Although Labour, with Conservative support, managed to ram through the Digital Economy Bill, that’s not quite the end of the matter as far as votes in Parliament are concerned.
That’s because one concession the Liberal Democrats did manage to extract was the provision that no ‘technical measures’ (i.e. cutting off people’s internet connections) can be introduced for at least a year, and only then can be done so after a period of analysis and consultation. Parliament will get a chance to vote on these measure – even if the Government is a Tory or Labour one that doesn’t want to change the legislation.
In other words, who gets elected at the general election matters – not just in casting a verdict on what has been done, but in deciding who gets to vote on any such future proposals.
Phil Gyford has an excellent blog post (which says much of what I thought of writing, but far far better) – “This is an outrage“:
I’ve been very angry about the rushed passing of the flawed Digital Economy Bill. I’ve also been increasingly angry about the nightmarish Twitter echo chamber of people being angry about the bill.
It’s an excellent post, but this future vote – and why the election therefore matters – is one he doesn’t make.
When it comes to voting at the general election, it is hardly a revelation that I think people should vote Liberal Democrat, but in this context it’s worth pointing out that every Conservative and Labour frontbencher present for the Digital Economy Bill’s third reading voted for the Bill; every Liberal Democrat frontbencher present voted against.
You can find the full list of MPs who voted for or against here, but a particular mention of Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone, who I help get elected to Parliament. She both voted against the Bill and (briefly due to the shortage of time allocated) spoke in the debate too.
She’s defending a majority of 2,395 over Labour in a borough where the other MP – Labour MP David Lammy- voted for the Bill. So if you feel strongly about the issue, why not make a donation to her campaign?
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4 Comments
To be honest, I like the idea of voting for the Liberal Democrats. I still think however that the Lib Dems need to be clearer on whether or not (if in government) they will push to remove the Digital Economy bill in its entirety or at least to reform it somewhat along the lines of Tom Watson MP’s amendments suggested during 3rd Reading, so that it is re-engineered to tackle those illegally filesharing on a commercial basis, rather than on a free data exchange basis that may actually be beneficial for the creative industries.
The act’s not going to be removed in entirety; it’s an omnibus bill which does have a few decent things in it.
Removing the chapter about persecuting internet users is another matter. Sadly, Lib Dem policy on IT and the internet does not really exist, and there’s no time left to make any.
This issue is very important to me and although was my intention to vote for the lib dems the initial support for the draconian action of web blocking completly swayed my vote. As i understand it the clauses in its initial draft of web blocking exactly the way the BPI told them to. (http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2010/lib-dems-seek-web-blocking) (http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2010/bpi-drafted-web-blocking)
For what i consider to be the most left wing of the three main parties how did this happen? It screams cooperate lobbying influence to me. If you want me to change my vote you need to come up with an IT policy and gain the support of the OpenRights group.
While that statement is true, it gives an unbalanced view of the debate, which I think reflected badly on all three parties. Experienced former frontbenchers like Tom Watson and Austin Mitchell spoke in the debate and along with a considerable number of other brave Labour MPs ignored the three-line whip disgracefully placed on the vote. Meanwhile Don Foster and his shaky understanding of the issues were left alone to twist in the wind by the rest of the LibDems, to taunts from all sides. I get your point, but lets not pretend the Libdems have a monopoly on right here.