Like many honourable friends here tonight, I am proud to declare an interests [as a] long standing trade unionist…One of them is the National Union of Journalists on who’s ethics council I serve and who stands up for the basic freedoms necessary for a healthy functional democracy.
It’s though that prism that I look at the bill before us today which cannot be considered in isolation but must be seen in the context of so many other proposals from this and the previous government. The list is depressing. Other members here mentioned the gagging act but as a former BBC journalist, I’m also alarmed to see public broadcasting under attack in favour of its politicised cooperate owned and Conservative supporting rivals.
There are devastating cuts to legal aid and restrictions of judicial review undermining the fundamental principle of universal access to the law.
The Snooper’s Charter is extending the power of the state to scrutinise us, while the power to scrutinise the state is watered down by the freedom of information review.
The plan to repeal the Human Rights Act, a great achievement of the last Labour government.
Perhaps he most pernicious of all, the fundamental attacks on our democracy. More appointments to the other place, millions disenfranchised and boundaries fixed in favour of their own party. Quite simply, this bill is a part of the same agenda, the rights to freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of expression. All these are enshrined in the Convention on Human Rights and all undermined by this bill. This is beyond anything proposed in the modern democratic era, even by Conservative standards, and they can go quite low.
In 1947, Churchill, hardly a militant socialist, acknowledged the right of the individual labouring men and women to adjust their wages and conditions by collective bargaining, including the right to strike, as pillars of British life. But today’s Conservative Party apparently want to demolish those pillars. Those who seek justice at work will be tracked and treated like criminals. Their social media monitored, their details shared with the police, those who protest forced to wear identifying marks and carry letters of authorisation. Yes, it is sinister. This is not just an attack on workers’ rights, but on our most basic and fundamental human rights. As Liberty said, applied to any type of protest, these proposals would be the mark of an authoritarian and controlling government.
Of course this bill does not only pick off individual trade unions, but it also attacks the existence of trade unions themselves.
Unsurprisingly, it’s trade union political funds which is at the centre of this attack, while the Tories’ millionaire donors are rewarded with seats in the other place.
Not only does this bill have the wrong answers, it’s not even asking the right questions. It shows the powerful now wish to hold the powerless to account. [Madam Speaker], I didn’t come to this House just to give voice to the voiceless, but to let them have their own voice and tonight I shall vote to do exactly that.
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