I think your LawSoc piece is largely on point. I don't think there was another realistic outcome for the EWCA, and I think a lot of criticism with its decision wrongly attributes the broadness of the powers available on proscription to this judgment, as opposed to the 2019 amendments to the Terrorism Act. I say this as someone who was apprehensive about the 2019 amendments at the time - I am not surprised at the EWCA's decision.
That said, I don't think your article's conclusion necessarily follows (that we are all safer as a result). Specifically, I am not persuaded that proscription has offered a level of safety that criminal charges alone would not have provided. I'd be interested to know whether I have missed something in your reasoning.
(At risk of stating the obvious, my view is that resorting to terrorism law for pro-PA protesters, while within the discretion of the HomeSec, is not a practical and proportionate response as a matter of policy. I'm trying to understand why you believe proscription in this instance makes us all safer)
Fair question. The criminal law may punish but it doesn't seem to deter — either because activists believe they won't be convicted (for years, at least) or because they are willing to accept lengthy prison sentences. Proscription is intended to make it easier to disrupt and prevent rather than punish.
If not proscribed, PA could continue promoting itself and recruiting within the law. Surely this is inherently dangerous given that its entire raison d’etre is encouraging/facilitating attacks on “targets” across the country. On a practical level, PA’s inability to promote itself on any mainstream channel is going to radically reduce the number of people who become involved with the group and become radicalised by it.
Thank you. It is not lost on me that proscription will disrupt recruitment and penalise and therefore disincentivise financial support to PA. So you do not have to convince me of that. But I think we disagree on two points.
First, I do not think we can reasonably say it will "radically" reduce the number of people involved - my understanding is that details of PA's membership are deliberately opaque. That in combination with how radical spaces have received this judgment and the fact that the proscription was seen as controversial (socially/politically), to me suggests the people most likely to consider joining/supporting PA will do it irrespective of the proscription or feel incensed to do so by the proscription or simply do so covertly. We can't ignore that people chose to hold placards supporting PA in full knowledge of the criminal consequences.
Second, I don't think proscription in a case like this will actually reduce radicalisation. My points above repeat. The people likely to support PA are politically active and believe there is a moral case to support PA in committing (at the very least) criminal property damage. They already have a view of themselves as the underdog. I don't see how the risks of supporting a proscribed organisation will affect their cost-benefit analysis of continuing to do so.
Both these points may seem pedantic but going back to my original comment, the distinction between certainty and likelihood matters - taking the common ground between your comment and mine as the baseline, and appreciating the LawSoc article is an opinion piece, if the LawSoc article effectively said "there is a real benefit in proscription because the enhanced powers it provides better enable law enforcement to tackle a problem at the organisational level, which PA's actions have proven justified" I would get it. I would not agree with the *degree* of benefit, or that the practical consequences have been well thought out, but I would get it.
Saying however that we are all safer because of the proscription is, to me right now, a bit of a leap. PA may wind down or it may splinter into new organisations or we may see more people support PA in spite of all this. We simply don't know yet.
Well we are both speculating but personally I’d be surprised if inability to promote the group openly didn’t have an impact on recruitment. Especially for a group that was courting popular support outside of community networks as PA was. Perhaps there is material available on other proscribed groups to show what impact proscription tends to have on their activities. At the very least the government appears to have taken the view that proscription is helpful in combating crime. Given the nature of their activities I personally am comfortable with proscription having been done without an impact study.
Hard to disagree with your SJ piece (D Tel not available to me). I just wonder if the LCJ (or her dictation software) muddled Suffragists and Suffragettes (§205).
Good morning. Your excellent articles this morning reminded me that I meant to write a note to you after your elegant and careful analysis of the sentencing of the PA defendants, from which you have no doubt moved on, but which took me some time to absorb.
The detail is above my pay grade, but I wonder if I could make two general observations that we could bear in mind going forward.
The first is that sentencing has become very complicated, and that level of complexity is an obstacle to transparency and everyone just understanding what has gone on.
One ought to be able to follow the sentence for a fairly simple matter of damaging a factory (to say nothing about the wicked injuring of a police officer) without having to re-read the sentencing remarks of a high court judge twice and then read your analysis to understand it.
The second general point is that I wonder if the law hasn’t become preoccupied with terrorism, and a very broad definition of it, that is leading nowhere. I think much of the legislation was drafted to deal with the problem of the IRA, where there were people too close by half to a campaign of bombing buildings (sometimes with tragic results for young lives). I'm not sure it was a great success then, and it is becoming more problematic the longer this goes on.
Most of us understand that blowing something up is a wicked crime, without any aggravating factors. If a defendant does it because he is motivated by racial or religious hatred, that is an aggravating feature because that strikes at the fault lines of our society. If he does it to remove the government, that also strikes at the heart of society and is effectively what used to be called treason.
However, very few people instinctively think that blowing something up in an effort to change government foreign policy is a serious aggravating feature. In this context, it is important to remember that most people regard the sale of arms to Israel as an arcane question of foreign policy about a country of which they know little and care even less. Many people are probably slightly uncomfortable about many of the countries to which we sell arms.
A few straightforward examples make the point. Who really imagines it is a serious aggravating feature if I commit a crime- to persuade the government to make a greater effort to defend Ukraine? Or to persuade the government that it shouldn't defend Ukraine, but allow it to become part of "Mother Russia". Or because I believe the government is doing too little to promote freedom for Tibet?
And if the answer is "hardly anyone", why are we going down this path?
Thank you. Sentencing law is extremely complicated. I deliberately omitted the details of how long the defendants would serve before release — but it's in the sentencing remarks.
On whether the law has become preoccupied with terrorism, you're right to say it dates back to the IRA and before. But it has been made even stronger more recently.
" JURIES WHO PUT FEELINGS BEFORE FACTS JEOPARDISE BRITISH JUSTICE"
SO Joshua..............tell me again how "victim ideology" doesn't already play a daily role in the so-called British "justice" system and has done so for decades?
I think your LawSoc piece is largely on point. I don't think there was another realistic outcome for the EWCA, and I think a lot of criticism with its decision wrongly attributes the broadness of the powers available on proscription to this judgment, as opposed to the 2019 amendments to the Terrorism Act. I say this as someone who was apprehensive about the 2019 amendments at the time - I am not surprised at the EWCA's decision.
That said, I don't think your article's conclusion necessarily follows (that we are all safer as a result). Specifically, I am not persuaded that proscription has offered a level of safety that criminal charges alone would not have provided. I'd be interested to know whether I have missed something in your reasoning.
(At risk of stating the obvious, my view is that resorting to terrorism law for pro-PA protesters, while within the discretion of the HomeSec, is not a practical and proportionate response as a matter of policy. I'm trying to understand why you believe proscription in this instance makes us all safer)
Fair question. The criminal law may punish but it doesn't seem to deter — either because activists believe they won't be convicted (for years, at least) or because they are willing to accept lengthy prison sentences. Proscription is intended to make it easier to disrupt and prevent rather than punish.
If not proscribed, PA could continue promoting itself and recruiting within the law. Surely this is inherently dangerous given that its entire raison d’etre is encouraging/facilitating attacks on “targets” across the country. On a practical level, PA’s inability to promote itself on any mainstream channel is going to radically reduce the number of people who become involved with the group and become radicalised by it.
Thank you. It is not lost on me that proscription will disrupt recruitment and penalise and therefore disincentivise financial support to PA. So you do not have to convince me of that. But I think we disagree on two points.
First, I do not think we can reasonably say it will "radically" reduce the number of people involved - my understanding is that details of PA's membership are deliberately opaque. That in combination with how radical spaces have received this judgment and the fact that the proscription was seen as controversial (socially/politically), to me suggests the people most likely to consider joining/supporting PA will do it irrespective of the proscription or feel incensed to do so by the proscription or simply do so covertly. We can't ignore that people chose to hold placards supporting PA in full knowledge of the criminal consequences.
Second, I don't think proscription in a case like this will actually reduce radicalisation. My points above repeat. The people likely to support PA are politically active and believe there is a moral case to support PA in committing (at the very least) criminal property damage. They already have a view of themselves as the underdog. I don't see how the risks of supporting a proscribed organisation will affect their cost-benefit analysis of continuing to do so.
Both these points may seem pedantic but going back to my original comment, the distinction between certainty and likelihood matters - taking the common ground between your comment and mine as the baseline, and appreciating the LawSoc article is an opinion piece, if the LawSoc article effectively said "there is a real benefit in proscription because the enhanced powers it provides better enable law enforcement to tackle a problem at the organisational level, which PA's actions have proven justified" I would get it. I would not agree with the *degree* of benefit, or that the practical consequences have been well thought out, but I would get it.
Saying however that we are all safer because of the proscription is, to me right now, a bit of a leap. PA may wind down or it may splinter into new organisations or we may see more people support PA in spite of all this. We simply don't know yet.
Well we are both speculating but personally I’d be surprised if inability to promote the group openly didn’t have an impact on recruitment. Especially for a group that was courting popular support outside of community networks as PA was. Perhaps there is material available on other proscribed groups to show what impact proscription tends to have on their activities. At the very least the government appears to have taken the view that proscription is helpful in combating crime. Given the nature of their activities I personally am comfortable with proscription having been done without an impact study.
Hard to disagree with your SJ piece (D Tel not available to me). I just wonder if the LCJ (or her dictation software) muddled Suffragists and Suffragettes (§205).
Good morning. Your excellent articles this morning reminded me that I meant to write a note to you after your elegant and careful analysis of the sentencing of the PA defendants, from which you have no doubt moved on, but which took me some time to absorb.
The detail is above my pay grade, but I wonder if I could make two general observations that we could bear in mind going forward.
The first is that sentencing has become very complicated, and that level of complexity is an obstacle to transparency and everyone just understanding what has gone on.
One ought to be able to follow the sentence for a fairly simple matter of damaging a factory (to say nothing about the wicked injuring of a police officer) without having to re-read the sentencing remarks of a high court judge twice and then read your analysis to understand it.
The second general point is that I wonder if the law hasn’t become preoccupied with terrorism, and a very broad definition of it, that is leading nowhere. I think much of the legislation was drafted to deal with the problem of the IRA, where there were people too close by half to a campaign of bombing buildings (sometimes with tragic results for young lives). I'm not sure it was a great success then, and it is becoming more problematic the longer this goes on.
Most of us understand that blowing something up is a wicked crime, without any aggravating factors. If a defendant does it because he is motivated by racial or religious hatred, that is an aggravating feature because that strikes at the fault lines of our society. If he does it to remove the government, that also strikes at the heart of society and is effectively what used to be called treason.
However, very few people instinctively think that blowing something up in an effort to change government foreign policy is a serious aggravating feature. In this context, it is important to remember that most people regard the sale of arms to Israel as an arcane question of foreign policy about a country of which they know little and care even less. Many people are probably slightly uncomfortable about many of the countries to which we sell arms.
A few straightforward examples make the point. Who really imagines it is a serious aggravating feature if I commit a crime- to persuade the government to make a greater effort to defend Ukraine? Or to persuade the government that it shouldn't defend Ukraine, but allow it to become part of "Mother Russia". Or because I believe the government is doing too little to promote freedom for Tibet?
And if the answer is "hardly anyone", why are we going down this path?
Thank you. Sentencing law is extremely complicated. I deliberately omitted the details of how long the defendants would serve before release — but it's in the sentencing remarks.
On whether the law has become preoccupied with terrorism, you're right to say it dates back to the IRA and before. But it has been made even stronger more recently.
" JURIES WHO PUT FEELINGS BEFORE FACTS JEOPARDISE BRITISH JUSTICE"
SO Joshua..............tell me again how "victim ideology" doesn't already play a daily role in the so-called British "justice" system and has done so for decades?