UK: Veterans Prevented From Paying Tribute Because THE PLAGUE OF DOOM, but Pro-Elite Climate Freaks Demonstrate Freely

In the UK, authoritarian lockdown rules mean it is currently illegal to gather outside with more than one person from another household.

Accordingly, this year’s Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph was scaled back, with the event closed to the public for the first time. People were discouraged from gathering not only at the monument, but also at public commemorations across the country. Many people were denied the ability to pay tribute publicly to fallen soldiers in the usual way.

And yet, today, on Remembrance Day, Extinction Rebellion protesters rocked up and placed a wreath on the Cenotaph with the words ‘climate change means war’ and ‘act now’ on it. They also unfurled a banner with a similar message: ‘Honour their sacrifice, climate change means war.’

Extinction Rebellion protesters hijack Cenotaph on Remembrance Day pic.twitter.com/nALeHEqp3c

— The Sun (@TheSun) November 11, 2020

There is much to be said against the protest itself, which was deeply distasteful and will probably turn out to be yet another PR disaster for the hapless XR. But more concerning is what this tells us about Britain’s Covid police state.

It seems that the police treat protesters differently according to the cause they support. Last week, police took a zero-tolerance approach to anti-lockdown protesters, making over 100 arrests. Back in August, lockdown-sceptic Piers Corbyn was handed a £10,000 fine for organising a protest. But not all protesters are punished. In June, when Black Lives Matter protesters broke the lockdown, police supported the protests by ‘taking the knee’ in front of them.

Will the XR Cenotaph protesters meet the same fate as those protesting against Covid restrictions? It seems doubtful. It took the police nearly two hours just to remove the XR wreath from the Cenotaph.

Of course, those of us who believe in free speech and civil liberties do not want anyone to be prevented from attending a protest or to be punished for demonstrating. But the inconsistency is glaring.

As radio presenter Alex Belfield has pointed out, XR were able to protest at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day, despite the fact that police lines prevented veterans accessing it on Remembrance Sunday. Apparently, it is fine to head to the Cenotaph if you want to make a statement about the environment, but not if you want to commemorate the past.

This is the country we live in: a state where Covid means protesting is banned, unless it’s the right kind of protest, in which case the police will turn a blind eye or even endorse it.

Our police have become politicised – and that is a grave threat to our democratic rights.

Source: Spiked

I Will Never Forgive the Clowns Who Cancelled Remembrance Sunday

Normally I would go this morning to a small village war memorial and stand in the cold November air while we prayed a little, sang O God, Our Help In Ages Past, and observed the usual silence between bugle calls.

But a few weeks ago, I was told this was impossible. Apparently we would all be too close together, or something. So the event was to be switched to a nearby cemetery, where we could all stand a long way from each other.

‘There will be white crosses painted on the grass to indicate where people should stand to ensure social distancing… Masks are not compulsory in this scenario, but their use would be appreciated,’ said the parish circular.

And, of course, we were supposed to leave our names and addresses in case, in the wind and the cold, as we avoided each other, we somehow contracted or passed on Covid.

How, I wondered, would those we were commemorating have viewed these pathetic precautions and the spirit of subservience to the State (constantly advised by Church leaders) which they express?

I was getting ready to endure this parody, wondering if it would make me laugh out loud or lose my temper, or both.

But then Johnson and Hancock, our prison governor and chief warder, once again made normal life illegal. The feeble pseudo-ceremony was cancelled, as are all other religious services.

Quite a few people in the churches and in politics are beginning, too late, to seethe about this repression of an important part of national life. Any actual war veteran, should he take part in a Remembrance Service inside, could be fined on the spot by an official.

But the more we obey Hancock and his dubiously lawful decrees, the more he thinks he can boss us about. It is because the churches took the knee to him in March that he now feels he can kick them in the face. 

So it is good to mark that last week we began once again to have an opposition in this country. More public voices are being raised against this unjustified folly, out of all proportion to the hugely exaggerated risk.

Back in March, as I know very well, anyone who spoke up against this was treated more or less as an outcast apostle of evil, callous and selfish, not to be listened to.

Now, a significant number of MPs are ready to vote against it. More and more of the media are examining it as severely as they should have done from the start, though the BBC remains mostly a shameful propaganda organ of Downing Street. I think we have reached the end of the beginning.

And one day we may yet liberate ourselves from these sinister clowns. When we do, there will be much to forgive.

But I am not sure I will ever be able to forgive the people who made it a crime to sing O God, Our Help In Ages Past at an English village war memorial.

Source: The Daily Mail