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Farnborough airport's biggest critic silenced as expansion plans continue

• tivert 3y ago
  > For four years, Colin Shearn, a 62-year-old retired corporate executive, led the Farnborough Noise Group, a watchdog for locals worried about the operations of Farnborough airport, the UK’s busiest private jet airfield. > Then, one day in August, police came knocking at his door. > Shearn, they claimed in a 92-page document, had conducted an “aggressive and relentless campaign against Farnborough airport”. He was accused of “bombarding” the airport and relevant authorities “with endless questions about air traffic”, while “adopting a belligerent and aggressive style, distorting or misrepresenting a point of view to suit his agenda”. > With just seven days to prepare for a court hearing, he was unable to persuade a judge to deny Surrey police’s application for an antisocial behaviour injunction (asbi) – the successor to the much-derided asbo. He was ordered to stop “causing any harassment, alarm or distress, nuisance or annoyance to any person” in Surrey or Hampshire, or face jail or a fine, or both. > Three weeks later – just as Shearn, its chief critic, was silenced – Farnborough announced that it planned to double weekend flights. Wow. With stuff like this, the recent laws against protests, the draconian gun control laws, and excessive surveillance it seems like the UK is on its way to becoming an authoritarian country.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • gadders 3y ago
    Sounds a bit like a SLAPP. He should contact the Free Speech Union.
  • ta988 3y ago
    How do gun control laws make a country authoritarian? For the rest yes it is not sounding good for UK citizens and residents.
    • efitz 3y ago
      The first thing authoritarian governments do is take away citizens’ weapons. It doesn’t mean that disarmament means that the government means to turn authoritarian, but in the last century, we have yet to see a case where it didn’t.
      • mjbeswick 3y ago
        You can own guns in the UK, but few people do as there is no need. There is a shooting range no far from me, but it's simply not poplar here. I guess that why the US has approximately 160 times the gun death rate of the UK!
        • _dain_ 3y ago
          >there is no need I'll be the judge of that, not you.
          • dukeyukey 3y ago
            To be fair it's not difficult to get a firearms licence in the UK. That people (generally) don't show there are very few people who care about it enough to go through the faff to get one.
          • growse 3y ago
            Nope. You want to live in a society, then you abide by that society's collectively decided rules. You're not the only one impacted by your decisions.
          • dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
            People think that guns give them protection, or power, but in reality they mostly increase your chances of getting shot. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/07/guns-handguns-safety-homicide-killing-study https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/07/guns-handgun...
          • BobaFloutist 3y ago
  • jonatron 3y ago
    I can't find the 92-page document, or a transcript of the court hearing. If he was unable to persuade a judge he wasn't wasn't aggressive and relentless, then I'd bet he was.
    • justrealist 3y ago
      Incredible.
    • janice1999 3y ago
      > aggressive and relentless Yes, that's what groups campaigning on issues do, something we allow in democratic and free societies. Asking questions? How terrible! Funny how a corporation can be relentless and aggressive in its expansion with no regard for other parts of society though.
    • krisoft 3y ago
      I would like to read that too. Is there a way one could request it? > then I'd bet he was I wish I could that confident on this as you are.
      • jonatron 3y ago
        Ideally court transcripts would be easier to access. It's possible to get them by filling out a form and paying. The confidence would be determined by the size of the bet. As I have no information, it wouldn't be a big bet.
    • sickofparadox 3y ago
      Comments like this make me think the UK has the exact kind of government it deserves.
      • munksbeer 3y ago
        Right? I live near this location and appreciate that there is someone who vigourosly takes the other side to the rich backers of the expansion. I do realise that a judge is very likely unbiased, so maybe he was overstepping the mark, but I am also very sceptical about due process of this sort of stuff in the UK at the moment. I'm not native to the UK and I had a very high opinion of this country when I first arrived. But over the years I've watched our politics become so poisonous and incompetent that I now have a lot less faith in the UK systems.
  • mjbeswick 3y ago
    There is nothing wrong with peaceful protests, but blocking traffic and people glueing themselves to roads and trains are not passive acts. The police have been escorting just stop oil protesters for their own safety, as the public started against protester. Why does anyone need a gun in the UK!? The US has 3.6 gun related deaths per 100,000 people, while the UK has 0.3. Politician in the US would have you believe knife crime makes up for the lack of gun crime, but the truth is that the US has 4 times rate of violent crime than the UK. There really is no legitimate need for civilians to own handguns. It's true that the UK has a large number of surveillance cameras in towns and cities, but that's more of a reflection in the cuts to number of police over the years.
    • growse 3y ago
      > There is nothing wrong with peaceful protests, but blocking traffic and people glueing themselves to roads and trains are not passive acts. The police have been escorting just stop oil protesters for their own safety, as the public started against protester. Heaven forbid their safety should be in danger, they might get trampled by a horse.
    • SteveNuts 3y ago
      I think peaceful protests are great, and from time to time civil disobedience is needed to get the point across. But while blocking main highways with your protests might get attention to your cause, I think it will backfire with the common people just trying to get to work associating your cause with being the reason you got fired from your job for being late. It's very short-sighted and self destructive to any progress.
      • r3d0c 3y ago
        depends on the context, an airport expansion? yeah dumb, protesting something as huge as genocide or climate change? then the inconvenience cause will be a fraction of what climate change will cause (or genocide is) common people are often short-sighted and self-destructive to their own progress
        • 3y ago
  • ethbr1 3y ago
    It also seems like the UK has a more serious NIMBY problem than most countries -- presumably because most of the country is already someone's backyard. E.g. some of Clarkson's Farm Season 2 is a bit ridiculous. There needs to be a balance between economic development and preservation. Everyone can't live and work in a museum.
  • nicgrev103 3y ago
    > Three weeks later – just as Shearn, its chief critic, was silenced – Farnborough announced that it planned to double weekend flights. I'm not convinced these 2 things are connected. He can still be critical, he just can't harass anyone.
  • hammock 3y ago
    > With stuff like this, the recent laws against protests, the draconian gun control laws, and excessive surveillance it seems like the UK is on its way to becoming an authoritarian country. (Circa mid-1980s) Wow. With all the murders, necrophilia and recent cannibalism, Jeffrey Dahmer is on his way to becoming a not-so-nice person.
  • afavour 3y ago
    > Wow. With stuff like this, the recent laws against protests, the draconian gun control laws, and excessive surveillance it seems like the UK is on its way to becoming an authoritarian country. Hyperbole helps no-one. Particularly citing gun control here: the vast, vast majority of the UK population wants it and supports it. You're projecting a certain set of American values onto an entirely different situation.
    • Snow_Falls 3y ago
      Even the police unions are against cops (aside for a small number of specialists) carrying guns. Fun fact: you can own guns in the UK and recreation is a valid reason. Most people simply don't want to, unlike the odd obsessions Americans seem to have with guns despite the fact that no one has actually stopped any tyranny with rifles over there. Shooting at cops would probably be a pretty bad idea I imagine.
      • tivert 3y ago
        > ...despite the fact that no one has actually stopped any tyranny with rifles over there. I suppose they didn't cover the American Revolution in much depth in your history classes. It was not a peaceful protest.
  • elzbardico 3y ago
    About gun control and freedom, I have the following opinion: We need to be realistic. The only way armed citizenry can fight against a powerful government is through guerrilla warfare/terrorism. You're not going to fight a professional army that comes with ISR capabilities, air assets, artillery and heavy weapons by assembling a ragtag of your subdivision patriots while counting on the prowess of the hunting ability of Mr. Eckhardt in a tree to snipe the "enemy" officers. This makes good post-apocalyptic fiction, entertaining movies but it would mean the complete obliteration of your group, all of your family and all your neighbours with just a few artillery shells. Any kind of stand by civilians against a professional army from the most powerful military in the world could only have one result, and it would not be good for the "citizen's militia". So, the only credible scenario for fighting an occupier/tyrannic government/alien invaders, as proved by countless examples in history of liberation movements facing a far more powerful enemy, would be good old terrorism (once you win, if you win, presumably you can call it freedom fighting), sabotage and other such hit and run tactics. And once someone crosses this bridge, they don't give a fuck if they can buy their guns at Costco or in the back of van in a dark alley. Indeed, buying in the dark alley is preferred. Nobody is going to fight the government using legally bought guns while using their government provided callsigns to communicate using their legally licensed ham radios. So, legal gun ownership as a safeguard against an oppressive government is a fucking illusion, a feel-good excuse to have cool (even if dangerous) toys. Revolutions and insurrections are made by people who don't give a flying fuck about laws and the current order, and 99 times out of 100, they lose and die in mostly horrible ways.
    • endemic 3y ago
      Whoa whoa whoa! You're being way too rational about this issue.
    • derefr 3y ago
      > while counting on the prowess of the hunting ability of Mr. Eckhardt in a tree to snipe the "enemy" officers In an actual modern civil war, I would assume guerillas would be mostly using gun turrets built out of LEGO Technics or the like; suicide quadcopter RC drones (carrying e.g. grenades); and other extremely-low-cost impossible-to-restrict solutions to “leverage” ordinary weapons into being credible threats against a nation-state. (See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFMvesTUjAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFMvesTUjAA) And I would assume that modern thought on the meaning of a “well-armed militia” that can fight back against attempted civil incursion, would thus be a militia that has both access to the materials for — and training in the use of — these sorts of improvised "leveraged" weapons systems. I would go further to say that, in the modern day, if possession of any of the aforementioned "leveraged" weapons systems — for purposes of home or firing-range training in the prevention of civil incursion — is considered illegal, then you don't really have a "right to bear arms", you just have some lip-service for gun nuts.
  • secondcoming 3y ago
    There have been protests out the wazoo in the UK recently and the police have done nothing. If anything, the police seem to concentrate on pursuing easy targets like the subject of this article. Anti-social behaviour, especially in the younger generations, is out of control across the UK. Everybody is unhappy with the police, even the police.
• Symbiote 3y ago
  > Planes using Farnborough airport carry an average of only 2.5 passengers per plane and 40% of aircraft fly empty. A contraction plan for the airport would be much more appropriate. Failing that, some drones hovering nearby would make a good protest.
  • mjbeswick 3y ago
    Aircraft are very expensive to operate, so it's unlikely that aircraft are being flown without good reason. It also depends on what the definition of "empty", as an aircraft is never empty, as it always have a crew. There are many small aircraft at Farnborough. What about cargo planes, as they no not have passengers!?
    • t0mas88 3y ago
      Farnborough is ridiculously expensive for small aircraft. Not just expensive like for example Amsterdam Schiphol which is about 10x more than a small airport, but 10x more expensive than even Amsterdam. It's really a private jet only kind of place.
    • alt227 3y ago
      >it's unlikely that aircraft are being flown without good reason You mean like picking up a billionaire?
    • Symbiote 3y ago
      "Empty" means with no passengers. That should be obvious. Defend millionaires and their private jets if you like, but don't hide it by twisting words. Typical empty flights are to move a private/corporate jet. The plane flies someone to Brussels, flies back empty, flies someone else to Edinburgh, flies empty to Brussels, brings the person back, etc. This airport doesn't have bulk freight flights. They mention "time-sensitive logistics", which is presumably the private jet version of using FedEx etc, and bottom of their list of activities anyway.
      • theptip 3y ago
• juujian 3y ago
  I'm shocked, really shocked, about the poor state of free speech in the UK. Anti-Corporate interest free speech to be more specific. Maybe I shouldn't be, it's been ramping up slowly but steadily for a while.
• egrex 3y ago
  I think many of you are missed the point. Someone powerful used the police to stop this guy protesting. This is an airport in a wealthy area and Mr Shearn is clearly an upstanding citizen with considerable local support.