UK: Government Wants to Force Pub Owners to Police What Clients Talk About

Wait, how is this real?

It kinda feels like while the US is trying to roll back some of this really extreme tyrannical stuff in order to prevent a violent uprising, the UK is actively trying to provoke a violent uprising.

European Conservative:

Conversations overheard by bar staff could be classified as harassment by ‘third parties,’ according to recent reports—prompting fears that it could be last orders for discussing controversial topics in pubs.

Labour’s proposed changes to employment laws include a ‘workers’ rights’ component, supposedly designed to prevent employees from being within earshot of customers’ controversial or offensive talk.

Under the new proposals, ministers would require employers to protect their staff from harassment (already a criminal offence under existing laws) by customers or clients. Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission has warned that the new rules could “disproportionately curtail” freedom of expression and even cover “overheard conversations”. Classifying political debate as a type of harassment by customers raised “complex questions,” the commission said.

However, an earlier legal ruling protects “the expression of an opinion that may amount to a philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010 and therefore attract protection from discrimination.”

When discussing current affairs, will future pub patrons be guilty of harassment or merely expressing a philosophical belief?

Starmer’s main preoccupation appears to be destroying pubs

Pub landlords, wary of potential legal trouble with staff, will probably take a cautious route, warning or banning drinkers who they think might be expressing the wrong opinions. Last year, the Southern Belle pub in East Sussex did just this, without needing an ambiguous new law to justify its authoritarianism.

Penalties might start off retroactively, with pub owners kicking out anyone they think is being “offensive,” to avoid staff suing them for not stopping harassment. This application of landlords’ ‘right to refuse admission’ (ROAR) would likely extend to permanently banning guests feared to express the ‘wrong’ opinions from the premises—in a further blow to a trade that struggles already, due to the smoking ban, competition from supermarkets, hyperregulation of live music, and historic COVID-19 restrictions.

Well.

Farage’s Reform Party is polling very high now.

It sort of seems like he is going to become Prime Minister, actually.

He’s not going to stop the immigrants. People forget that he actually said that Polish immigrants were taking places that should go to blacks from the former Commonwealth countries. Although I respect the way he was able to do Brexit, and I respect his bombastic personality, he’s actually kind of shitty overall. He’s not a revolutionary and no one who isn’t a revolutionary is relevant to anything at all.

But, hey.

He’ll probably save the pubs? I guess?