Tag Archives: public order act

Liberty launches lawsuit against Suella Braverman for overriding Parliament on protest powers

Suella Braverman: it seems she’ll be bringing that glower to a judge in the High Court, sometime in the near future.

The organisation Liberty, that challenges injustice, defends freedom and campaigns to make sure everyone in the UK is treated fairly, is taking Home Secretary Suella Braverman to court.

The action comes after Braverman overrode Parliament to change the Public Order Act in order to give police a free hand to arrest anybody carrying out an act of protest, depending on how disruptive officers think it is.

Here’s what Liberty has to say about it:

Human rights organisation Liberty has started legal action against the Home Secretary Suella Braverman over new anti-protest legislation which it says that she is unlawfully bringing in by the back door despite not having been given the powers to do so by Parliament.

In a pre-action letter sent to the Home Secretary, Liberty said that plans to give the police more powers to impose restrictions on protests that cause ‘more than minor’ disruption are unlawful.

The move – which uses secondary legislation to bring the powers into force – violates the constitutional principle of the separation of powers because the measures have already been rejected by Parliament.

By bringing in these powers, the Government has been accused of breaking the law to give the police ‘almost unlimited’ powers to shut down protests due to the vagueness of the new language.

The Government’s plans to lower the threshold of what constitutes ‘serious disruption’ at a protest were previously voted out of the Public Order Act by Parliament earlier this year (30 January).

Liberty says the Home Secretary has now changed the law entirely in a way that is an overreach of her power – defining ‘serious disruption’ as anything that causes ‘more than minor’ disruption.

A cross party parliamentary group committee has recently said this is the first time the Government has sought to makes changes to the law through secondary legislation that have already been rejected by Parliament when introduced in primary legislation.

Liberty’s letter to the Home Secretary says:  

  • The Secretary of State is seeking to amend the threshold on protest powers set by Parliament by the back door in ways that expand the powers of the police to restrict protest activity.
  • Parliament only gave powers to clarify the law, and not change it entirely. Therefore, Parliament cannot have intended to give the Secretary of State power to amend primary legislation in a way which circumvents the will of Parliament because this would incur on the constitutional principle of the separation of powers.
  • The making of the Serious Disruption Regulations would be unlawful for being an unjustified interference with the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty.
  • The new legislation was not consulted on fairly, as is required by law. The Government only invited in parties it knew would agree with the proposals, such as the police, but did not ask groups who might have had reasonable concerns.

Katy Watts, Lawyer at Liberty, said:  

“We all want to live in a society where our Government is open, transparent and respects the rules. But, as we’ve seen today, the Home Secretary has not abided by any of these.

“The Home Secretary has side-lined Parliament to sneak in new legislation via the back door, despite not having the powers to do so.

“This has been done deliberately in a way which enables the Government to circumvent Parliament – who voted these same proposals down just a few months ago – and is a flagrant breach of the separation of powers that exist in our constitution.

“This is yet another power grab from the Government, as well as the latest in a long line of attacks on our right to protest, making it harder for the public to stand up for what they believe in.

“The wording of the Government’s new law is so vague that anything deemed ‘more than a minor’ disturbance could have restrictions imposed upon it.

“In essence, this gives the police almost unlimited powers to stop any protest the Government doesn’t agree with.

“This not only violates our rights, but the way it’s been done is simply unlawful. This same rule was democratically rejected earlier this year, yet the Home Secretary has gone ahead and introduced it through other means regardless.

“We’ve launched this legal action to ensure this overreach is checked and that the Government is not allowed to put itself above the law to do whatever it wants. It’s really important that the Government respects the law and that today’s decision is reversed immediately.”

Source: LIBERTY LAUNCHES LEGAL ACTION AGAINST HOME SECRETARY FOR OVERRIDING PARLIAMENT ON PROTEST POWERS – Liberty

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BBC finally reports on Public Order Act ‘fatal motion’ – misleadingly

Baroness Jenny Jones: she wants to stop the Tory government from killing democracy but needs the help of Labour Lords. They seem determined not to, for fear that they’ll appear to be in the pocket of Just Stop Oil. How ridiculous.

This was a surprise when it appeared on my screen.

The BBC has finally acknowledged that a – democratic – attempt is being made to stop the Tories from undemocratically changing their own anti-protest law to make it even harsher.

A story appeared on the “politics” page of the broadcaster’s news website yesterday – June 12 – just one day before Baroness Jenny Jones’s ‘fatal motion’ was due to be debated in the House of Lords.

This is a failure of the public service broadcaster in its duty to inform.

I state this because there has been an appeal for the public to ask Labour Lords to support the motion, ever since Baroness Jones tabled it, several weeks ago, with a petition that its organisers begged for media organisations to publicise.

Some of us did, and the petition has gathered more than 50,000 signatures. But those of us who operate within the social media have a readership that is limited by algorithms run by platforms like Facebook (that want to make us pay for a wider circulation), meaning the number of people who would have wanted to sign the petition if they saw it has also been limited.

Think how many people may have signed that petition if the BBC had mentioned it!

Considered that way, one might believe the BBC’s failure to mention it to be political interference on the part of the broadcaster. And the ‘fatal motion’ was important news when it was announced; why did the BBC (and other mass media organisations; let’s spread the blame) fail to report it?

For clarity, the Tory plan is to use a “ministerial decree” – secondary legislation that does not require a democratic vote – to change the Public Order Act and insert a change that was removed by Parliament when the Act was debated there prior to being passed into law.

This would create a dangerous precedent for governments to bypass democracy, reversing changes to legislation that have been made by Parliament without allowing MPs and peers to vote on the reversals.

In this instance, the change would alter the definition of “serious disruption” of people’s day-to-day activities by protest action to mean “anything other than minor” – meaning police would be empowered to arrest anybody taking part in large-scale protest demonstrations (for example), but also meaning that small-scale activities would lead to arrests if people said they were inconvenienced even slightly.

Labour has put forward a “motion of regret” which will do nothing to prevent the ministerial decree from passing into law. This is pointless.

That’s why the petition calls on the Labour Lords to support Baroness Jones’s fatal motion that would stop the ministerial decree altogether.

Sadly, Labour’s position appears to be not to support the motion for fear that it would allow the Tories to say the party is in the pocket of protest movement Just Stop Oil, one of whose members has been revealed to be a donor to the Labour Party.

And the BBC article presents the change as being merely a clarification of the Public Order Act, rather than the dangerous and undemocratic change that it actually is.

If the Tories get away with this, it will be exactly what is meant by the old saying that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

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The news in brief: Vox Political’s morning round-up for June 1, 2023

Paul Whitehouse, Lee Mack and Steve Coogan at Lake Windermere: here are three protesters who would be criminalised by Suella Braverman for causing “more than minor” disruption to other people’s day-to-day activities.

Right to protest: UK politicians urged to ‘do the right thing’

Peter Stefanovic’s emotional video clip demands that members of all Opposition parties in the House of Lords support Jenny Jones’s ‘fatal motion’ and kill Suella Braverman’s bid to stifle everybody’s right to protest with an undemocratic ‘Ministerial decree’. Let’s give him a moment to explain it:

Government hasn’t spoken to strikers since January

The general secretary of rail union ASLEF says the government hasn’t spoken to its representatives in almost five months because the Tories aren’t interested in ending strike action on the railways:

43 MPs throw support behind justice for WASPI women

From the i:

So far 43 MPs have written to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), calling for a speedy conclusion to its review of how much damage was caused by the way the pension age changes were communicated to women born in the 50s, and for fair compensation.

Among the 43 MPs are Ranil Jayawardena of the Conservatives, former leader of the Liberal Democrats Tim Farron, former Labour Party chair Ian Lavery and Caroline Lucas of the Green Party.

The PHSO could recommend compensation anywhere from £100 to £10,000 or more per person.

Women born in the 50s claim they were not given enough notice that their state pension age would rise from 60 to 65, in line with men. It then moved to 66 for both sexes.

Many women retired early or made life-changing decisions based on getting their pension at 60. The ramifications of the policy change and lack of notice has left them in emotional and financial distress, they say.

Their plight is under review by the PHSO, which has already found the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) guilty of maladministration for failing to sufficiently inform the women about the state pension age changes.

Though the PHSO maintains its investigation is fair and impartial, it decided to take another look at its findings after recognising part of the report was legally flawed. This move has raised hopes of a higher compensation award, although it is not guaranteed.

As Waspi awaits the results of the review, which could come before summer, it is urging supporters to contact their MP to put pressure on the PHSO to “complete the investigation with a sense of urgency” and make “fair” recommendations for compensation.

Latest Universal Credit change will leave parents worse-off

From The Canary:

BBC News reported that the DWP will be rolling out a change to the amount it pays in childcare costs to parents/guardians. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced it in his Spring Budget. Until now, the department has paid £646 a month, per kid, towards childcare costs under Universal Credit. Now, as BBC News wrote:

The government will allow parents on the benefit to claim back £951 for childcare costs for one and £1,630 for two or more children – a 47% increase.

Universal Credit’s increase in childcare costs payments is still nonsense.

The cost of childcare is huge:

  • For full-time childcare, the average cost is £285 a week.
  • For part-time, it’s £148 a week.

The DWP’s £951 maximum for one child is per Universal Credit assessment period. That’s usually a calendar month – running from the same date one month to the next. So, on that basis the department would pay, at the most, £219 a week.

This is £66, or 23%, short of the average costs. Meanwhile, in 2022 parents were already paying out up to two-thirds of their wages on childcare.

DWP secretary of state Mel Stride has trumpeted about the news. Stride said: “These changes will help thousands of parents progress their career without compromising the quality of the care that their children receive. By helping more parents to re-enter and progress in work, we will be able to cut inactivity and help grow the economy.”

Stride’s claim of the DWP ‘helping parents re-enter’ work is based on parents effectively being worse off in work.

Labour policy pledges need a 3p income tax rise

From the i:

Labour’s policy pledges so far would cost the equivalent of a 3p rise in income tax, i analysis reveals.

Sir Keir Starmer has promised not to borrow for day-to-day spending, and to bring down the size of the overall public debt pile as a percentage of GDP.

Analysis by i suggests that Labour’s policies will require an additional £20bn of funding every year – the equivalent of raising the basic rate of income tax by more than 3p – beyond that already promised through small tax increases such as imposing VAT on private school fees and ending non-domiciled tax status.

Labour’s biggest recurring spending commitment is to extend free childcare to all children aged 11 and under, promised by shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson earlier this year. The IPPR think-tank estimates the cost at almost £18bn, although taking into account the Government’s own childcare plans announced at the last Budget the net cost would be more like £13.6bn. The party said that an expansion of childcare to all children is not its current policy despite Ms Phillipson’s promise.

The pledge to increase the foreign aid spending target to 0.7 per cent of GDP, after Rishi Sunak cut it to 0.5 per cent, would cost around £5.5bn; party sources say this will only be implemented when it is affordable to do so. Labour has promised to set up a £1bn “contingency fund” for the energy industry, and would also have to spend around £1.7bn on GPs’ salaries if it went through with plans by shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting to nationalise the network of family doctors in England – something which the party now says it will not do.

Other current spending commitments which would total less than £1bn each include increasing the number of mental health workers, recruiting more police officers and setting up breakfast clubs in every primary school.

There’s a lot in the i‘s list that Labour now says it won’t do. Doesn’t this suggest that Keir Starmer is really planning just a continuation of the current neoliberal Conservatism that is pushing the UK further towards ruin every day?

Also, considering the Tories gave £800 billion to very rich people for no very good reason, This Writer can’t see why Labour couldn’t produce £20 billion from the same place, and then tax the rich to keep the books in balance and prevent any inflation.

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If Labour won’t get rid of fascist Tory laws, here are some people who will [VIDEO]

Let’s start by setting out the situation: after dozens of people were arrested before the coronation under the Tories new, fascist Public Order Act, Labour’s David Lammy has said his party will not repeal that legislation if it gets to form a government.

His dismissal of demands for it, and his attitude in general, has been greeted with shock by an electorate that had been relying on Labour to actually fight Tory dictatorship, not join it:

It has left some of us asking where we could possibly turn instead.

Fortunately, a few options have presented themselves after the results of last Thursday’s local elections became clear. Several of the surprise winners appeared on the net-based Not The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday.

For example – the Green Party, exemplified by former Labour councillor Jo Bird:

So, people on the doorstep are not meekly accepting the claims of the main parties on the doorstep; they’re checking out those claims and voting on the basis of whether those claims are accurate or not. That could be a serious challenge for the Tories, whose relationship with the facts has always been unstable, but now also for Labour.

How about the former Liverpool Labour councillors who formed the Liverpool Community Independents and stood for election there? Here’s their account:

“The Labour Right can befriend you and then stab you in the back.” If that’s how they treat their fellow party members, how do you think they’ll treat ordinary voters who elect them into Parliament?

The victory also adds credibility to Lucy Williams’s claim that the Labour-run council is “incompetent”. We hear Tories attacking Labour councils on that basis, in Parliament, all the time and to have former Labour councillors elected back on that basis is damning for Starmer’s party. What’s going on there? Are these Labour councillors acting on duff orders from Starmer? Or are they complacent in their positions and can’t be bothered?

And they are already actively calling on voters to unseat the Labour MP in the constituency that includes their council area – Maria Eagle – in favour of an Independent.

Finally, former Labour activists linked up with others and formed a group called ‘Salt of the Earth’ to take 14 of 15 available seats on Winsford Town Council, in Cheshire:

“People were being patronised by Labour… It’s been crazy. There’s been a lot of smearing. It’s been really unpleasant.” Who wants to be represented by people like that?

I’m not saying this kind of unpleasantness is all that Labour has to offer; This Writer is a former Labour member and activist and I know plenty of people who are still party members and are, themselves, great human beings.

They’re all on the left wing of the party, of course.

These victories show that complacency of the kind that Lammy is displaying may well have had its day.

I certainly hope so. But what happens next is up to all of us.

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Coronation of King Charles is marred by anti-democratic PRE-arrests of protesters

Shame of the nation: police arrested opponents of the Monarchy before they even had a chance to protest the coronation of Charles III. Here, they were arresting Graham Smith, chief executive of the anti-Monarchist group Republic – and look how many of them were apparently needed to do it!

UK citizens who oppose the Monarchy were arrested before the coronation ceremony in shocking scenes that have made a mockery of democracy in this country and indicate that King Charles is truly the head of a fascist state.

This Writer sits vindicated. I warned this would happen and others denied it. Now it has come to pass.

Police used powers under the newly-passed Public Order Act, that were specially rushed into operation for the coronation, to suppress any opposition to the event.

Democratic nations do not lock up dissenters before they have even had a chance to voice their complaint.

But – well, see for yourself – and take note of the comments by the social media users posting about this:

Yes, the Home Secretary is responsible for this:

Listen to the vagueness of the warnings issued by police (and remember that they are “just following orders” as the saying goes:

Do you think that man’s words actually meant anything, considering what was to follow?

I tend to disagree with Dr Galsworthy. This is what Britain is, and what British police are. I’ve seen them used as political tools, ever since I was old enough to be aware of national events.

So I tend to side with Kerry-Anne, below:

We did indeed warn you. We’ve been warning you for more than a decade (in my case alone). Some of us have been warning you for much longer than that.

It is some comfort, at least, that some politicians are on the right side of history here:

Only 25 per cent? This draconian display has undoubtedly turned more of us against the status quo:

It is as Russ Jones (whose The Week In Tory has been a highlight of Twitter) states:

The arrests have backfired on those who arranged them because all they have achieved is more – and hopefully larger – protest:

Jeremy Corbyn – as ever – makes the most insightful point about this – the fact that the arrests show the majority of us are, by law, at the mercy of a tiny minority who have all the wealth, status and power, and that those who made the law that allows the arrests, together with those who are enforcing it, are not acting out of patriotism but despotism:

This Writer, staring in shock at the photographic evidence, briefly considered whether the newly-crowned King could smooth matters over with a statement deploring the heavy-handed treatment of UK citizens who had not committed a crime.

Sadly, even if he was inclined to do so, that would probably be considered unconstitutional. He’s not supposed to interfere in political matters – even if they are directly related to him.

In this, he is as much a puppet of the politicians in power as the rest of us. 

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Day of action against bullying by job centre staff and police

150215sanctioncentre

What do you do if you’re a Job Centre manager and a benefit claimant who’s ripe for sanction turns up with someone else as their “representative”?

If you’re in charge of Arbroath Job Centre, you have the man arrested, that’s what!

Yes, you read that correctly. Tony Cox, an activist with the Scottish Unemployed Workers Network, had accompanied a female claimant who suffers from severe dyxlexia and reading problems.

She was having several severe panic attacks every day, caused by the stress of filling five Universal Jobmatch applications every day. Cox was there to represent her.

The jobcentre refused to consider reducing the numbers of applications she should make, and insisted that signing up to UJM is compulsory. It is not. Officials objected to Cox’s presence, and he was arrested when he left the building.

He has been charged with “threatening behaviour, refusing to give his name and address and resisting arrest”.

Imagine the consternation at Caxton House when news filtered through that this had happened. “What? The people are still sympathetic to the unemployed? What do we have to do? We’ve fed them a constant stream of anti-claimant propaganda via our newspapers, supplemented with nightly doses of My obese chainsmoking druggie criminal unemployed neighbour on Benefits Street takes home more money than I do on the telly! There’s nothing else for it – it’s time to open the brainwashing camps!”

Don’t think he wouldn’t, either.

Boycott Workfare wants us to get our retaliation in first – and has organised a day of action across the United Kingdom, to take place on Wednesday (February 25) – the same day Mr Cox will appear in court in Forfar to answer charges against him.

About those charges: ‘Threatening behaviour’ is a catch-all offence in the Public Order Act that is often used by police to cart off people who are a nuisance to authority figures. Back in October 2012, this blog quoted a speech by Rowan Atkinson, calling for its reform.

“I suspect [I am] highly unlikely to be arrested for whatever laws exist to contain free expression because of the undoubtedly privileged position that is afforded to those of a high public profile,” said Mr Atkinson.

“My concerns are… more for those who are more vulnerable because of their lower profile – like the man arrested in Oxford for calling a police horse ‘gay’.”

He said: “Even for actions that were withdrawn, people were arrested, questioned, taken to court… and then released. That isn’t a law working properly. That is censoriousness of the most intimidating kind, guaranteed to have… a ‘chilling effect’ on free expression and free protest.”

Well, this time it will have the opposite effect. People are red-hot with anger about this behaviour, arranged by cowards and bullies who think they can play God with people’s lives.

Boycott Workfare is urging everybody (who can manage it) “to descend on jobcentres round Britain to show their solidarity with Tony and distribute information to claimants urging them to exercise their right to be accompanied and represented at all benefits interviews”.

So, please, print up some literature and turn up outside your local jobcentre to make your feelings known.

Will you do that?

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

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Sleepwalking further into Police State Britain as law offers new powers of repression

policestate

Scriptonite Daily has published a piece that everyone should read. It begins:

“The UK Government is about to pass legislation which will make any behaviour perceived to potentially ‘cause nuisance or annoyance’ a criminal offence. The Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill also grants local authorities, police and even private security firms sweeping powers to bar citizens from assembling lawfully in public spaces. The Bill has successfully passed through the House of Commons without issue, and is now in the latter stages of review by the House of Lords, after which it will receive Royal Assent and become Law. Those who refuse orders under the new rules will face arrest, fines and even prison time.”

It seems to me that this legislation is being made partly to deal with concerns about section five of the Public Order Act. This, as stated in Vox Political‘s article last year, states, “(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he: (a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting, within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby” – but only applies if a person has been the victim.

It could not be used if an organisation had been subjected to abuse – as was claimed, in this case of the Department for Work and Pensions. Now, it seems, a law is coming into force that can.

This is entirely unwarranted. Abuses of the Public Order Act have clearly demonstrated that the law needs to be relaxed, rather than tightened. Your freedom is being taken away from you, including your right to free speech.

It’s no surprise that this is going on even after this blog, and Scriptonite, and others (I’m sure) have pointed out the problem. We are tiny islands on the media map; most people only ever visit the continents that are the TV news and newspapers, which are happy to pander to their prejudices.

The Public Order Act, as Rowan Atkinson stated in his (should be) legendary Reform Section 5 speech, has led to several alarming exercises of power, “like the man arrested in Oxford for calling a police horse ‘gay’.”

The new Bill introduces Injunctions to Prevent Nuisance and Annoyance (IPNAs) to replace ASBOs, which were also widely abused. Scriptonite quotes some of these abuses, including:

“The ASBO has allowed the line between criminal behaviour and annoying behaviour to become hopelessly blurred – and the IPNAs will only serve to increase the problem,” says Scriptonite. “We have seen the abuses permitted under ASBO legislation, the test for which included wording to the effect that ASBOs could only be issued where an actual act of ‘harassment, alarm or distress’ had occurred. IPNAs have a much weaker test, applicable where on the ‘balance of probabilities’ a person has or might engage in behaviour ‘capable of causing annoyance’ to another person. How many times a day could this legislation apply to any of us? Eating with our mouths open, talking too loudly into our phones in a public space, walking too slowly or quickly or belching without saying ‘pardon me’. All of this may very well cause annoyance – but soon it might well also be illegal.”

More to the point: If you had a complaint against a government department – no matter whether it was justified – and you publicised it… wouldn’t that cause annoyance to them? Would it not cause them a nuisance?

And, considering the reaction to one woman’s complaint outlined in the VP article mentioned above, would this legislation not give ministers the power to lock you up for it?

This is not a law that should be passed. It is an attack on your freedom, and mine. It is a badge of repression, to be worn by our police as they continue their metamorphosis into symbols of the totalitarianism into which the UK is falling.

There is a petition against this. Please sign it before the law is passed and this document itself becomes a nuisance or annoyance.

I can find no better way to end this article than by paraphrasing what I said before: Police intimidation of those who speak out against injustice is not only an attack on free speech; it is an attack on the entire philosophy on which our society is based.

Next article: Bedroom Tax Tories: What they said and why they were wrong – covering the debate on the Bedroom Tax (or state under-occupation charge, but never spare room subsidy) in the House of Commons on November 12.

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Will the DWP do ANYTHING to avoid revealing the true extent of the Atos deaths?

Getting a little worried, George? According to a commenter on this blog, IDS is "not listening to anyone and will be carrying on until the bitter end". So much for democracy, then.

Getting a little worried, George? According to a commenter on this blog, IDS is “not listening to anyone and will be carrying on until the bitter end”. So much for democracy, then.

The Department for Work and Pensions has turned down my Freedom of Information request on the number of people who have died while going through the Atos benefit assessment process, or shortly afterwards – claiming that I am harassing officials with a co-ordinated, web-based campaign to disrupt the organisation.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “They’re having a laugh, aren’t they?”

Alas, no.

My request was for the department to provide the number of Incapacity Benefit and Employment and Support Allowance claimants who have died in 2012. Please break that figure down into the following categories:

  • Those who are in the assessment phase
  • Those who were found fit for work
  • Those who were placed in the work-related activity group
  • Those who were placed in the support group
  • Those who have an appeal pending

I stated that I was aware that the DWP came under criticism last year because it did not follow up on the conditions of people who had been found fit for work and signed off the benefit, and said I hoped this had been rectified and follow-up checks carried out, so details of

  • Former ESA/IB claimants who have died after being put onto Jobseekers’ Allowance, and
  • Former ISA/IB claimants who were taken off benefit but put onto no other means of support, and the number of these who have died

could be provided.

Here’s the response. Read it and weep:

“Upon considering your request I consider it to be vexatious in nature and therefore under section 14(1) of the Freedom of Information Act the Department is under no duty to answer your request.

“To be a vexatious request the Information Commissioner’s guidance notes that we should consider, amongst other things:

  • whether compliance would create a significant burden in terms of expense and distraction
  • whether the request has the effect of harassing DWP or causing distress to staff.

“On your website where you share information about the request you have raised with other people, you have stated “I have therefore, today, sent a Freedom of Information request to the DWP … I strongly urge you to do the same. There is strength in numbers”. With this as the stated aim of the exercise I believe your request is designed to harass DWP in the belief that encouraging others to repeat a request which they know has already been raised will affect the outcome of that request.

“Compliance with multiple repetitions of a known request also causes a burden, both in terms of costs and diverting staff away from other work, due to the significant time required to administer these requests.

“The ICO also advises that if a public authority has reason to believe that several different requesters are acting in concert as part of a campaign to disrupt the organisation by virtue of the sheer weight of FOIA requests being submitted, then it may take this into account when determining whether any of those requests are vexatious.

“As your request is part of a website based campaign I consider that it meets the above criteria and therefore is vexatious in nature.”

Readers may remember I sent my request after a previous attempt by Samuel Miller had failed. His request did not succeed because he was a single individual the officials thought they could push around – now mine has failed because they say I’m acting mob-handed and they think I’m trying to push them around!

In other words, they’re trying to have it both ways.

If I recall correctly, they refused Mr Miller’s request on the spurious argument that the previous FOI request – for which he was requesting an update – was a one-off. This was clearly nonsense.

We all know that it is in the public interest to know how many people are dying as a result of government policy. The DWP certainly knows it because of the reaction the information received when it last became public knowledge – press coverage and public outrage. Therefore there is no justification for any argument that it has not monitored these figures. Any claim that it has not had reason to monitor deaths after people were thrown off the benefit may also be rejected because of the strong public reaction against the Department for failing to provide this information last year.

Now they are rejecting my request on the specious argument that I am harassing them by the strength of my numbers… My number being exactly one. I have not organised anybody else into doing anything; I merely suggested that if the DWP refuses to answer a lone voice, it may pay more attention if others make the same request.

I find it extremely interesting to note that DWP officials are monitoring my blog. I made no mention of it in my email to them. Some might find that sinister.

I take issue with the claim that “harassment” of the DWP is “the stated aim of the exercise”. The stated aim was for the DWP to release its figures on the number of people who have died, either while going through the assessment process for IB or ESA, or afterwards – as stated in the FOI request. The suggestion that others might wish to do likewise was clearly an afterthought.

I dispute the claim that compliance with multiple repetitions of a known request causes a burden in terms of costs and staff time. In the Internet age, only one response to a request needs to be written; it can then be sent to multiple recipients at no cost in money or time, as readers of my blog are aware after receiving identical messages in response to correspondence they have sent on other matters. In any case, this is beside the point as the comment about compliance with multiple requests is irrelevant. I had no reason to expect that anyone would follow my lead when I put in my own request – it was a single request for information and any suggestion that it was part of an orchestrated campaign of harassment is paranoid hysteria.

Furthermore, it distracts from the fact that there was no reason to refuse the original request by Mr Miller. If the DWP had simply answered his questions, there would have been no reason for my request or any of the many others the department seems to be claiming it has received (for which I have no proof other than the vague implication that this is the case).

Bear in mind that this is the same government department that accused a disabled woman of harassment, alarm or distress under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, against everybody working for it – and sent the police around to her Cardiff flat, just before midnight on a Friday night last year, to put the frighteners on her. They are well-acquainted with the practice of turning the facts upside down. Just who was being harassed, again?

This leaves us with the impression that the Department for Work and Pensions will do anything to withhold the figures on the number of deaths caused by its policies.

It seems unlikely that a government department would go to such lengths unless those figures reveal a serious problem with the policy; therefore we may reasonably suspect that the number of deaths has increased, perhaps dramatically.

In turn, considering that we know ministers, the Secretary of State (Vox‘s Monster of the Year 2012 – Iain Duncan Smith), and the Prime Minister have all been warned that the assessment system they have brought in (admittedly inherited from Labour but altered under the Coalition) – and all have refused to instigate changes to make it more humane – it seems possible that a legal case for corporate manslaughter of the many thousands who have died could be made – IF the current figures were made available.

This means that its own actions have put the DWP, its officials and ministers, precisely where I want them.

We all knew they were unlikely to give up the information without a struggle, and the shape of our campaign would be dictated – to a certain extent – by their response to our reasonable requests. Now we have that response, we may proceed.

… But we’ll leave our departmental interlopers guessing about exactly what we’ll be doing, I think!