8:14:06 AM

> Keep is mind the UK left is aligned with Islam

The Left has a fascination with Palestine, not islam. People who push the "the left love poltical islam" are usally trying to sell you that London is a wasteland, or that white people can't speak in public

by KaiserPro

5/16/2026 at 8:55:30 AM

Depends how you interpret "aligned with" and "Islam".

They "left" has formed alliances with Islamist extremists so i think the "aligned with" bit is accurate.

The "Islam" is inaccurate and conflates Islamism with Islam. Most British Muslims are not extremist nutcases, and there are plenty on the "right" too - numerous Conservatives, some in Reform (e.g. Zia Yusuf), etc.

by graemep

5/16/2026 at 12:41:58 PM

[flagged]

by nailer

5/16/2026 at 1:16:05 PM

> 46% of British Muslims openly admit support for Hamas

Your link says 25% hold a favourable view of Hamas. This is lower than the percentage that have an unfavourable view.

As your link says "substantial minorities holding views directly hostile to the liberal democratic order" which confirms my claim that most British Muslims do not.

"with younger British Muslims more radical than their parents rather than less"

Which IMO is a problem - and a direct result of multiple bad policies.

That entire article is heavily biased. For example: "British Hindus and Sikhs rank among the most economically successful and socially integrated minorities in the country. Polling consistently shows low antisemitism, near-zero sympathy for Islamic extremism"

Hindus and Sikhs are have no sympathy of Islamic extremism? How astonishing!

it is full of unfounded claims and assumptions too:

"Parallel social structures have emerged in cities and towns across the country, with Sharia councils operating outside the British legal system".

That is nonsense. You might as well accuse Jews and Catholics of the same: e.g. through operating their own marriage tribunals.

"The Pew Research Forum’s mid-range projection has the Muslim share of the British population reaching 17.2 percent by 2050 under continued high-migration assumptions."

So they get 17.2% under an extreme set of assumptions.

by graemep

5/16/2026 at 9:19:06 PM

[flagged]

by nailer

5/16/2026 at 8:40:48 AM

AI enhanced misinformation campaigns working as intended

by conradludgate

5/17/2026 at 8:12:34 AM

I'm sorry I don't understand? are you saying that I'm the one affected by AI propaganda?

by KaiserPro

5/15/2026 at 9:02:03 PM

Thought crime, obviously!

by baal80spam

5/15/2026 at 9:12:42 PM

first time they admitted it.

by onetokeoverthe

5/15/2026 at 10:14:23 PM

[flagged]

by Leonard_of_Q

5/15/2026 at 10:29:17 PM

> OK, London Police, how about doing the same with the recurring 'pro-Palestine' manifestations?

The Palestine Action demos are far easier to police, because its a proscribed group, anyone expressing support for them are instantly nicked. Hence why there are something like >2000 arrests.

Now one could argue that this is an affront to freedom of speech, but given the way you've written this I suspect that you might not agree with me.

> 'two-tier justice' in the UK, a record which launched people like 'Tommy Robinson' (a pseudonym hence the quotes) into the spotlight

I would strongly contest that the justice system launched him. Given that he founded the EDL, and spent most of the time headbutting people, I would say he's famous because of the work he put in, to be famous.

Side note: its the Met, not london police, and the police are distinct and separate from the courts

by KaiserPro

5/15/2026 at 10:50:34 PM

> how about doing the same with the recurring 'pro-Palestine' manifestations?

Genuine question: has there been physical violence (against people, not property) at their protests in the UK?

by JumpCrisscross

5/16/2026 at 12:05:52 AM

[flagged]

by skippyboxedhero

5/16/2026 at 12:55:16 AM

[flagged]

by lorecore

5/16/2026 at 1:11:22 AM

The policewoman they maimed with a sledgehammer wasn’t an individual?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c75kp15xz4yo

by pinewurst

5/16/2026 at 5:42:10 PM

Has PA supported the perpetrator? If not, and this is the only example, that seems closer to an outlier than anything systematic.

by JumpCrisscross

5/16/2026 at 10:36:55 AM

Palestine Action is also a proscribed terrorist group and the incident you linked is being treated as a terrorist attack now. There have been many other attacks like this both on places and individuals, as I said though the attacks on some individuals is not reported because left-wing terrorism tends to be memetic.

by skippyboxedhero

5/15/2026 at 10:54:41 PM

[flagged]

by elzbardico