As the Snoopers’ Charter, sorry Investigatory Powers Bill, starts its final stage in the Lords today, have a look at this video from Liberty which gets over the intrusive nature of this illiberal measure.
You can find more information about Liberty’s campaign here.
It’s kind of odd that Liberty’s former director, Shami Chakrabarti, is only abstaining on this bill along with her Labour colleagues. As the Independent put it:
Theresa May is about to get away with the largest expansion of state surveillance powers in peacetime, and no one can quite explain why Labour politicians who have been spied upon still sit on the fence.
Across the Western world, faith in politicians from across the political spectrum is ebbing away. Instead, populists such as Donald Trump tell us the elites are lying and that politicians say one thing and do another. Yet when politicians who do genuinely oppose intrusive surveillance powers stay quiet in the face of draconian legislation, it feeds conspiracy theories that democracy is a fix.
If social democrats are too frightened to stand up for what they believe in, then why bother voting for them? Jeremy Corbyn was re-elected by Labour members who wanted to see the party change direction. It’s hard to see how giving the Tories a free pass to give the state unjustified powers is part of that mandate.
The Liberal Democrats, of course, stopped Theresa May introducing this during the coalition years and have staunchly opposed it all the way through its parliamentary journey now.
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9 Comments
I’m struggling to put into words just how disappointed I am with Shami Chakrabarti. I mean, you expect Corbyn to be effing useless, but her? After campaigning so hard against previous incarnations of this bill?
It seems to be open season on Shami Chakrabarti.
Even the Liberal Democrat peers in the Lords were critical of the amendment. Have you read any of the comments that they have made about it?
The problem labour have got is that a wing of their party agrees with it and wanted ID cards as well. One of the reasons I’m opposed to further military involvement in the ME is the way it aids the constant demand for more powers by the security services and the very illiberal practice of spying on citizens.
It took a long time for a liberal like Robin Cook to say what he thought.
Another consistent opponent of this was David Davis (along with Dianne Abbot), who has gone quiet also. He’s obviously been neutered by getting a ministerial post.
@ Nick Baird,
Huffington Post –
‘Lib Dem Attack on Shami Chakrabarti Backfires as Snoopers Charter Amendment Pulled”.
The criticisms of Ms Chakrabarti seem like nothing other than sour grapes.
According to http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2015-16/investigatorypowers.html the bill is still in its HoL Report Stage where the bill is being examined “line by line”.
Perhaps it would be more useful and constructive to give a report on what amendments the LibDem Lords have been able to make to the bill and their concerns arising from their detailed examination of the bill.
The Liberty video whilst interesting fails to highlight how what their researcher was doing that different to what the government can do today under existing legislation…
My cynical view is that the value of an opposition in this country is limited whilst Labour ‘act nicely’ when in opposition so that they can be assured that the Conservatives will act nicely when they ‘take their turn’ at the wheel. It is therefor necessary that they drop any pretence of real opposition to allow the ruling Party to get their legislation through.
All trust in Politicians is easily lost and difficult to regain….