{"id":206295,"date":"2025-04-26T06:29:50","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T06:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/activist\/uks-crime-and-policing-bill-could-unleash-terrifying-new-censorship-powers\/"},"modified":"2025-04-26T06:29:50","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T06:29:50","slug":"uks-crime-and-policing-bill-could-unleash-terrifying-new-censorship-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=206295","title":{"rendered":"UK\u2019s Crime and Policing Bill could unleash terrifying new censorship powers"},"content":{"rendered":" \r\n
\n\n \n\n\n

The UK\u2019s\u00a0Crime and Policing Bill<\/a>\u00a0has passed two readings in the House of Commons and is at the Committee stage.\u00a0 It poses a significant threat to free speech.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bill will allow courts to issue \u201crespect orders\u201d that can prohibit or require people to do anything \u2013 anything! The only condition for the issuance of such an order is that the person who is the subject of the order may cause harassment, alarm or distress to anyone.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bill gives police and local authorities the power to ask for these orders and the court can issue an interim order without notice. Once issued, the order can last indefinitely; breaching it may result in an unlimited fine or a prison sentence of up to two years.<\/strong><\/p>

<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Andrew Tettenborn, a professor of commercial law and a former Cambridge admissions officer, warns that this law could be used to silence critics of the government and attack anyone who criticises or makes life difficult for elected officials, essentially allowing the state to repress dissent and free speech.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UK\u2019s Free Speech Crisis Is About to Get So Much Worse<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Andrew Tettenborn<\/a>\u00a0as published by\u00a0Spiked<\/a>\u00a0on 13 April 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UK government\u2019s\u00a0Crime and Policing Bill<\/a>\u00a0poses a formidable threat to free speech in the UK. The bill, which is currently at the committee stage in the House of Commons, promises to keep our streets \u201csafe\u201d by\u00a0giving courts a new power to issue \u201crespect orders.\u201d\u00a0These orders are potentially so draconian and wide-ranging\u00a0that they could well end up being used for very different purposes \u2013 including silencing anyone who says anything online that the authorities disapprove of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the bill, police, local authorities and a number of other bodies will be empowered to ask courts for \u201crespect orders\u201d\u00a0that can either prohibit someone from doing or require them to do \u201canything described in the order.\u201d You read that right \u2013 anything. The only condition that needs to be satisfied is that the court thinks, on a balance of probabilities, that\u00a0the person \u201chas caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person.\u201d\u00a0This essentially\u00a0amounts to \u201cprecrime.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0There won\u2019t even be a need to warn people. The court can issue an interim order without notice. Once the order (which can be indefinite in duration) is there,\u00a0breaching it carries an unlimited fine or two years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\u00a0spectacularly authoritarian measure\u00a0is supposedly aimed at street hoodlums, but it is not restricted in any meaningful way.\u00a0It is a racing certainty that the courts will not apply any limits to its scope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This bill is a particular threat to free speech. Already, you have to worry that police might\u00a0turn up at your door over a controversial social media post<\/a>. At least at present, the poster has a reasonable chance of defending themselves.\u00a0While our hate speech laws are vaguely worded and authoritarian, at least the onus is on the authorities to investigate and prosecute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This changes dramatically under the Crime and Policing Bill.<\/strong>\u00a0If it passes, all the police would have to do is persuade a county court judge that people are distressed by the post in question. Then, the poster can be compelled, on pain of prosecution, to delete the offending content, not refer to the subject concerned online again and even stay off social media altogether.\u00a0They might even be forced to provide an official with the passwords to all of their internet-enabled devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This law could be used to attack practically anyone\u00a0who criticises or makes life difficult for their elected officials. It would be straightforward for, say, a local council to obtain such a \u201crespect order,\u201d telling a pesky critic to pipe down indefinitely or face possible imprisonment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Crime and Policing Bill could even be abused by central government to silence dissent. What if, in a year or so, we saw another pandemic? Or more riots similar to those that erupted after the\u00a0Southport attack<\/a>? During covid-19, the authorities did their best to\u00a0repress criticism of lockdowns<\/a>\u00a0on social media. And we saw in the wake of Southport how quick the authorities were not only to quell the violence, but also to\u00a0silence speech online<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On those occasions, the crackdown was only partly successful. Even when it came to the speech-related arrests made over the Southport riots,\u00a0a number of prosecutions stalled<\/a>\u00a0and a good many convictions look fairly doubtful. But this new bill would tip the balance in the state\u2019s favour. The bar will be significantly lowered.\u00a0People will be shut up on the basis that somebody, somewhere, might be alarmed or distressed by something online.\u00a0The county-court judges who will hear these cases may well come to see it as their job to bolster the government\u2019s efforts to preserve social harmony, rather than worry too much about free speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course this wouldn\u2019t happen, the Home Office will purr. There\u2019s supposedly no threat to free speech, because\u00a0Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights<\/a>\u00a0(\u201cECHR\u201d) will protect those with something worth saying. Both of these deflections demand extreme scepticism. For starters, governments (and local governments<\/a>) have form in pushing their powers as far as they can when they feel their interests are threatened. In any case, the ECHR has a fairly dismal record when it comes to protecting speech that is awkward, offensive and bloody-minded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Crime and Policing Bill is turning out to be a censor\u2019s dream.\u00a0We must speak up about this draconian piece of legislation \u2013 while we still can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n \n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The UK\u2019s\u00a0Crime and Policing Bill\u00a0has passed two readings in the House of Commons and is at the Committee stage.\u00a0 It poses a significant threat to free speech. The Bill will allow courts to issue \u201crespect orders\u201d that can prohibit or require people to do anything \u2013 anything! The only condition for the issuance of such […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":206296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12022],"tags":[6795,8370,5422,4398,5351,73605,23564,12965],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-206295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activist","tag-bill","tag-censorship","tag-crime","tag-policing","tag-powers","tag-terrifying","tag-uks","tag-unleash"],"yoast_head":"\nUK\u2019s Crime and Policing Bill could unleash terrifying new censorship powers - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=206295\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UK\u2019s Crime and Policing Bill could unleash terrifying new censorship powers - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The UK\u2019s\u00a0Crime and Policing Bill\u00a0has passed two readings in the House of Commons and is at the Committee stage.\u00a0 It poses a significant threat to free speech. 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