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Farmers stage mass protest outside Welsh parliament over climate policies

The Guardian | Protest -

Thousands take part in demonstration as concerns grow that groups denying climate crisis are seeking to exploit campaign

Thousands of farmers have staged a demonstration on the steps of the Welsh parliament to protest against climate policies that they say will wreck their industry.

Flanked by Welsh Tory and Plaid Cymru politicians, farmers gave emotional accounts of trying to keep businesses going and accused the Labour-run government of betraying communities that produce the country’s food.

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Keir Starmer accuses Rishi Sunak’s Tory party of promoting conspiracy theories – UK politics live

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Labour leader says Tories have become ‘political wing of flat-earth society’

James Cleverly, the home secretary, is considering further tightening the law around demonstrations, including a requirement for protesters to increase the amount of notice they give police before large demonstrations, Aletha Adu reports.

Two thirds of councils in England say they will have to cut services to residents this year, despite the government providing them with an extra £600m in January, the Local Government Association has said.

Two-thirds (67 per cent) of respondents anticipated making cost savings in at least one neighbourhood service, despite the additional funding: more than three-quarters (77 per cent) of social care councils reported this, as well as three in five district councils (59 per cent). [Neighbourhood services means things like “waste services, road and pavement repairs, sport and leisure services, parks and green spaces, library services, museums, galleries, and theatres”, the LGA says.]

Of the respondent social care councils, three-quarters (75 per cent) reported that even with this funding, cost savings would be needed in their adult social care budget, and almost seven in 10 (69 per cent) reported that savings would be needed in their children’s social care budget.

Extra government funding will help councils this year, but acute funding pressures remain and are forcing many councils to make stark choices about what popular services to cut.

This will not go unnoticed by our local communities. It means less potholes filled, more streetlights dimmed or turned off, and fewer library or leisure services.

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European nations must end repression of peaceful climate protest, says UN expert

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Nations should be cutting emissions to meet Paris agreement, says Michel Forst after year-long inquiry

European nations must end the repression and criminalisation of peaceful protest and urgently take action to cut emissions in line with the Paris climate agreement to limit global heating to 1.5C, the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders has said.

After a year-long inquiry that included gathering evidence from the UK, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, Michel Forst said the repression faced by peaceful environmental activists was a major threat to democracy and human rights.

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UK home secretary may tighten restrictions on protests

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James Cleverly considering longer notice periods for large demos in England and Wales, says policing minister

The home secretary, James Cleverly, is considering further tightening the law around demonstrations, including a requirement for protesters to increase the amount of notice they give police before large demonstrations, a cabinet minister has said.

Extending the notice period from six days to “a couple of weeks” in England and Wales for “very, very large protests with tens of thousands of people” would make planning easier for the police, the policing minister Chris Philp said, as he stressed the government would not seek to prevent future pro-Palestinian protests.

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Mass protests in London put other police priorities at risk, MPs warn

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Comments by home affairs select committee have concerned defenders of civil liberties

Frequent and disruptive mass protests in central London are a drain on police resources and are putting other policing priorities at risk, an influential committee of MPs has claimed.

In comments that have concerned defenders of civil liberties, the home affairs select committee said the size and frequency of protests over the conflict in Gaza have placed significant pressures on police resources as the Metropolitan police attempt to implement a “culture change” and train thousands of new officers.

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Public transport workers join climate activists for week of strikes across Germany

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Verdi union in unusual alliance with Fridays For Future, founded by Greta Thunberg, based on common goals

Public transport workers across Germany are joining forces with climate activists for a week of strike action culminating in a collective nationwide walkout and climate protest on Friday.

One of Europe’s largest trade unions, Verdi, which represents the majority of public transport workers in Germany, is collaborating with the youth-led Fridays for Future in what the organisations themselves admit is an unusual partnership, but one born out of recognition of their overlapping goals. More action on the climate crisis requires greater investment in public transport, they argue.

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Farmers set fire to tyres in Brussels as EU officials meet to address concerns – video

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Hundreds of tractors arrived in Brussels Monday and more are on their way as European Union agriculture ministers meet to address farmers' concerns. It follows weeks of protests by farmers across the EU. Farmers are demanding the reversal of progressive measures to counter climate change and protect biodiversity, arguing that the rules are harming their livelihoods and strangling them with red tape

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The anti-Muslim rhetoric of rightwing politicians is fuelling hate crime – I’ve experienced it myself | Tasnim Nazeer

The Guardian | Protest -

Words wield immense power, and public figures such as Suella Braverman and Lee Anderson are using them cleverly to whip up their audience

“Get out of our country, you fucking Muslim. Go back to Palestine. You deserve to be killed, and all your children,” were the words a man hurled at me as he threw a glass bottle in my direction. He just missed me and threw his fists in the air as I hurried into Piccadilly Circus underground station. When I got home, I hugged my kids tightly. With the heartbreaking loss experienced by parents in Gaza at the front of my mind, it was difficult to hold back the tears. This disturbing incident, occurring just three weeks into the Israel-Gaza conflict, was sadly not an isolated one.

Last week, Tell Mama, an organisation monitoring anti-Muslim hate, found that hate crimes against Muslims had risen by 335% since 7 October. In more than 65% of cases, women were the target of such attacks. It is therefore deeply troubling to witness public figures spout anti-Muslim rhetoric. The Conservative MP Lee Anderson may have had the whip removed, but his claims on GB News that London and its mayor, Sadiq Khan, are under the control of “Islamists” will do lasting damage. Meanwhile, in a column in the Telegraph last week, the former home secretary Suella Braverman asserted that “Islamists are bullying Britain into submission” and that the influence of “Islamist cranks and leftwing extremists” can be found “in our judiciary, our legal profession and our universities”. This kind of rhetoric – which characterises pro-Palestine protesters like me as shady yet powerful “Islamists” – only serves to fuel further hatred against Muslims.

Tasnim Nazeer is a journalist and freelance TV reporter. She is a Universal Peace Federation ambassador for peace

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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Violence against MPs is unforgivable – but history shows it is not a result of protests | Stephen Reicher

The Guardian | Protest -

The spectre of ‘the mob’ has long been summoned to limit freedom. There’s just one problem: protests almost never lead to violence

A spectre is haunting Westminster – the spectre of collective violence against MPs. Large crowds chant noisily outside parliament during debates on Palestine; protesters surround Tobias Ellwood’s house; Jo Stevens’ constituency office is vandalised – and all this against the backdrop of the murders of David Amess and Jo Cox. The parties are united in seeking to exorcise this spectre. It has already led to parliamentary procedure being changed in a way that made a mockery of the debate over violence in Gaza. It has also led to calls for new police powers to curb protests outside parliament. But is collective violence the problem here, and is the introduction of yet more curbs on protest the answer?

Certainly, acts of vandalism and of violence against MPs cast a chill over our democracy and have no justification. But over the past months, a few individual acts have become conflated with the collective protests – and in turn, protest has been equated with violence, or the threat of it.

Stephen Reicher is a professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews and a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the British Academy

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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Is democracy dying in Africa? Senegal’s slide into chaos bodes ill in a year of key elections

The Guardian | Protest -

With millions set to vote in 2024, the continent’s future is in the hands of a younger generation disillusioned by the apparent failure of their elected leaders and stagnant economies

Djbril Camara remembers thinking it was the wildest demonstration yet, the thunderclap of teargas almost constant. Then a shocking new sound: the crack of a live bullet. Djbril scrambled to the roof of his apartment block.

Below, the protest had descended into pandemonium. People shrieking as they ran. Plumes of teargas billowed across the Niary Tally district of Dakar, Senegal’s capital.

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Political pressure is great. Bullying MPs like me at home is utterly wrong | Jess Phillips

The Guardian | Protest -

The right to demonstrate is vital in a democracy. But protests outside my house put me at immense risk

Last week, someone didn’t just wish me to feel pain now. Their hope was that in the afterlife I would experience eternal suffering. Ten out of 10 for flair. Someone once sent me an email about which of my orifices they would like to pour molten metal into – it was all of them, described in glorious detail.

I have a special file of restraining orders – I felt weird putting them with my other important documents. It didn’t seem fitting to file them next to my sons’ birth certificates. Multiple men have served time in prison for attacks or threats of attacks on me. One remains in prison today, serving a 10-year sentence for various crimes against me and others.

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Sunak stands with net zero and climate conspiracy group at farming protest

The Guardian | Protest -

Demonstration against Welsh Labour policy included No Farmers No Food campaign calling for end to climate measures, and Welsh Tory leader

Rishi Sunak attended a protest alongside a group which has posted conspiracy theories about climate change, and which campaigns against net zero, the Observer can reveal.

The prime minister has been accused of “pandering to extremists” by farmers and wildlife groups, who have asked him to “listen to reason and logic” rather than conspiracy theories.

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London’s Tower Bridge closed due to pro-Palestine demonstration

The Guardian | Protest -

Historic landmark closed for about an hour as activists call for ceasefire to the conflict in Gaza

Police were forced to close Tower Bridge to vehicles and pedestrians following a protest by pro-Palestine demonstrators.

Some activists were seen lighting flares and waving Palestinian flags and calling for a ceasefire to the ongoing violence in Gaza, according to footage on social media. The landmark was closed by City of London police at about 5.30pm on Saturday before being reopened approximately an hour later.

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Macron opens Paris agricultural fair to protests from farmers

The Guardian | Protest -

French president greeted by whistles from hundreds of demonstrators as some clash with police

Hundreds of protesting farmers clashed with police in Paris as Emmanuel Macron toured the annual agricultural fair on Saturday. The French president had opened the fair as angry farmers blew whistles and shouted insults.

Riot police initially kept the protesters at a safe distance as he toured the fair, tasting honey from Normandy and cheeses from the Alps, and shaking hands with exhibitors. But as he entered the fair’s livestock area, hundreds of demonstrators crashed the gates and clashed with police.

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‘More deaths are coming’: fears over fate of other Russian political prisoners after Navalny’s death

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Critics of Ukraine war among dozens who may be at risk in penal system, say campaigners and journalists

Just days after the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a prison colony, human rights activists and journalists are warning that dozens of other political prisoners may be at risk of death from deliberate abuse of ill convicts in the Russian prison system.

Dmitry Muratov, the Nobel-prize winning editor of Novaya Gazeta, told the Observer that Navalny’s death had sent a clarion call for the world to save the Russian political prisoners who could die next.

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Angry French farmers storm into Paris agriculture fair

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Protesters clash with police before planned visit by French president Emmanuel Macron

A group of French farmers stormed into a Paris farmers’ fair on Saturday before a planned visit by Emmanuel Macron, amid anger over costs and regulations.

Facing dozens of police officers inside the fair, the farmers shouted and booed, calling for the French president’s resignation and using expletives aimed at him.

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Farm work isn’t all it’s cracked up to be | Brief letters

The Guardian | Protest -

Rishi Sunak at the NFU | Tractor protests | Sex Lives of the Potato Men | Long-serving GPs

I was reassured to read that Rishi Sunak told the NFU conference that he had once milked a cow (Report, 20 February). I once collected eggs for my dad when he had chickens on a smallholding. I was about five, and when I had finished collecting them he told me to “drop them in that [metal] bucket”. I did. So I can say with confidence that helping out with the livestock doesn’t necessarily make you an expert.
Su Hardman
Woodbridge, Suffolk

• You reported that British farmers were planning more tractor protests (15 February), but the Public Order Act 2023 will surely make these “interference with … key national infrastructure”, just as illegal as those of Just Stop Oil. Will we now be seeing mass arrests of farmers, or is the law being applied selectively?
David Bricknell
Plymouth

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Tears, shouting, procedural tantrums: just your standard day in the Commons, until democracy took a sinister turn | Marina Hyde

The Guardian | Protest -

When MPs are intimidated and precedent binned, let’s not pretend there’s any justification – whichever side it comes from

For reasons I won’t trouble you with, I missed the events of Wednesday afternoon and evening in the House of Commons. Normally, that would be a cause for anxiety in a person as committed to service journalism/category 5 drama as myself. Like many in the immediate wake of the political upheavals of 2016, I found myself sinking into the dopamine-assisted rhythms of the new normal, where, on both sides of the Atlantic, you sometimes felt you’d missed an entire news cycle if you left a screen to make a cup of tea.

In 2022, I did a book tour that involved nightly stage events discussing the political turmoil of the past few years/minutes. Because this coincided with the prime ministership of one Liz Truss, there came a point every evening where I worried my information may not be entirely au courant, and had to ask the audience (who had their phones) whether or not she was still prime minister. And, as you’ll recall, one day she wasn’t.

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‘Virile’ exchanges expected as Macron heads to annual French farming show

The Guardian | Protest -

President faces uncertain reception at Salon d’Agriculture after weeks of protests by furious farmers

Most politicians kiss babies; French leaders pat cows and make a fuss of lambs.

The Salon d’Agriculture, the country’s annual farm show that opens on Saturday, is a date presidents cannot afford to miss.

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