Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday announced a whole series of police state measures for use against young people and workers.
He told a recalled House of Commons: ‘Following the meetings of COBRA which I chaired on Tuesday, and Wednesday and again this morning, we have taken decisive action to help ensure more robust and more effective policing.
‘There are now more police on the streets, more people arrested and more criminals being prosecuted.
‘The Met Police increased the number of police deployed on the streets of London from 6,000 to almost 16,000 officers. And this number will remain through the weekend.
‘We have also seen large increases in deployments of officers in other affected areas. Leave in affected forces has been cancelled. . .
‘More than 1,500 people have now been arrested across the country.’
He added: ‘We are keeping under constant review whether the courts have the sentencing powers they need and we’ll act if necessary.’
He stressed: ‘As I have made clear, nothing is off the table. Every contingency is being looked at.
‘The police are already authorised to use baton rounds.
‘And, as I said yesterday, while they would not be appropriate now, we do have in place contingency plans for water cannon to be available at 24 hours notice.’
He said he did not want the army on the streets but ‘there are tasks that the army could undertake that would free up more police for the front line’’.
Cameron added that ‘we are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.
‘I have also asked the police if they need any other new powers…I can announce today that we are going to give the police the discretion to remove face coverings under any circumstances where there is reasonable suspicion that they are related to criminal activity.
‘And on dealing with crowds, we are also looking at the use of existing dispersal powers and whether any wider power of curfew is necessary.’
He added: ‘We have already introduced gang injunctions and I can announce today that we are going to use them across the whole country for children and for adults.
‘There are also further sanctions available beyond the criminal justice system.
‘Local authorities and landlords already have tough powers to evict the perpetrators from social housing.’
