The answer is that it’s incredibly murky as to what support for proscribed organisations means, by design. And that does make it potentially dangerous to not put that line in a statement.

For years and years the British government has been taking a more aggressive approach to these kind of arrests and cases, but it has mostly been a case of making a big show of the arrests itself, sometimes having the prosecution or judges pull some slightly shady shit about what testimony is allowed, but ultimately letting the courts sort it out. The point has primarily been the chilling effect on dissent and red meat for the right. They work hand in glove with the media to hype the arrests and bringing of cases but the results (which are sometimes dismissals or often far less severe punishments - although still immoral and abuse of power if you ask me - than the prosecution pushed for) aren’t reported in the same way.

However, the last couple of years has seen a noticeable increase in using terroism legislation, often completely unjustifiable legally even with the way the law is written, as a tool for other types of repression seperate from the actual charges.

For example, after repeated failures to prosecute the majority of Palestine Action members for shutting down weapons providers to the Israeli military, the state tried to disrupt the organisation by slapping co-founder Richard Barnard with two terrorism charges apparently based on speeches he’d made over a year before. They don’t detail what the offending lines were, but from what I can tell, its predicated on the flimsy basis that he spoke positively about ‘Palestinian Resistance’, not any specific group never mind a proscribed one, and called for direct action when needed.

The perhaps more extreme examples would be the number of journalists who have been detained under terrorism legislation and had cases opened against them but not charged or brought to trial because the state would likely lose, but then setting absolutely impossible bail conditions on them that make it impossible for them to do their work or really exist at all. We’re talking being forbidden from using any electronic devices, not being able to travel far enough to recieve specialist medical care, literally having their passports taken by police, not returned, and then told they have to present a valid passport at a future date but also cannot apply for new travel documents while on bail. Obviously it’s extralegal punitive punishment, but it’s also a way for the state to get around the law or a public trial if they do want to imprison these people becausse they can slap them with a charge of breaking their bail conditions at any time and hand down instantaneous sentences of several years in prison, without a public or jury trial.

So how does this all relate to Kneecap. Well, as you can see, the British state is now working well outside the intended scope of the law and finding new ways to use terror legislation for oppression outside of its intended purpose. Kneecap, or at least their lawyers, almost certainly know this so it makes sense to not want to give them the obvious ammunition to do this.

If there was some kind of public charge, in many ways Kneecap would be infinately better off in terms of defending themselves than most activists and independent journalist have been and are. Their fame, money, legal team, broad support etc definitely help them in a jury trial situation. Which is probably why the British state won’t take it that far.

It’s far more likely the government will make some bullshit charge and then drop it later, but use that charge in that duration to find other ways to go after the band and broader speech for bands or entertainers - weaponising the charge with legal threats to their labels, venues, potentially revoking licenses of events, stopping them from touring by denying their ability to travel etc.

But even if the right-wing media baying for blood did push the state into a public trial over flags or lyrics or whatever, there’s a flipside to Kneecap’s fame. They’re a huge target for which the establishment, and particularly the media, if it gets to that stage simply will not accept being humilated in court again like they were over revoking the arts funding. So if it did get to trial the state would have all the motivation in the world to pull some insanely illegal shit beyond the usual stitchups. That’s also potentially dangerous, although I think less likely.

Regardless, I wouldn’t really expect Kneecap to do anything other than stick that line in their public statement if only to head of the state’s most obvious legal attack vector and to try and force this to be played out in the public sphere rather than the courts.

I’m sure all those children as young as 13 working in US meat packing plants, slaughterhouses, fast food chains, and factories are definitely there entirely uncoerced, unexploited, and get to keep all of the pittance ‘they are paid’.

You can now read the full article as the post has been edited to include the full text. And while the idea of asking about and providing additional support for other mental health issues and the needs of neurodivergent people isn’t inherently bad, the article includes a number of concerning factors and an obvious pattern:

A) the service admits that wait times are extremely long, especially for mental health support but don’t put forward anything to address this, essentially an admission that most people will likely not actually receive said additional support.

B) which raises the question of what exactly the function/benefit of formally linking neurodivergency or mental health issues (which to be clear I don’t treat as the same, but the article basically does) to gender dysphoria is, if not for actually giving additional support?

C) The article and the quotes from some of the groups supporting this change make it much clearer. They want gender dysphoria to be treated as a symptom of mental illness rather than the reality that the cause and effect are predominantly the other way around. They also openly state that they want to pin the reasons for gender dysphoria or general ‘transness’ on varied reactionary culture war scapegoats like teachers and the internet. In other words, they want to eliminate the care and recognition of gender dysphoria by dismissing it as ‘mental illness’ and use that to enforce far-right bigotry and witch hunts against those deemed not actively transphobic enough (public institutions, parents, trans people being openly so in public or online).

D) This is particularly worrying within a country where a minority of the population but the overwhelming reactionary majority of media and the government are reinstitutionalising transphobia following a successful campaign waged and funded with and by the American far-right. As Dirt Owl pointed out below, this comes as yet another example of the UK following US far-right policy. And when the US is building lists of neurodivergent people, transpeople across the world are increasingly under attack, and both the UK and many European governments are moving rapidly towards or fully embracing the far-right and even open fascism, it’s not unreasonable to be concerned that even if it’s not a deliberate strategy by the government to ‘round up’ trans people, they’re creating the perfect material conditions for them or others to do so in the future, with no other apparent upside.

She doesn’t even have this in her anymore. He’d be called Mussolini Rightolini now.

Also, Pizzaballa is at best a fence-sitting-muthafucka

But this doesn’t mean Pizzaballa is apolitical. He has long spoken out against the wall dividing the West Bank and Jerusalem — but also criticized Palestinian leaders for constantly blaming Israel for all issues, even once quipping, “If the weather isn’t good, the cause is occupation.” After Oct. 7, Pizzaballa condemned Hamas’ brutality and offered himself as a hostage in exchange for kidnapped Israeli children. Yet he also called for an end to the Israel-Hamas war and to Israeli occupation, wearing a kaffiyeh while in Bethlehem on Christmas.

While both Palestinians and Israelis have criticized Pizzaballa’s statements for insufficient support, this, in a way, shows he has successfully managed to remain moderate in a tense position. Perhaps he can just as carefully navigate Vatican factions, where he is also perceived as a frustratingly neutral figure on divisive doctrinal questions.

I was thinking more… …the oft self-identified ‘West’ by ghouls.

Oh look, the US is adopting our fascist policies instead of the other way around for once. How novel!

Pretty much the entire ‘west’ does now.

I literally cannot talk about what I think of this government anymore. And this is just the latest in their attempt to complete the bingo card of having every most despicable, self-defeating, and pointlessly cruel policy possible.

Well one example would be that many Quakers have been active radicals for a variety of causes over hundreds of years, including but not limited to; opressive Christian church structures, monastic heirarchies, slavery abolition, pacifism, democratic representation for all manner of people (women, minorities, non-landowners) over the years, factory workers rights, safe housing, fairer wages, prison reform, anti-poorhouse campaigning, environmental movements, LGBTQ+ rights, rights for refugees, and more.

Even just personally over the last two decades (I’m not a Quaker, but have Quaker comrades) I’ve engaged direct action with a disproportionate amount of Quakers against US imperialist bases, against airport expansion, refugee defence and de-arrests, the campaign for nuclear disarmament in the 90s and the anti-war movement in the 2000s, as well as pro-Palestinian activism.

And this month UK pigs raided a Quaker meeting house - a place of worship equivalent to them raiding a church - smashing down the doors and arresting people for merely providing a place for people to discuss a potential protest. The first time the state has done so in hundreds of years.

There’s lots of socialist Quakers, some communist Quakers, and far far more that are still fighting for radical causes. And that’s just one small branch of Christianity.

Seven panels of hell

Supremely jealous. If you have pictures feel free to share them.

You’d probably have to run it anti-clockwise though, otherwise that first corner would be a nightmare.

I bought two of these and now I’ve got more than I could ever use.

Good.

The biggest universities are mostly tax-free property empires and hedge-funds at this point.

Plus, fuck them for bending over backwards to set the pigs, Mossad connected military contractors, and Zionazi vigilantes on their students while ripping up their own departments and throwing their staff under the bus. Only for the Trump Admin to fuck them over anyway.

I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think these people are alive. They were never going to let a Senator from the opposition in for a photo-op but giving zero proof of life feels less like a middle finger and more like they can’t.

I’m gonna call bullshit on that being the motive.

But even if it was

It definitely conflates the two brothers. In fact it seems written in a way that it accidently did it and then was hurriedly changed. And from what I know about the editorial process and CMSs newsrooms use, that’s not unlikely these days.

However, from day one the BBC went to enormous lengths to hide, dismiss, and then muddy the fact that the British security services incubated and supported LFIG extremists in both the UK and Libya in order to use them to topple Gaddafi and destablise the region. Not only were they tracking these guys, the bomber, Salman Abedi, was allegedy stopped from re-entering the country from Libya by customs security, only for the intelligence services to intervene - which definitely tracks since the majority of these guys were under control orders until the UK security state started lifting the orders or providing them new passports when they wanted to use them in Libya.