Theresa May is pushing hard for new laws to criminalise protest against the government by pretending that she's opposed to abuse and intimidation in public life because it constitutes a "threat to democracy".
If we think back to the fact that fake news was the last great threat to democracy the Tories were frothing about, it's deeply ironic that this latest call for a crackdown on non-violent political protest is built on the foundation of the right-wing fake news epidemic that followed the Jacob Rees-Mogg protest, which was framed as left-wing activists attacking Jacob Rees-Mogg, when in reality the violence was instigated by a Rees-Mogg supporting goon (who likes to dress up as a Nazi in his spare time) against the noisy but non-violent protesters.
Even if we ignore the fake news foundations that this latest Tory attempt to silence those who would criticise them, it's incredibly difficult to take Theresa May's sudden concerns over "threats and intimidation in public life" seriously.
- Theresa May was the Home Secretary who sent divisive and intimidatory "Go Home" vans around ethnically diverse areas (a play for the bigoted extreme-right vote so brazen it was even described as "too much" and "un-British" by Nigel Farage and the Ukippers!)
- Then there was the time Theresa May decided to quote a misogynistic extreme-right Twitter troll in parliament in order to score a cheap political point against Jeremy Corbyn. If she cared so much about "abuse and intimidation in public life" at the time, how on earth did she consider it appropriate to give a vile and abusive extreme-right misogynist a massive "shout out" in the House of Commons?
- Then there's the fact that Theresa May actually hired the Daily Mail hack who wrote the intimidatory "Enemies of the People" front page story as her press secretary. She clearly thinks that someone so vile that they would abuse and intimidate high court judges for doing their jobs is perfectly fine, as long as he's slinging his abuse and intimidation at her opponents (opposition parties, activists, judges, academics, anyone who stands in the way of her hard-right anti-democratic interpretation of Brexit).
- Then there's the numerous waves of abuse and death threats hurled at any Tory MP who dares to cast doubt on Theresa May's Brextremism. These grotesque intimidation tactics are used by the extreme-right ultranationalist blue-kipper demographic that Theresa May has welcomed into the Tory party with open arms. She knows that these waves of death threats are being sent by her own supporters, but she's repeatedly turned a blind eye to it, and has chosen instead to declare her concerns about "abuse and intimidation" in the wake of an anti-left fake news story concocted by the regularly abusive hard-right freaks at Breitbart and the Guido Fawkes blog!
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