Comments by "Mat Broomfield" (@matbroomfield) on "UK Police Intensifies Crackdown on Environmental Protests" video.

  1. Once your protests start to affect the operations of legitimate business, I WANT more aggressive policing. This was an incredibly mild incident - a firmish shove against somebody getting up in his face, followed by a stumble. No truncheon charge afterwards, no water cannons, no dogs, no tasers, and no deadly 90MPH ride back to the police station. It irritates me so much when British people want to adopt the victimhood of America. We have genuine issues about freedom of speech but at least our political system is not bought. Fracking is a demonstrably harmful practice, but if these protestors want to achieve change, the voting booth is the place to accomplish it.
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  2. For starters, I'm not a Yankee - I'm British, and secondly, the reason that America is so screwed was because they allowed money into politics. Britain has VERY strict control both on WHO can donate, and how much can be spent on a campaign so it almost eliminates the kind of corruption that has ruined America. In a FUNCTIONING democracy, the vote is an effective tool, whereas violence simply gets you dismissed as an extremist. I suggest that you educate yourself before calling others stupid.
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  3. I completely agree with you Eli. I was simply arguing the general case. And of course, we don't have a true democracy in Britain, we have a constitutional monarchy under the guise of a republic.
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  4. The job of politicians is not to reflect the will of the bpeople but to act in their best interests. I don't agree with fracking but it could be argued that they consider that the financial argument outweighs concerns about its damage to the environment.
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  5. We live in a world populated by oppression olympians Eli. Two wrongs don't make a right, so manufacturing grievance where there seemingly was none serves nobody's cause, and merely makes these people look ridiculous. The protestors were not peacefully going about their own way, they were obstructing the lawful operations of the site. The right to protest is an important right (that I'm actually surprised we still have in the UK as our freedom of speech is quite restricted, and increasingly so). When I see police harrassing legitimate protestors, it angers me as it does you. I just feel that we need to be on solid ground, or accept that when we step off that ground there may be consequences. I'm sure that the French peasants in the 1700s were not screaming "oppression" when the royal guard vigourously resisted their revolution!
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  6. There are clearly facts here about which I was unaware. If the site is in operation only because it circumvented the law, then that is something that needs addressing. The grievance to which I was referring was the relatively mild push this man received, and which they have inflated into a huge police violence issue.
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