The Gagging Bill on the UK's charity and NGO sector was 'paused' in the House of Lords on Monday to avoid an almost inevitable defeat that would have otherwise occurred. As one of those who yelled long and hard about the chilling impact the Bill would have on freedom of speech in this country I am pleased.
But it is only a pause. And we had one of those on the health and Social Care Bill and the NHS was then still privatised despite that pause. So we cannot take much comfort from the delay, and it is very short, of just five weeks.
Is that long enough to consider the incredibly valuable work done by the Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement that has reviewed this Bill? In the foreword Richard Harries says:
There is no doubt, from the evidence that this Commission has gathered, that Part 2 of the Lobbying Bill risks profoundly undermining the very fabric of our democracy by significantly limiting the right of organisations — from charities and community groups to think tanks and blog sites — to speak out on some of the most important issues facing this country and the planet. Whether we agree with these organisations or not, their role is essential in order to have an informed, engaged electorate.
And then you wonder why Russell Brand might think politicians have lost it? As Zoe Williams puts it in the Guardian this morning:
[An idea] has come to fixate the Commons — the idea that "other political or campaigning organisations … are competing with parties for members" (House of Commons Library, 2012). Is the National Trust seriously drawing away the Tory hardcore? Or is it possible that many people, beyond Russell Brand, think that if a conventional politician is the answer, you have asked a really weird question? Do people need some other outlet for their civic spirit and sense of exuberant possibility?
Rather than asking these questions, politicians have determined that they can stave off this threat to their power by bringing down the third sector. Hubris combined with — in the kindest possible light — not giving themselves enough thinking time has resulted in a suggestion that, were charities sincerely to mobilise their supporters against it, it would fuel the closest thing we've seen to a revolution since 1651.
She may just be right. Trying to achieve this goal of shutting up everyone whose opinion is of any worth in the country so that politicians can have unencumbered reign may just create the tipping point for that revolution of the spirit that I think Brand eludes to. Neoliberal politics is all about control by the few. Pushing on with this Bill in five weeks could create the tipping point where people say no to that. It would make 2014 a very interesting year if they tried, not least because I think mass civil disobedience - in the form of blogging - would follow.
Jersey may try to imprison its bloggers. Trying to do so in the UK may be a lot harder.
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I for one was first alerted to this bill by you, Richard (and have since done as much as I can to object to it), so thanks for that and your continuing stand against it. But you are absolutely right to highlight the dangers inherent in a “pause”. As Zoe Williams points out, at the head of the article you quote from:
‘Looking at the pause in action during the health and social care bill in 2011, it seems designed to concede enough small, technical things to humiliate its key defenders and bore everyone else into submission — while slipping in enough new, large things to show the world who was in charge once the government hit play again. Humiliation, shmumiliation! What doesn’t unseat you makes you stronger.’
One of the things I think those of us interested or involved in UK politics have to been slow to acknowledge (and I single out the Labour Party here) is that since May 2010 the Tories (with the help of the see no evil, hear no evil, and do nothing to combat a whole lot of evil, Lib Dems) have brought a new set of “tools” and “techniques” into government. The “pause” is one example. Almost all had been seldom if ever seen before in this country, though they are often par for the course in the US, which is quite obviously where they’ve been imported from (as with almost everything else the Tories do).
The most fundamental and most dangerous (to the majority of the citizens of this country) has been a complete departure from any semblance of evidence based policy making. Ideology now trumps everything. The counter argument will be that ideology always plays a role on political policy making. And so it does. But as far as I can ascertain no UK government in the 20th or 21st century – not even the Thatcher governments – have been so intent on the pursuit of ideological policies to the exclusion of all else.
The second and related technique is a willingness to go to any lengths to support or claim some legitimacy for evidence free policies. The complete and clearly deliberate disregard for what we might best refer to as the honest (i.e. accurate) use of statistical data, or other material, is one such example that’s been fairly well reported on. It’s worth adding that employing this technique is made all the easier with the existence of a plethora of consultancies and such like who would pretty much say anything as long as they see a £ sign or lucrative contract at the end of it.
The third has been a very rapid and extensive programme of populating all policy advisory/consultative groups that are of any significance with supporters (or at the very least, sympathisers) of the neo-liberal project, be that in health, environment, defence, taxation, or indeed, the purpose and operation of government and public administration.
The fourth is bringing together (we could say breeding and nurturing) a group of people (the Cabinet/Front bench, including such people as Grant Shapps) who are entirely relaxed with this approach to government and policy making. One of the outcomes is that it’s nigh on impossible for any journalist, be they from TV or elsewhere, to ever get a member of the government to admit to a mistake or error of judgement.
I could go on but they are the main strands. In the process the Tories have redrawn the political and governmental landscape of this country to one which more closely resembles that of the Tea Party – Democrat divide in the US. As I noted above, Miliband and his team have been extremely slow to recognise this, and have only recently started to respond in an effective manner (they are not alone – there are far too many political commentators who are still framing this government’s actions using pre 2010 points of reference). But as we’ve seen with NHS privatisation, the Tory government will never drop anything they see as part of their ideological crusade, and the gagging law is part of that crusade – whatever the Lib Dems may convince themselves into thinking.
Yes. I notice also that this bill comes along just as the “TTIP” iceberg comes along to crush the rights out of us! How to hobble opposition to that, these elitist corporatists musta thunk! And if it passes, they get their international “Kovert Korporate Koup” and we’re all their slaves in perpetuity.
The short answer is absolutely. We simply must keep this right to freedom of speech, so that we keep a channel open to attack the elites and multinationals before it is to late.
I am sick and tired of their basic philosophy that humanity exists simply to serve the corporations. It is time to this tyranny on its head, while the customers and employees are real people. Otherwise the future looks very very bleak for humanity. I shudder to think what will happen next when the age of Artifical Intelligence dawns…