#david amess

Since 9/11 the use of Terrorism as a way to justify suppression of political opposition, to say "we'll keep you safe from this foreign menace" and then use the same anti-terrorist aggression on marginalized groups protesting, has become the go to strategy.

You already have the UK government passing anti-protest laws to stop in-person protests for as little as being too noisy, and what Boris Johnson is proposing sounds like it'll do the same online.

The suspect who killed Amess, Ali Harbi Ali, hasn't actually been tied to any specific Islamic extremists groups, they're just implying that it could be possible he might have been radicalized by such groups online.

But what if he wasn't? What if he was radicalized, against a conservative MP by the state of the UK under 10 years of Conservative governance? Ali is a British National, of a Muslim immigrant family, working in the NHS. Under the Conservatives there has been an increase in xenophobic and specifically Islamophobic sentiment. There's a push to privatize the NHS. There's increased Stop and Frisk that targets mostly non-white people. There's increased surveillance. Ali was put through the Prevent program, a de-radicalization effort, however it is not stated why he was chosen, and the program has been criticized for targeting Muslims because of their faith. I don't believe that you have to go online to become radicalized when you live as a marginalized person.