The ugly gauntlet Anna Soubry and fellow MPs are being forced to run isn’t democracy but the antithesis of it
This is thuggishness, pure and simple. There’s no other way of characterising the ugly scenes unfolding outside parliament, where prominent remainer MPs, journalists and activists now run a daily gauntlet of intimidation.
It was painful to watch an unbelievably composed Anna Soubry battle her way into her office through a crowd of protesters chanting “scum” and calling her a Nazi. Soubry is as resilient as they come and she kept her dignity, but she looked so horribly vulnerable in this situation crackling with barely repressed violence. It is even harder to see police officers stand by and do nothing as a handful of men in hi-vis costume hold public debate hostage by screeching abuse at pro-remain MPs, journalists and anyone else they recognise from the telly. (I say anyone; there’s a wearily familiar pattern emerging, and it’s that women, people of colour and other minorities get it worst. Sky TV’s Kay Burley tweeted that she now needs personal security just to get on and off College Green, where broadcasters have been conducting live interviews with MPs for decades without this kind of interruption. The anti-Brexit campaigner Femi Oluwole and my colleague Owen Jones have also been targeted.)
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2AAhhce
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