Like many of you I have recently read about these 2 protests - Richard Ratcliffe's hunger strike and Insulate Britain disruptive blocking behaviour. Both have been highly critical of the British Government and their protests essentially directed at Boris Johnson and his cabinet and calling for their further action.
This is how I see it :
I suspect Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe is innocent but I do not definitely know she is. Clearly her husband and their supporters believe she is. It is not difficult to believe she is being used by the regime in Tehran to gain political leverage over GB and as such is being very badly treated. I understand she is not the only one.
Insulate Britain is an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion. They are focused on "saving the planet" by direct action. They have caused major and costly disruption particularly around London and have ludicrously claimed stopping ambulances getting to hospital is justified.
In my mind both protests suffer from the same fundamental problem. They are protesting against the wrong people.
Clearly in the Ratcliffe case it is not the British Government who are at fault - it is the Iranians. It is the Iranians that have imprisoned her to gain leverage and publicity. Criticism and protest should be directed against them.
With Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion - Britain is and remains one of the most effective and committed nations to working to address climate change. There are many many countries lagging behind - not least China. Why are they not protesting outside the embassies of the nations who are the major polluters and who are dragging their feet in addressing global warming.
The answer :
Because GB is a easy target for them.
GB is tolerant.
We respect freedom of speech and the right to protest.
We are indulgent of protestors. We give them a voice.
Protestors are safe - unlike in most counties our police to not resort to violent behaviour - even in the face of extreme provocation.
The outcome - when people like Richard Ratcliffe or environmental protestors feel they need to do something they typically (and understandably) take the safe option. Have a go at our Government and or the British people. We will take it. We will not react. Our perverse government hating mainstream media will indulge them of course.
With regard Mr Ratcliffe he is well meaning. He is hurt. He is desperate. Every sympathy for him. But the British government are not at fault. They cannot concede to Iran's tactic. They cannot pay a £400m ransom. Where would it end? Mr Ratcliffe is inadvertently playing into Iran's game. He is sadly helping Iran with their cynical and cruel strategies. They will take a win from him trying to embarrass the British government. I understand it is hard for him to risk upsetting Iran for fear of an even more draconian sentence for his wife. But the fact is Iran are the aggressors here not the British government / specifically the Foreign Office. Iran want to make this a big issue and it obviously suits them to see the British government being criticised by their own. Mr Ratcliffe is potentially providing Iran with more leverage to exploit his wife's detention.
I have much less sympathy for the environmental protesters. Unlike Mr Ratcliffe whose protests were peaceful the direct action taken by Insulate Britain / Extinction Rebellion caused a great deal of stress, inconvenience and cost and in some instances they actually caused danger to the general public. They are in reality largely trying to preach to the converted here. They have no exceptional insight. In my view it is more about making themselves feel good - feel significant rather than actually achieving anything useful. In fact what they have achieved is alienation - they have damaged the cause of the environmental lobbyists by their unreasonable behaviour.
As I have said the UK has a green agenda at government level and the people are mainly backing the measures being implemented including insulating homes. If these protesters are committed to saving the planet they should focus on the most significant polluters and it is not the UK. Protest against China for instance - but be prepared for pushback. Protesters know this which why they continue to focus on the likes of a warm and cuddly UK - we will indulge them.
Just a bit of background :
Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe is an Iranian-British dual citizen who has been detained in Iran since 3 April 2016. In early September 2016, she was sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of "plotting to topple the Iranian government". She was temporarily released on 17 March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran, while being monitored.
The prosecutor general of Tehran stated in October 2017 that Zaghari-Ratcliffe was being held for running "a BBC Persian online journalism course which was aimed at recruiting and training people to spread propaganda against Iran".On 7 March 2021, her original sentence ended, but she was scheduled to face a second set of charges on 14 March. On 26 April, she was found guilty of propaganda activities against the government and sentenced to one year in prison.On 16 October, her appeal was rejected by the Iranian court.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe has always denied the spying charges against her, and her husband maintains that his wife "was imprisoned as leverage for a debt owed by the UK over its failure to deliver tanks to Iran in 1979."
Richard Ratcliffe to end hunger strike for wife Nazanin after 21 days
Husband of detained Iranian-British national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe ends latest attempt to force UK government to act
Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of the detained Iranian-British dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, is to end his hunger strike after 21 days.
Ratcliffe said he had told his wife he would end the protest on Saturday and that he would later be visiting hospital for a full check-up.
He told his supporters on the Free Nazanin Twitter account: “Today I have promised Nazanin to end the hunger strike. Gabriella needs two parents. Thank you all for your overwhelming care these past three weeks.
“The last act of the hunger strike will be our patchwork event in front of the Foreign Office at 13.30, then I will be going to the hospital for a full check-up. Thank you for keeping our family in the light.”
Ratcliffe told the PA news agency his job was to “keep going”, adding: “We probably hoped we’d get a breakthrough doing this. We haven’t yet. I didn’t want to go out in an ambulance. I want to walk out with my head held high.” He also criticised Boris Johnson for his “telling” absence in talking to him during the protest.
His strike ended as a patchwork was due to be unveiled, made from all the patches that supporters have been sending throughout his time camped outside the Foreign Office.
Ratcliffe began the demonstration outside the Foreign Office, in central London, last month and endured almost three weeks in his latest attempt to force action from the UK government to bring his wife home.
He was joined at a vigil on Friday by his seven-year-old daughter, Gabriella, and supporters, who gathered in a show of solidarity. But allies had started to raise concerns for his health and expressed fears that he could permanently damage himself.
Earlier on Saturday, the Labour MP Tulip Siddiq called for Johnson to visit her constituent “in solidarity”. She tweeted: “It has been three weeks since Richard Ratcliffe last ate any food. In that time, not a single government minister has visited his camp outside the Foreign Office in solidarity.
“Will the prime minister take five minutes out of his day to visit my constituent today?”
Speaking on Thursday, Ratcliffe said: “I think there’s a basic medical limit on how long you do a hunger strike for. I made a promise to Nazanin, I made a promise to my family, Mum in particular, and to the family doctors, that I won’t take it too far.
“But yeah, I don’t think we walk away head held high feeling like it’s all been sorted.”
The Middle East minister, James Cleverly, met Ratcliffe this week to discuss the current situation regarding his wife’s detention in Iran, where she has been held since 2016 – more than 2,000 days.
After the meeting, Ratcliffe said he had been left feeling “deflated”, adding: “If I’m honest, it felt like, you know, perfectly nice, sincere, caring, everyone in the room was caring. But you know we’re still stuck in the same status quo.
“We’re still stuck in the same problems that led us to end up on hunger strike.”
Throughout his near-three-week protest, he has been calling for the British government to pay a £400m debt to Tehran, dating back to the 1970s. The British debt is acknowledged as a precondition for the release of Zaghari-Ratcliffe, as well as other detainees.
Insulate Britain
A series of protests by the group Insulate Britain involving traffic obstruction began on 13 September 2021.The group has blockaded the M25 and other motorways in the United Kingdom, as well as roads in London and the Port of Dover.
The protesters demand that the government insulate all social housing in the UK by 2025 and retrofit all homes with insulation by 2030. They have drawn condemnation from figures within the government.
Insulate Britain is an environmental activist group, formed by people involved in the global environmental movement Extinction Rebellion.The group began hosting both online and in-person events in July 2021, also raising money for direct action. They use civil disobedience as a tactic.
Opinion polling conducted by YouGov from 5–6 October 2021 found that 72% of those surveyed opposed the protesters' actions, with 18% supporting the actions, and 10% that did not know.
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