{"id":302348,"date":"2025-01-23T06:52:38","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T06:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=302348"},"modified":"2025-01-25T06:37:08","modified_gmt":"2025-01-25T06:37:08","slug":"kit-knightly-starmer-wants-to-overhaul-terror-law-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=302348","title":{"rendered":"Kit Knightly: Starmer wants to \u201cOverhaul Terror Law\u201d- Here\u2019s WHY"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kit Knightly \u2013 Off-Guardian Jan 22, 2025<\/strong><\/h1>\n

With every major news story there is an \u201caha!\u201d moment, the second where the pieces click into place and you realise \u201cOh, that\u2019s what it\u2019s really about!\u201d<\/em> Sometimes it\u2019s instant, sometimes it takes a little while.<\/p>\n

With the Southport stabbing story it was today, when the media announced that the government will be \u201coverhauling terror laws\u201d<\/a> in response to the incident.<\/p>\n

Writing in The Sun<\/a> (or, more accurately, having his name attached to something in The Sun), Keir Starmer claims \u201cwe are facing a grave new threat\u201d<\/em>, requiring an \u201cexpanded definition\u201d of terrorism.<\/p>\n

Further, he wants to make it harder to buy knives:<\/p>\n

\u2026it remains shockingly easy for our children to get their hands on deadly knives. The lessons of this case could not be clearer.[\u2026] The technology is there to set up age-verification checks, even for kitchen knives ordered online.<\/p>\n

And do more censorship (from The Guardian):<\/p>\n

\u201cwith just a few clicks, people can watch video after horrific video, videos that in some cases are never taken down. You can\u2019t tell me that the material this individual viewed before committing these murders should be accessible or mainstream social media platforms,\u201d<\/p>\n

That will be at least partially covered by the Online Safety Act, which comes into force in March.<\/p>\n

But the golden prize here is the \u201cterrorism\u201d law reform, which will seek to \u201cbroaden the definition of terrorism\u201d to include the \u201cgrave new threat\u201d. Again, from the Sun column:<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m afraid the blunt truth here is that this case is a terrible warning sign. Because Britain now faces a grave new threat. Terrorism has changed. In the past, the main threat was highly organised groups, with a clear political intent. Groups like Al-Qaeda and the IRA [\u2026]But now, alongside it, we also have to guard against extreme violence perpetrated by loners and misfits \u2014 a growing cohort of young men who can access all manner of sick material online.<\/p>\n

The aim is to make \u201cterrorism\u201d even more abstract by removing it from religious or political ideology. This would mirror EU legislation from last year, which saw an informal and incredibly vague definition<\/a> of \u201cpotential terrorist\u201d adopted by the new Knowledge Hub.<\/p>\n

In a statement to Parliament yesterday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said [emphasis added]:<\/p>\n

given the growing numbers of cases where perpetrators are seeking to terrorise, even without a clear ideology<\/strong>, we need to ensure that the law, powers and sentencing are strong enough to cope<\/p>\n

Why are they\u00a0talking about terrorism lacking ideology?<\/p>\n

It is all linked back to the Covid19 anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine protests. When they say \u201cno clear ideology\u201d, they mean people expressing anti-government sentiment who can\u2019t be boxed into a religious or \u201cextremist\u201d group.<\/p>\n

Anyone<\/strong><\/em>, in other words, who has<\/strong> any<\/strong><\/em> problem with <\/strong>anything<\/strong><\/em> the government might be doing or legislating.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And if you don\u2019t believe me, here is Vikram Dodd writing about how the \u201csurge in online violence makes declaring a terrorist incident more difficult than ever\u201d<\/em> in The Guardian<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated two trends: it increased the number of young people entering the terrorism system, and the number of people with no or unclear ideology<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all right there if you\u2019re reading between the lines.<\/p>\n

What does this mean in practical terms? What are they actually going to do<\/em>? There are some hints.<\/p>\n

When Starmer (or whoever wrote the Sun piece) mentions \u201ctoo many people are falling between the cracks in our society\u201d<\/em>, for example, that means more surveillance and tighter controlling on home schooling.<\/p>\n

When he says \u201cThat will mean difficult questions about how to protect our children from the tidal wave of violent videos online.\u201d<\/em>, he\u2019s talking about ending online anonymity, as they are trying to do in Australia.<\/p>\n

But, as is often the case, the practical is secondary to the rhetorical and emotional. The loosening of definitions is an aim of itself, as it enables Orwellian use of language.<\/p>\n

The final aim is to make \u201cTerrorism\u201d a label so fluid as to be meaningless, applied on ad hoc basis to anything and everything as needed.<\/p>\n

If you have a problem with forever wars<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t want a ban on raw milk<\/p>\n

If you just think your Council Tax is too high<\/p>\n

Bam \u2013 you could be a \u201cterrorist\u201d.<\/p>\n

So there\u2019s that\u2026<\/p>\n

The situation was very cleverly played, coming at their goal from both sides.<\/p>\n

The \u201criots\u201d that followed the stabbing have prepped the left to fear \u201cwhite supremacist violence\u201d, while the absurd story about the \u201cal Qaeda training\u201d manual found in the alleged attackers home is fuel for the anti-immigrant right.<\/p>\n

Either way, both sides are now outraged and\/or terrified by the idea of \u201cterrorism\u201d, and both sides will be much more likely to accept whatever the people in charge do about it.<\/p>\n

This is how and why your fears are played with \u2013 and why you need to be 100% sceptical of any narrative that ends up making you want the government to \u201cdo something\u201d (anything) to make your fears go away.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Support Off-Guardian:<\/p>\n

Ko-fi<\/a><\/p>\n

Subscribestar<\/a><\/p>\n

Paypal<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keir Starmer plans to overhaul existing legislation to expand the definition of \u201cterror\u201d. So as to include individuals who are not aligned with recognized \u201cterror\u201d groups. Will this include those opposed to government dictates, like mass vaccinations or lockdowns? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":302349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-302348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the_war_on_terror","category-Commentary"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=302348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302350,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302348\/revisions\/302350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/302349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=302348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=302348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=302348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}