Chris Huhne and colleagues have just finished a press conference in Cowley Street, launching the party’s draft Freedom Bill. As he writes for Comment is Free:
There has always been a problem for civil libertarians. The sacrifices of freedoms made by successive governments often seem small, particularly when they are pushed through at times of panic about terrorism. Each time, the government argues that you only need to give up a modest amount of freedom or rights to win greater security. And what could be more free than life itself? Yet the cumulative effects of this salami-slicing have now become deeply corrosive to the free spirit of a civil society. Like some sci-fi horror movie, we are slowly becoming the authoritarian threat that we are fighting.
The Liberal Democrats are determined to resist the slow death by a thousand cuts of our hard-won British liberties. George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was a warning, not a blueprint. Yet the Big Brother society that he satirised is growing before our eyes. Our forebears who fought so hard for the rights we have had stripped away would be shocked at what we’ve lost.
That is why we have published our freedom bill, detailing how we intend to roll back the draconian laws passed by successive Labour and Conservative administrations.
You can read his full piece here, and you can back the campaign and find out more about the bill at freedom.libdems.org.uk.
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7 Comments
Of course this is fantastic, but couldn’t we have got someone other than Chris Huhne to front it? You know, someone who wasn’t very recently in the media for restricting free speech? He’s getting slaughtered in the comments section as a consequence of this.
Yes, having someone else front this would seem wise
What better way for him to expiate for his thought crime than to face the wrath of the CiF chaterati. He *is* our Shadow Home Secretary and this is within his brief. He cocked up last week, big time, how he argues for this will be part of his recovery.
My posting on the LPUK blog last week indicating that the Libertarian Party are leading the debate was spot on.
It is clear that Huhne is only FOLLOWING, but he is playing to the crowd with this gimmick bill, as he knows that he will not be able to implement one jot of it without also undertaking to leave the EU.
The EU will block every single item in Huhne’s bill.
The Libertarian Party is the ONLY party to undertake both the repeal of liberty stripping laws, but also to extract ourselves from the EU.
Obviously the copy of 1984 received from LPUK has struck a chord with him, he even quoted our message on the book.
Er…Ian, I don’t think this is the work of a few days. Both Huhne and Clegg included most of this, together with the idea of a single Freedom Bill to implement the measures in ne big hit, in their leadership pitches – before LPUK was formally on the scene I seem to recall.
Jock, I dont doubt that they both spoke such words, but I measure people not by what they say, but what they do.
Both have shown themselves to be statist in action, as early commenter’s have mentioned of Huhne, and Clegg with his support for the Young Foundation, Government borrowing, and what he sees as Britain’s “European vocation”. .
I will reiterate again for the avoidance of doubt however, you will not be allowed to undertake the repeal of liberty stripping laws whilst you support the EU.
@ Ian, I’ve just looked at the laws that the Bill would want to repeal – nothing immediately jumped out as EU inspired, and certainly not all 20. Admittedly, I only spent about 30 seconds looking, but which exactly are EU regulations (or even, implementing Directives)?