They Got it Right First Time

Apparently, officials are backtracking on this.

Counter-terrorism police placed the non-violent group Extinction Rebellion(XR) on a list of extremist ideologies that should be reported to the authorities running the Prevent programme, which aims to catch those at risk of committing atrocities, the Guardian has learned.

The climate emergency campaign group was included in a 12-page guide produced by counter-terrorism police in the south-east titled Safeguarding young people and adults from ideological extremism, which is marked as “official”.

XR featured alongside threats to national security such as neo-Nazi terrorism and a pro-terrorist Islamist group. The guide, aimed at police officers, government organisations and teachers who by law have to report concerns about radicalisation, was dated last November.

Given how XR behave, I’d say this was fair enough. They are extremist. If they were just a wacky doomsday cult, then fair enough, let them get on with it. However, they are not. They are using blackmail, bullying and intimidation in order to force people to acquiesce to their demands. That is what crosses the line. They are actively causing harm by preventing people from going about their lawful business. If you or I wanted to block a road, we would need a road closure order to do it. These people turn up and block off major routes into cities for days at a time, preventing people from getting to work at best. At worse, they have prevented people from getting to hospital. All because they want to impose their authoritarian, dystopian nightmare of an ideology on the rest of us, having brainwashed teir followers into believing that the end of the world is nigh.

So, yes, they are extremists. Nasty, arrogant, authoritarian extremists.

The disclosure that XR has been listed alongside proscribed groups such as National Action and Al-Muhajiroun is likely to be deeply embarrassing for counter-terror chiefs. They have for years faced claims that Prevent can cross the line to stifle legitimate free speech, thought and dissent.

Okay, yes, I share that concern about Prevent. However, if we are to have it, then XR is just as much a threat to our way of life and to impressionable minds as any of the other organisations listed, so why be embarrassed. XR needs to be vigorously resisted. When the bastards turn up and block cities, the police need to remove them promptly. Not stand back and watch them play silly buggers while people try to go about their lawful business, frustrated that the police, for which they are paying, appear to be impotent when faced with a bunch of middle-class tossers on a power trip. What they are doing is not a valid expression of free speech. It is bullying, intimidation and blackmail. None of these is covered by free speech. And if we are to have a Prevent programme, then. yes, XR needs to be included. Someone has to undermine the brainwashing going on. That said, I don’t trust our education system to do it.

When the Guardian first asked police about the document, officials said they would review the guidance to clarify their position on Extinction Rebellion. But following further questions, counter-terrorism police confirmed it had been circulated to “statutory partners” and had now been recalled. They said they now accepted that the protest group was not extremist.

Yes. They. Are!