The Palace of Westminster, because it is the home of the British Parliament, is a place that has been a magnet for terrorists. It was the site of the murder, by Irish Republicans, of the World War II hero and politician Airey Neave in 1979, another Irish Republican terror attack in 1974, the deadly Islamic attack of 2017 in which five people including a police officer were killed and of course the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 when Guy Fawkes and others tried to kill the King. Parliament is also a magnet for violent nutters, sometimes with possible Islamic motivations or others that might have their own deranged reasons for bringing violence to the UK’s legislature. The Palace of Westminster has also been the venue for various protests where the environs of Parliament have been infiltrated, such as with the Fathers for Justice protest in 2005.
Because Parliament is such a attractant for terrorists, those with causes and general nutcases and fraggles, those who guard Parliament should be on top of their game with regards security. The Palace of Westminster is such a choice and juicy target for terrorists, those fixated with causes and the mentally unstable, that the lessons of the past should have been learned and those responsible for security should have made Parliament the most secure place in the country. On the odd occasion when I’ve had business in the Palace of Westminster, the security was very tight (for obvious details I won’t go into details), even when I was visiting at a time of relative peace, which was after the Irish Republicans stopped their bombing campaigns and before the Islamic terror problems really got going in the UK.
Unfortunately this level of high security for Westminster does not seem to be the case today. According to a report on the Guido Fawkes site, a group of Just Stop Oil protestors managed to get into the public seats of a meeting of the Home Affairs Select Committee. They briefly disrupted the meeting, at a point when the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was giving evidence about the policing of demonstrations, before being quickly being ‘escorted’ out of the room.
The question I have about this incident is how were these protestors not spotted? This is an especially pertinent question as these protestors were dressed in Just Stop Oil tee shirts. Did they enter the Palace wearing them or did they change in some toilet or somewhere similar? If they changed their clothes before entering the Committee Room then why wasn’t the presence of three people wearing tee shirts with slogans that are associated with a known eco-terrorist group, not interdicted or at least stopped and questioned as to their motives and their reason for being there?
Whilst I understand that the public must be able to see the workings of Parliament in the flesh and should have free access to debates and Committee hearings, it should not be beyond the wit of man to be able to recognise when those entering the buildings or particular parts of them are of ill intent. In this case the troublemakers were quite easily identifiable as they were sitting in the public seats wearing Just Stop Oil tee shirts, it’s not as if they were hard to find.
This is a massive security cock up. Whether this error in security is the result of incompetence or whether there are Parliamentary staff who are sympathetic to the Just Stop Oil cause who facilitated their entry, is a question for the future and for those in charge of Parliamentary security.
This incident could have been so much worse. Instead of being a bit of disruption by a bunch of deluded ‘Tarquins’ gobbing off, it could have been a murderous attack by a ‘Mohammed’.
The only good thing about this incident is that Parliamentarians are now suffering a little bit of the crap that Just Stop Oil have rained down on the general public. Now that the Parliamentarians have had their lives and activities disrupted, it is to be hoped they might have gained some inkling into why Just Stop Oil and their arrogant and deluded ideas along with the disruption that they’ve brought to ordinary people just trying to earn a living, are increasingly hated.
I was entirely with you until I reached “eco-terrorist” I think you need to reserve the word “terrorist” for those who set out to kill, maim & destroy. They inconvenience, they certainly cause economic mayhem, people may even die as a consequence of their actions ( but lots of people die as the consequence of actions of others ). Idiots, yes. Terrorists, no.
I can see your point but as JSO and similar organisations are bringing fear by their actions and have been reckless as to whether their actions have caused damage or death or other negative outcomes in pursuit of their political aims, which is one of the definition of terrorism. People such as those involved in JSO are so single minded and so unwilling to listen to counter arguments that they have a lot in common with those who believe that violence is an answer to political problems.
JSO etc are on the lower end of terroristic seriousness but there are probably those in this sort of group who would engage in violence if it helped their cause.
Well, not yet, perhaps.
Yes indeed. This security error could have easily been much worse and significantly more Islamic. I can’t decide whether this is a clear case of incompetence or whether this is the result of the security procedures being weakened or subverted by Just Stop Oil sympathisers on the Parliamentary staff? If it is the latter then it’s quite possible that the eco-terrorists and some elements of Parliamentary staff might have gone to the same Public Schools together and are connected that way. Or it could be that someone with sympathies for eco-terrorism got a job in Parliament for the express purpose of helping the cause in some way and opening the doors to them is what they chose to do?
It’s just more upheavals during the last days of Rome
That’s one way of looking at it. This time it ain’t the Goths sacking the city it’s the Tarquins of Just Stop Oil.
I will be prepared to listen to the stop oil people only after they do so themselves. If they can lead the way by demonstrating that it is possible to live a totally oil free lifestyle, then and only then will I consider that they may have a valid argument.
I doubt very much that they’d go so far as to live according to what they preach.
Just Stop Oil don’t want to stop oil in general, they just want to stop it here in the UK. Importing it is fine. Apparently. (See their website for details.)
I would also prefer it if you had used a term such as ‘Islamist’ rather than ‘Islamic’ to describe a possible Muslim perpetratrator. Terrorism is not one of the five pillars of Islam.