There have almost never been good guys, but when have the people who have suppressed peaceful protest been the less bad guys? Why enact the Public Order Act, or the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act, or the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act, or the Nationality and Borders Act, or the Elections Act, or the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act? Why seek to enact the Online Safety Bill, or the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, or the National Security Bill? Why empower the home secretary to strip people of their British citizenship without having to give any reason, and even if that rendered them stateless, and now without even having to tell them?
The only possible reason is so that those powers should be used. Where they already exist, then they are already being used. Wayne Couzens could not now be arrested. He used his valid warrant card, and his Police issue handcuffs, so nothing that he did with them could ever now be a criminal offence. That is the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act, on which Labour abstained and which it would not repeal. It would not repeal any of the measures listed above. It would use them to their full extent, and it would turn a blind eye when they were exceeded, if they could be.
Thankfully, there is going to be a hung parliament next year. To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.
Yours faithfully,
David Lindsay
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