The justice system in our country is based on three core principles, known as “the three Is”
https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/our-justice-system/three-i
Independence
– the judiciary should be fair and transparent, free of any influence outside the rule of law.
Specifically courts and judges should not be influenced by public opinion, the media, or politicians, when making decisions on sentencing. Including the Prime Minister.
https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/our-justice-system/three-i
Impartiality
The judiciary should treat all members of the public equally and fairly, no matter who they are.
Ethnicity, social background, personal wealth, none of these should matter to judges when sentencing.
Integrity
Judges’ conduct must be bound by principles of honesty and respect, and may require putting the obligations of judicial office above their own personal interests.
Judges are expected to display intellectual honesty, respect for the law and observance of the law.
So, how does our Prime Minister, very publicly and repeatedly, urging courts, and particularly judges, to
“Throw the book at the Far Right protesters/rioters”
“Make an example of them”
“Make them feel the full force of the law!”
– fit in with these core principles, “the three Is” which are supposed to guide everything our judges and courts do?
Surely unarguably, Starmer’s demands of our judiciary system, which appear to have had the precise effect that he presumably intended they should, influencing judges to hand out severe sentences, sometimes for seemingly relatively minor offences,
– fly directly in the face of the core principle of “Independence”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd6ygglnwveo :
Graham Brookes: sentenced to 20 months in jail for throwing a pint of cider at police, and “kicking out at one”.
Lynden Parker: sentenced to 26 months in jail for throwing an e-cigarette at a hotel containing asylum seekers.
(Generally e-cigarettes are only “a fire risk” when being charged, you can’t start a fire by dropping or throwing one)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2nm5jgxlko
Alfie Arrowsmith: sentenced to 16 months for shouting “come on then” and “let have it” at police.
If you throw missiles at police, with a risk of injuring them, then you deserve a severe punishment and to go jail.
Exhibiting intimidating behaviour towards asylum seekers, or anyone, is unacceptable and deserving of punishment.
But significant prison sentences for shouting at police, or a police dog, handed out to people with no previous convictions, of previously good character and behaviour?
And when the people concerned have (more than slightly curiously, are they being “leant on” / pressured in some way?)
– seemingly universally, pleaded “Guilty”?
We can only guess what kind of sentence they would be receiving if they had pleaded “Not Guilty”, their cases then gone to court, and subsequently a guilty verdict returned,
– four years, five years, six years in prison?
Presumably considerably more than the sentences which they are being handed when immediately pleading guilty.
So how do these sentences compare with those given out for committing other crimes, for example taxi driver and Islamic preacher Abdul Rauf, of Rochdale, who was convicted of trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child, jailed for six years in 2012, but served only 30 months behind bars?
Or a man who attacked three women, throwing punches aggressively, slamming the head of one of them on a car dashboard, because he believed they were not dressed appropriately?
https://www.asianimage.co.uk/news/24543252.women-attacked-man-broad-daylight-bradford/
And what about the epidemic of shoplifting (stealing) that we have been seeing in recent years, the rise in knife and sex crimes,
– we don’t hear “Two-Tier Kier”, as he is increasingly, and perhaps unsurprising being dubbed,
– demanding “the book be thrown” at these offenders, no “full force of the law” for them, no “examples to be made”.
Instead shoplifting has been all but decriminalised, with police failing to attend 40% of reported incidents, even when violence has been involved, shop assistants have been physically attacked:
Steal £199 worth of goods from a shop, police won’t pursue you. Get caught (unlikely), just plead guilty by post:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42492488
Up and down the country small shop owners are closing down their businesses because they can’t afford the losses resulting from sky high, ever increasing levels of shoplifting, 30% up in just the last 12 months:
– does anyone believe this Labour government is serious about tackling it?
For a long time now people who have committed sex offences, including against children, have been avoiding serious punishment by simply saying “sorry” to their victims:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1878616/sex-offenders-let-off-apologising
If they haven’t simply said sorry and avoided prison, they are likely to be let out after serving just 40% of their terms:
Sir Keir “Two-Tier” Starmer was Director of Public Prosecutions for five years, he must be well aware that what he has been clearly attempting to do, and seemingly achieved,
– that is, influence courts and judges to hand out much harsher sentences that they would have done had he not intervened, to one particular group of people, a group to which he has universally attached the label “Far Right”, when many of them clearly are nothing of the kind, by any reasonable estimation,
– is simply wrong.
Is it any wonder that large numbers of people in this country are losing faith in our police force and our judiciary, and to believe that if you have lived here all your life, if you identify as “white Christian”,
– you are likely to receive the worst treatment of any group, whether you are applying for social housing, employment of some kind, or being punished for a criminal offence?
Why has our new Prime Minister chosen to label everyone taking part in recent anti mass immigration protests, “Far Right”, and to use his position and influence to pressure our judiciary into imposing, in some cases extremely severe sentences, for compared to some of the ones listed above, minor offences?
– and why is no one in our judiciary system, or media, prepared to “call him out” for it?
To be crystal clear, anyone who, whilst involved in a protest, or in any other scenario, commits an assault, criminal damage, assaults the police, or is verbally abusive to them (verbal abuse is a hate crime, and if it contains threats of violence, can be construed as a form of assault),
– of course should be appropriately punished.
“Appropriately”.
Their punishments should take into account severity of the offence, whether it’s first time or a repeat, in accordance with the relevant law, free from all external influences,
– including influence from the former Director of Public Prosecutions, now Prime Minister, Sir Kier Starmer.
It should surely concern everyone greatly that the former head of the Crown Prosecution Service has been so willing to “trample all over”, one of the core principles of our judiciary system…
Whether he did it in a desperate attempt to stem the rising tide of protests, some of which ended up as riots (very probably being hijacked by people who were using them simply as an excuse to indulge in violence and criminal damage),
– whether he just wanted a cheap favourable headline, or whether he had another reason, there can be no excuse for it.
It’s completely wrong. Unconstitutional.
If he is prepared to do this, after just a few weeks as Prime Minister, what will he do “further down the road”?
It’s already clear that there is a major attack on our civil liberties coming under this government, clear that the recent protests against sky high levels of legal immigration, and the illegal entry to this country by tens of thousands annually across the Channel, which continues unabated,
– will be used to justify massively increased state monitoring and control measures, to impose further limits on what we can say and do, both online, and on the streets.
They will be “for the public good”, obviously. As totalitarian states throughout history have consistently argued.
1.2 million people being given permission to enter the UK and remain here in a single year (2022), even with 455,000 choosing to leave our shores and not come back, is not sustainable.
For 14 years Conservatives promised that legal Net Migration would be brought down to the “tens of thousands” annually, and then presided over huge increases in it, increases which no one had voted for.
In fact, when they left office, annual net migration was running at the best part of 750,000, add on another “40,000 plus”, people entering the UK illegally across the Channel every year in small boats
(that we know of, how many are landing on beaches and simply disappearing, how many are still being hidden inside lorries, or arriving by plane, and immediately claiming asylum on landing?)
– and you have an increase in the UK population of around 800,000 a year, entirely due to immigration.
Roughly the population of Leeds and Newcastle combined. Almost a million extra people in just one year, living in the UK, permanently.
We can never hope to build houses, roads, hospitals, schools, prisons etc, fast enough to cope with this rate of population increase.
It’s not “Far Right” to believe that this vast number of people, arriving in such a short space of time, cannot be successfully assimilated into our society and our culture.
But people are rightly fearful of voicing this perfectly reasonable opinion.
Current immigration levels may boost headline GDP statistics, but they are clearly unsustainable. And they are not benefitting the people who already live here, GDP per capita, a key measure of how wealthy individuals are in the UK
– continues to fall, down by 0.7% in 2023, and has been dropping every quarter since early 2022:
However, rather than admit the obvious, and actually do something about it, instead we now have a government that would rather not talk about it, and to do its very best to make sure that no one else does.
Is this perhaps the real reason our Prime Minister intervened, seemingly used his position, and influence on his former friends and colleagues in the judiciary system to get extremely harsh sentences imposed on those involved in recent protests, whether on the streets, or online,
– his intention was to create “a climate of fear”, but not just a fear of breaking the law, citizens should be fearful of the consequences of law breaking,
– but a fear of speaking out, a fear of publicly expressing any form of opposition to continuing mass immigration to the UK, something which statistics confirm is making ordinary citizens poorer, and which they may feel risks undermining the very fabric of UK society.
We must always vigorously protect our right to free speech, and to peacefully protest.
Once these are lost, they may well be lost forever, or at least, for our lifetimes.
Of course anyone breaking the law should be punished appropriately, under the relevant tenets of that law, but the extent of the punishment they receive must be completely free from influence by the general public, the media, and most of all, virtue signalling politicians.
Or worse still, those with an agenda to shut down legitimate public debate, on subjects which affect us all.
No “books should be thrown”, no “examples made”, “the force of the law” should be consistently applied.
All punishments should be fair, unbiased and appropriate. And free from all political interference/influence.
So if may customise a Pink Floyd lyric from their 1979 hit record, more than slightly,
“Hey, Sir Two-Tier Kier, leave our courts alone!”
Pete Durnell 