Tag Archives: legislation

There are better targets for Tories to attack than refugees. Why don’t they?

Channel migrants: Tories like to persecute them because they have no power or influence – unlike tax cheats or the Partygate inquiry.

Here’s today’s top news in a nutshell:

The UK’s Tory government is intensifying its war on innocent refugees with legislation that means anyone arriving here in a small boat will be removed from the UK, banned from future re-entry and unable to apply for British citizenship.

The new law would circumvent refugees’ rights to protection under the UN’s Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights, by applying a “rights brake” – basically, ignoring those internationally-recognised rights.

So the new legislation will turn the UK into a rogue state that denies international law. Here’s a level head to explain it to you:

Leading on from this, there are practical implications:

Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who will introduce the new laws, told the Sun on Sunday “the only route to the UK will be a safe and legal route”.

BBC Breakfast’s Sally Nugent tested that by asking Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan what legal routes were available – and the answer was revealing:

So there are no safe routes into the UK for refugees. The claim that they exist is a big lie – otherwise Tory bigwigs like Donelan would be able to reel them off. If they appear on the morning media round, having information like that is their job.

And does anybody believe they are going to open up safe routes?

And of course they won’t admit that – as Nick Reeves tweeted at the top of this article – the primary cause of the skyrocketing small boat crossings is Boris Johnson’s Brexit:

As Peter Stefanovic highlights, the Tories’ failure to address the issue before Brexit is compounded by their reluctance to correct it, fearing it will make them look daft. But all they’re doing is making themselves look dafter – and vindictive with it.

And there are far more pressing concerns that the Tories are ignoring to concentrate on this. Mr Stefanovic mentioned the cost of living crisis, but how about a few others?

Here’s one:

Oh, that’s right. Tax cheats have powerful friends in the media – and are some of them media magnates themselves? So attacking them might have the consequence of bad publicity. Refugees are much easier to attack because they don’t have that kind of whack.

Here’s another – Partygate. Oh, but Tories don’t like that because it attacks their once-golden boy Boris Johnson, doesn’t it?

Consider the way former 10 Downing Street speechwriter Clare Foges tries to brush it under the carpet:

So Tories raving it up together after banning the rest of us from being with our loved ones when they were dying with Covid-19 is not a big deal any more because the one responsible isn’t in that job any more?

It’s arrogant nonsense to expect anybody to believe that. If the Partygate inquiry finds against him, Johnson should be handed proper punishment and it should be harsh.

Refugees who are crossing the Channel to escape persecution certainly don’t deserve punishment for it – but they are exactly the kind of people the Tories like to hurt.

The reason should be clear: Tories are cowards. They only attack people who don’t have the ability to hurt them back.

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Culture legislation review prompts question: was Dorries allowed to do whatever she wanted?

Michelle Donelan: this is the only image of her that This Writer could find, in which she didn’t have an enormous, daft grin all over her face.

New Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan is reviewing plans by her forerunner Nadine Dorries to privatise Channel 4 and scrap the BBC licence fee, and also the proposed Online Harms Bill.

Doesn’t this suggest that those plans were not widely supported by the Tory Party and that Dorries was put at the top of that department by Boris Johnson to do nothing more than distract attention away from him?

Also being revisited are provisions around “legal but harmful” speech in the Online Harms legislation.

The review of Channel 4 comes amid criticisms that privatising the channel would harm the future of many TV production companies at a time when new prime minister Liz Truss wants to create growth. The two policies would therefore appear to contradict each other.

With the BBC, Ms Donelan has admitted being sceptical about the viability of the licence fee. But she has said that coverage of the Queen’s funeral was excellent – and the kind of thing that streaming services could not provide.

Source: Ministers to review Channel 4 privatisation and scrapping of BBC licence fee

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Lords cave in on undemocratic Tory laws ahead of closure of Parliament

Have you got your ID? If not, you won’t be able to vote in Parliamentary elections across the UK or local elections in England after the Tory government succeeded in restricting the number of people allowed to exercise their democratic right, affecting millions of people. Are you among those targeted by this?

A mass of undemocratic and despotic new laws are to come into being after cowardly Lords gave up their opposition to corrupt Tory government plans.

The Nationality and Borders Bill is to receive Royal Assent after peers gave up their principles.

It means Priti Patel’s plan to send asylum-seekers to live in Rwanda, rather than the UK, will be put into practice just as soon as she can get all the mechanisms in place, and never mind that it costs more than sending these people to live at the Ritz.

It will also become a criminal offence to knowingly arrive in the UK illegally. This is hugely contentious because Patel has closed down all legal routes for asylum-seekers to enter the UK. The daughter of refugees herself, she has literally pulled up the ladder behind her, as the saying goes.

Fortunately, it seems other organisations have more backbone than the Lords. According to the BBC,

More than 200 organisations, including Oxfam and Save the Children, said they would challenge its outcomes, calling it “anti-refugee”.

The Elections Bill has been passed by both Houses of Parliament, meaning the Tory government will be able to restrict whether you are allowed to vote or not, based on whether you have a particular form of photographic identification. Millions of people don’t.

Meanwhile, the 15-year limit on rich UK citizens living abroad being allowed to vote will be scrapped.

The undemocratic upshot of these two measures will be that it will be much easier for people living overseas to vote – and without any barriers like photo ID, while it will be much harder for domestic citizens to do the same.

The Tory government is also seizing control of the Electoral Commission, meaning oversight of the way electoral law is administered will no longer be independent and your corrupt government will be able to twist the way elections are run in order to suit itself.

Finally, a bid to deprive even more people of access to justice has been passed: the Judicial Review and Courts Bill will stop the funding of bereaved families’ legal representation at inquests involving public bodies. If This Writer understands correctly, it means that if somebody dies because of a failure by such an organisation, their families will be unable to seek justice from those responsible unless they are independently wealthy (which seems unlikely).

Parliament is being prorogued today (Thursday, April 28), having been back in session for only a matter of days after the Easter break. It will not meet again until May 10, when a new session will begin with a Queen’s Speech laying out Boris Johnson’s plans for the following year or so.

Some legislation has been carried over to the new Parliamentary session, including the long-awaited and controversial Online Safety Bill, which will seek to criminalise certain abusive and antisocial behaviours on the Internet and regulate online companies in line with those measures.

The big surprise for many people must be the silence from Opposition leader Keir Starmer. He should be trumpeting that a Labour government will reverse the corrupt and undemocratic measures in these new laws but instead it seems he supports them.

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The UK’s criminal government is authorising undercover cops to commit sex crimes – and Starmer is supporting it

Keir Starmer: in abstaining on the Bill to give government agents carte blanche to commit crimes including murder, torture and rape, he is supporting the commission of those crimes. The perpetrators will be protected from prosecution by the law.

In one sense, it was only to be expected: a criminal government authorises its enforcers to commit criminal acts.

So the Johnson government – an international criminal due to the Internal Market Bill that is currently going through the House of Lords like a dose of salts – is authorising its spies to commit crimes as part of their duties.

These crimes include murder, torture, and sexual offences:

According to the BBC,

the legislation would explicitly authorise MI5, the police, the National Crime Agency and other agencies that use informants or undercover agents to commit a specific crime as part of an operation.

Security officials will not say which crimes are authorised, on grounds that this may give away the identities of undercover agents to terrorists and other serious criminals.

So the sky is the limit and the legislation offers the UK’s secret police a licence to do anything they like, to anybody.

Yes, the legislation does require MI5 officers and others to show the crime is “necessary and proportionate”, but what happens when they encounter what’s known as “mission creep”?

The definition of “necessary and proportionate” will stretch over time to encompass anything, laying it open to corruption – and agents may find themselves committing ever-more-extreme crimes because they are told to do so on the spur of a moment.

Home Office minister James Brokenshire said the legislation would “help keep our country safe”, but he did not elaborate on whose country he meant, or who it would be kept safe from.

Both Labour and Conservative MPs have expressed opposition to the Bill as it currently stands, saying the safeguards were “very vague and very broad” and must be strengthened.

But Labour’s leadership said it would not oppose the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill at its second reading on October 5.

This has led to further claims that current Labour leader Keir Starmer is nothing more than a closet Conservative, forcing party members to accept acts that are directly opposed to their principles as he supports the Johnson government time and time again – and his MPs support him.

Only 20 Labour MPs defied his order to abstain on the Bill’s second reading, including former leader Jeremy Corbyn and former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, and others including Ian Lavery, who tweeted this:

Note the hashtag #spycops – others include #LabStainers and #NoOpposition, with #StarmerOut being the most popular (although it is also infested with supporters of ‘Sir Keith’ who are trying to stifle the views of the majority).

Here are a few examples of the #StarmerOut tweets, to show the strength of feeling about this:

Supporters of Starmer say he is acting strategically in order to demonstrate that Johnson and his ministers have nobody to blame for their mistakes but themselves. This is a trap for Labour.

Having abstained from voting on this Bill, Starmer and his followers in the Labour Party have said they accept the necessity of agents of the Financial Conduct Authority committing rape (to put forward an extreme example).

Are their supporters seriously trying to tell us this won’t come back and bite them?

There is only one reasonable response to legislation that authorises government agents to commit crimes – especially extreme crimes such as those contemplated here, and that is opposition.

But opposition is not in Keir Starmer’s vocabulary.

Let’s have a leadership challenge. He has to go.

And if he isn’t ousted this time, let’s have another challenge, and another, until he is. He has turned Labour into a travesty.

Source: MPs back bill to authorise MI5 and police crimes – BBC News

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Commons Speaker refuses bid to debate government diktats – but it may IMPROVE democracy

Speaking up: Lindsay Hoyle wasn’t quite this active in his speech, but his words were strong.

What was the point of Lindsay Hoyle’s intervention about Boris Johnson treating Parliament with contempt?

He spoke up to say the way the government has used secondary legislation – statutory instruments – to exercise power in the Covid-19 crisis has been “totally unsatisfactory”.

But then he said he’s blocking an amendment of the temporary provisions in the Coronavirus Act 2020 – that allows Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock to use those powers!

See for yourself:

He did say that he’ll be extremely sympathetic to motions that call for the government to send ministers to the Commons to defend undemocratic moves to restrict citizens’ freedoms in the future.

And it seems likely that Tory backbenchers will take advantage of this; all is not well between Downing Street and the Tory backbenches.

It raises a crucial question:

Could Tory rebels bring Johnson down – in the middle of a national health crisis – in the name of democracy?

Amazingly, because of Keir Starmer’s assurances of support, it seems the government is more likely to be defeated by members of its own party than by Her Majesty’s Opposition – and that’s an unhealthy position for a Labour leader.

The public will see that Starmer is not doing the job for which he was elected and will turn further against him.

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Tory Coronavirus Bill removes vital rights from people with disabilities. The persecution goes on…

Tories just can’t stop aiming spite at vulnerable people, the sick and the disabled – can they?

They have just passed new legislation, apparently to help safeguard the UK’s population against the coronavirus.

But what good is it if it still puts people in danger?

A personal friend of This Writer has written to our MP, pointing out this problem, along with others. My friend states that the new law will:

• Remove disabled people’s entitlement to social care. In practice, this will mean local authorities will no longer be legally required to provide support to people who they already recognised as needing it.

According to the Government, this is to ensure local authorities can prioritise and meet the needs in new cases.

The Government made more funding available, so it is hard to see why it is necessary to remove the entitlement to social care for those who already get very little. It is worth remembering that community groups and volunteers cannot deliver the support many disabled and older people need.

Experience and research have illustrated that the lack of social care support puts more strain on the NHS. Surely this is a wrong thing to do at a time when the Government tries to free up resources for the NHS. This way of dealing with the immediate crisis can have considerable and devastating consequences in the longer run.

• Change the duties to educate to meet children’s educational requirements to a ‘reasonable endeavours’ duty.

• Make it easier to detail and treat people involuntarily under the Mental Health Act. The existing safeguards are already too weak, and the number of people who are detained has grown significantly in the last few years. Detention will be a severe interference with a person’s fundamental human rights to liberty and freedom. Moreover, detaining people will cost the NHS a lot of money. Instead of making it easier to detain people, more support should be put to help people in the community.

My friend isn’t the only one complaining. Disability Rights UK, alongside other national disability organisations, has urged the government not to withdraw Care Act rights from disabled people as proposed in the Bill.

As that organisation states, these are unprecedented times.

But removing rights and protections from disabled people who are most at risk cannot be justified.

One has to question why a government would even contemplate that – let alone pass it into law as an emergency power.

Source: Government urged not to remove Care Act rights from disabled people – Welfare Weekly

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Right again, Vox Political! Tories admit This Site’s claim that Brexit may be delayed to allow needed legislation

What plan: This image was originally used to illustrate a story about Mr Hunt’s mismanagement of the NHS but it is appropriate here, as the Conservative government does not currently have a Brexit plan that will be accepted by both the UK and the remaining countries of the EU.

Once again, This Site has been proved correct as Jeremy Hunt admitted the EU may agree to extend the deadline for Brexit if a new deal is struck – to allow the UK to pass necessary laws.

According to The Guardian (other news sources are available), Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has admitted article 50 may have to be extended if an agreement with the EU is reached with only a short period of time left before the March 29 deadline.

Vox Political asserted this here.

Asked if a technical delay would be necessary, Mr Hunt said: “We might need some extra time to pass critical legislation.”

Vox Political said this was likely here.

It should be noted that Mr Hunt said if an agreement was reached earlier, a delay may not be necessary. I think that is building castles in the air. With nine major Parliamentary Bills and more than 600 pieces of secondary legislation to be passed, it seems highly unlikely the government would get through it all if it started today (January 31).

Mr Hunt’s words demonstrate not only that the Conservative government has been misleading the nation on the necessity for Brexit to be delayed because of the way Theresa May has run down the clock…

… but also that This Site is the best place to find informed commentary and opinion about political matters. While the mainstream media hysterically parrot their right-wing masters, Vox Political has the balanced view.

Forgive me for sharing my pleasure at that fact.

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Is Theresa May resorting to more bribery to get MPs supporting her duff Brexit deal?

Dark arts: If Theresa May can’t get her Brexit agreement through Parliament honestly, it seems she’ll bribe its way through.

First she offered a knighthood to John Hayes.

Now it’s peerages all round, and changes to future legislation that could change the lives of millions – most likely for the worse, considering the Conservative Party’s track record.

Here‘s the Daily Mail – not the most reliable of sources, I admit, but Mrs May’s track record suggests the story is believable:

“Theresa May’s team are said to be offering rebel MPs peerages and other sweeteners in a bid to buy votes to get her Brexit deal through Parliament.

“Mrs May has vowed to ‘make the case for this deal with all my heart’ to persuade restless MPs to back her. But it appears she will also resort to horsetrading.

“Some Brexiteers were said to have been offered peerages while other MPs are being bought off with changes to bills, according to reports.”

It seems Theresa May is willing to do anything to secure support for her Brexit agreement with the European Union…

… Except negotiate a worthwhile Brexit agreement, that is.

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Detention of leftie journo’s sister shows police are letting themselves be political tools AGAIN

Political activist: Eleanor Jones.

This is disgraceful.

As the story shows, Eleanor Jones is a political activist – but there’s nothing wrong with that.

She is also the sister of leftie journalist Owen Jones, and that makes this story even more sinister – in the opinion of This Writer.

Are the police using anti-terror legislation to gather information on the political enemies of the current (Tory) government?

That would be a misuse of their powers. But when police can arrest people who are not under suspicion, and don’t have to divulge the information they possess about those people, how can anything be proven?

Clearly the law is inadequate and the public need proper protection.

A political activist has accused Police Scotland of “disgraceful” treatment after officers used controversial anti-terror powers to detain and question her for hours at Edinburgh Airport.

Eleanor Jones, who had been in Edinburgh to attend her grandfather’s funeral, said she felt “violated” after handing over her mobile phone and laptop passwords to the officers.

She was also quizzed about the political beliefs of family members, including her twin brother Owen, who is a high-profile columnist for the Guardian.

Her treatment has fuelled calls for a rethink of Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 – the legislation used by the single force – which gives police sweeping powers in an airport.

The force was able to detain Jones in this way due to the Terrorism Act 2000.

The legislation’s notorious Schedule 7 gives police huge powers to stop, search and hold individuals at ports, airports and international rail stations.

It can be invoked without an individual being suspected of involvement in criminal activity and there is no right to remain silent.

Officers can detain a person for hours and retain their belongings for up to seven days. It is an offence to wilfully fail to comply with a request made by an officer under this legislation.

Jones said Police Scotland was responsible for a “misuse of the Act” in her case and said the legislation was used as a “power tool”. She added: “Being an activist is not the same thing as terrorism.”

She added that the force will not tell her what, if any, information Police Scotland retains on her.

Source: Revealed: how Police Scotland treated a political activist like a terrorist | HeraldScotland

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Labour launches plan to attack political corruption

westminsterfromwater

If there’s one area of British life that needs reform, it’s politics.

Every day, Vox Political receives at least one comment from somebody saying that the system is corrupt and desperately needs an overhaul. Today (Tuesday, March 3), Labour is due to announce its plans for tackling this very issue.

The trouble is, of course, that many people are saying Labour is part of the problem.

The claim is that the party and its high-level members have a vested financial interest in keeping the system as it is – and the gravy train rolling along. How will Labour combat these?

Well…

There are plans to consult on new powers for the Speaker to tackle the worst and repeated instances of rowdy behaviour in the Chamber with a so-called ‘sin bin’.

Former Commons deputy speaker Nigel Evans described the idea as “rubbish”, pointing out that the speaker already has the ability to remove MPs in certain circumstances and has lots of discretion at present.

But the Speaker himself, John Bercow, has given a cautious welcome to the suggestion that MPs face a rugby-style “yellow-card” temporary ban for bad behaviour in the Chamber. Answering questions at a Hansard Society event at Westminster, Mr Bercow said: “I think there is merit in it, it’s not for me to decide, it’s for the House to decide.”

Other measures will be revealed at an event in Parliament, by Shadow Leader of the Commons Angela Eagle. They include:

  • Overhauling elections with measures including introducing votes at 16 and trialling online voting
  • Changing how Parliament works with a Prime Minister’s Questions for the public and a new process for law-making that gives people a say
  • Tackling vested interests by regulating MPs’ 2nd jobs and creating compulsory rules for lobbyists, and
  • Devolving power across the UK and replacing the Lords with a ‘Senate of the Nations and Regions’.

Some of these measures have already been trailed, like votes for 16-year-olds, public PMQs and regulation of MPs’ second jobs. One has been claimed by the Conservative Party, although Labour’s Austin Mitchell describes the plan for devolution to Greater Manchester as a “deathbed repentance by a government which had centralised continuously in a country that is over-centralised already”. He claimed that a concentration of power in London and the south-east of England “needs to be reversed so the rest of us can have a chance”.

Speaking ahead of the launch, Angela Eagle said: “The recent debate over MPs’ second jobs reminds us that so much needs to change in Westminster. When trust in politics and politicians is already at a record low, only radical reform will restore faith in our political process.

“Labour’s plan will deliver the reform our politics needs. We will reform the Commons to strengthen its ability to hold the government to account. And we will ensure our political system always puts people before rich and powerful vested interests.

“Our politics works on an adversarial system, but sometimes MPs take it too far and it turns the public off. A Labour government will consult on new powers for the Speaker to curb the worst forms of repeated barracking.”

This writer is particularly keen on online voting. It is to be hoped that the trials go well, so that this may help restore interest – and confidence – in democracy.

Does it go far enough? Undoubtedly people will say it does not – but at least, it seems, Labour will do something to arrest the corruption that seems to have seeped into the very bones of the Palace of Westminster (the building will be unusable within 20 years, it seems, unless expensive restoration work is undertaken).

What would you do?

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

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