You could argue some of JSO's motorway and road blocking actions caused disruption you could quantity into millions but it's not about keeping score for me.
It's that the listing of PA seems politicised rather than a 'this lot threaten national security' or 'supporting them is supporting horrible sh*t' decision. Doesn't feel right.
I think there's actually two issues. One is the issue of if PA needs to be a proscribed organisation for them to punished for their actions. My personal opinion is that it does not need to be but I appreciate others will have a different view.
The other issue is how this is being enforced. There's a lot of 'but its the law' posts on this thread but its not how the law has been applied previously.
This raises the question of why PA protesters are being clamped down on harder than, for example, people near parliament displaying IS flags. The Met's response to that was. "Wearing, carrying or displaying of an emblem or flag, by itself, is not an offence unless the way in which, or the circumstance in which, the emblem is worn, carried or displayed is such as to cause reasonable suspicion that the person is a supporter or member of a proscribed organisation. While support of and membership of [IS] is unlawful it is not a criminal offence to advocate the creation of an independent state."
There's also case law which shows that when trying to achieve a conviction the prosecutor is required to demonstrate that there has been an intention to commit a terrorist act and / or an attempt to persuade others to commit a terrorist act or join a terrorist organisation. So it seems there is zero chance of obtaining a conviction, as shown by the fact that out of the hundreds of PA protesters arrested none appear to have been charged.
If you look at the history of people arrested and charged it seems to be people who were found with weapons, planning an attack etc. Struggling to find many examples of other groups being treated similarly to PA.
