#uk democracy

[the-corner-of-4-th-and-fremont]

So Liz Truss killed the queen, took 2 weeks off, destroyed the economy, crashed the pound, forced the bank of England to step in to fix her mess, went back on almost everything the tories pledged in their manifesto, refused to back down on the economic plan then about a week later uturned on that, sacked her chancellor and replaced him with someone who campaigned for her rival in the leadership race, then lost her home secretary and chief whip in one day then resigned herself all within 45 days....

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

Ok, so apparently, ministers are suggesting removal of trial by jury to deal with the current backlog of cases in UK crown courts.

They are pretending that this is backlog is due to coronavirus. It’s not. It’s due to systemic underfunding.

Our current backlog is 41,000 cases waiting for jury trial. That’s not even the biggest backlog ever (50,000 in 2014).

This is a massive change that’s being proposed to the UK constitution, and it’s likely the Conservatives will try to sneak it in through the back door.

The proposal is that cases would be tried by one Crown Court Judge, and two magistrates. For reference, only 4% of Circuit judges are BAME. Only three (3) are black. 84% of magistrates are over 50. Just 1% are under 30.

Juries are supposed to represent a cross section of society. Juries are “trial by your peers”. Taking that away from the UK constitution is such a massive change.

There are huge problems with trial by jury, of course. There are huge problems with the legal system in general.

But trying to sneak this in through the back door is scary. If we are going to change our judicial system, that needs to be a matter of national debate, not rushed through legislation.

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

IDOX, the company belonging to Alice Sarah Louis Cummings (Dom’s sister) also runs the postal vote system.

So, like, that’s a thing.

This family literally own our democracy.

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

Why does the Dominic Cummings scandal matter?

I’ve seen a few people saying that it’s essentially distracting us from the “real issues” of faked testing figures, the huge death rate, relaxing lockdown and so on.

And it would be true that if Dominic Cummings had resigned as soon as the first story broke, that would be that, and it wouldn’t really matter.

However, he didn’t, and the government have wheeled out ever more ludicrous stories to defend him. In doing so, they have caused a far more serious problem.

Dominic Cummings broke the rules on self-isolation. However, the Government have now said that he “acted on instinct” and “did what any good parent would have done”. Therefore, they have implied that it is fine to break lockdown rules if the same apply to you or you judge there to be a “safeguarding risk”. They have explicitly said it is not “one rule for them, one rule for everyone else”.

This is problematic, because we still need people to follow the self-isolation advice to help stop coronavirus from spreading. Before, people felt they were making a noble sacrifice on the part of the country. Now, they may worry about not being a good parent. Or they may just decide “fuck it” and refuse to accept a mild inconvenience, like Dominic Cummings.

Should we need to impose a second strict lockdown, people may question whether they really need to follow that advice too. Given we are making decisions that could well see us hurtling towards a second peak, this is a likely future scenario. 

This isn’t just Boris and Dominic, either- half the cabinet tweeted their support.

The No 10. statement also contradicted the police. I am no great fan of the police. However, to have the Prime Minister essentially undermining the police is a very precarious situation for the country to be in.

They have also accused two major newspapers of lying. That is not nothing.

Meanwhile, we are watching Cummings manipulate Twitter in real time. His name has not trended once throughout all of this, whilst various misspellings and tangentially related things have.

Furthermore, arguably, this defence of Cummings undermines the rule of law. People have been given fines for doing what he did. Next time someone gives me a parking ticket, shall I just say “I acted on instinct” and expect not to have to pay the fine?

What is happening right now is really quite important for the fundamentals of our democracy. If Johnson and Cummings are able to get away with this, it has wide scale repercussions. This goes beyond political point scoring and embarrassment at this stage. This is a really serious issue for the country.

Don’t let your anger dissipate. Let the Tory Party know how appalled you are with them.

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

Suella Braverman is the Attorney General. This means she is a cabinet minister who advises the government on legal matters, heads up the CPS, and is leader of the bar.

On 23rd May, she retweeted the first official Downing Street statement on Dominic Cummings, which ended with the phrase “Mr Cummings believes he behaved reasonably and legally”. She added her own comments which suggested she endorsed the official narrative “ Protecting one’s family is what any good parent does. The @10DowningStreet statement clarifies the situation and it is wholly inappropriate to politicise it.” Source: https://twitter.com/SuellaBraverman/status/1264174355975671810

Since then, several people have pointed out this tweet is not appropriate for someone in her position, and there have been many calls for her to resign- especially as Durham police have since clarified that they think not all of Dominic Cummings’ actions were legal.

Today, Suella Braverman stood in the commons and said “there was no question of her having provided any legal view on the matter”, and therefore there was no need for her to say sorry or resign. This is clearly untrue. As Attorney General, any public communications can be seen as providing a legal view, and she explicitly endorsed the view that Dominic Cummings behaved legally.

This might seem like a small issue but all these small chips away at the rule of law and our democracy matter. They matter because potentially one day we will wake up and realise we are not in a democracy anymore- and we need to speak out and stop it before it gets to that stage.

[schrankartoons]

From The Sunday Business Post 1/9/19

[schrankartoons]

The Sunday Times 11/8/19

[unlockdemocracy]

Sneak peek at our annual report! It has been a busy year. Here is to another year of Unlocking Democracy