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Changing the law & rigging the system
"They wouldn’t want the majority people to vote, because they know they do not represent the majority..." -Martin Luther King Jr
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." -John F Kennedy
In the UK, it is becoming more difficult to vote and protest. UK citizens' rights of free speech and standing up for their human rights are becoming increasingly restricted.
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Rather than using law-making powers to make lives better for those that voted for them, the law is being manipulated to maintain their power for the powerful and ensure the wealthy can get more wealth.
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Politics is not solving the problems that the public face. So politics is being used to quell dissent to wear us down.
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Many of these laws were passed during the Conservative government pre-2024. However if it is unclear if the Labour Government will reverse these.
Make voting harder for people that won't vote Conservative
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The Elections Bill introduced mandatory voter ID at elections. It was slated as an attempt to prevent voter fraud- a problem which barely exists. There were 6 instances of voter fraud in the 2019 election. However, there are 3.5 million people in the UK without photo ID. The first time it was used at elections in May 2023, 10-25% of people were unable to vote.
It was admitted by senior Conservatives who were in government at the time that it was an election strategy to prevent people from voting who wouldn't normally vote Conservative. A study by Byline Times corroborated this, finding that producing photo ID made voting harder for the young, poor and ethnic minorities.
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Tory peer, Lord Cruddas, states in a speech: "If Labour wins a big majority at the next election they will reduce the voting age to 16, they will abolish voter ID, and they will introduce proportional representation making it almost impossible for the Conservative Party to win an outright majority in the future”.
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Former Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg was also quoted as saying "“Parties that try and gerrymander end up finding their clever scheme comes back to bite them, as dare I say we found by insisting on voter ID for elections”
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In addition, the Elections Bill removes the 15 year limit on Britons living overseas to vote. Importantly, this extension of voting rights allows people living overseas more opportunity to donate to political parties. ​​​​
Limiting protest rights and stop free speech
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Many of the rights we enjoy today were won through protest. Our freedoms are our rights, they're not a gift from the state. It is a right for the majority to hold powerful elites to account and highlight important issues to a wider audience. Protest works, which is why the powerful want to stop it.
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Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill allows the police to control or shut down protests that are too annoying or making too much noise. There is serious punishment for non-compliance, increasing criminalisation of traditional protest tactics which have proved successful in the past.
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The Public Order Bill redefines what protest is and gives the government power to decide what an "acceptable" level of protest is. It pre-emptively limits someone's action to exercise their rights, so people can be arrested even before they do anything illegal. It also expands the power of the police to stop and search people without suspicion. It is also deliberately vague and open to interpretation. UN Human Rights Chief has called for a reversal of the "deeply troubling" bill, deemed as "incompatible with the UK’s international human rights obligations regarding people’s rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association". All of this limits the effectiveness of protest as a means of creating change in society.
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In 2024, an "independent" report was published on political violence and extremism. The author of the report is John Woodcock (also known as Lord Walney). The recommendations would severely crack down on protest and restrict the rights to demonstrate. Woodcock's recommendations include:
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Protest organisers are financially responsible for damage to business, by allowing business to sue them.
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Force protest group to pay for their own policing to reduce frequency of organising
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Buffer zones around MP and local council offices and Parliament
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Ban groups to organise or fundraise if they have civil disobedience policies
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Extra protection for defence and energy companies
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Greater scope and grounds for police to prevent a protest taking place, e.g., if it is risk to public order or is deemed intimidating
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Broadening the definition of "encouraging terrorism"
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As discussed in the below video, a lot of political progress made in the past century would not be able to go ahead under Woodcock's recommendations. ​
Woodcock would know all about alternative ways to pressure government other than protest, as he is a lobbyist for arms and energy firms (which he singles out for specific protection in his "independent" report).
Removing rights for employees to protest working conditions
Britain has some of the most restrictive trade union laws in Europe.
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However, The Minimum Service Levels bill wants to make it harder still for workers to collectively bargain. It would force workers across health, education, fire, transport, nuclear decommissioning and border security to cross picket lines or face getting fired. This would make striking in these sectors virtually impossible as they would be too ineffective to be noticeable.
The bill is also ironic, because it applies to sectors such as nursing, who have not had minimum safety levels for years due to government austerity. They have never been held accountable for this, which is grossly unfair. This move is to further discipline the majority from having power to stand up for their rights.
Removing rights of the world's most vulnerable people
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The Illegal Migration bill will give the government the power to ignore the human rights of refugees, asylum seekers and victims of trafficking. It will allow them to avoid scrutiny and reduce ability to appeal decisions.​
Leaving the European Convention on Human Rights ​
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As the status quo in politics become harder to defend, apologists are looking at more extreme solutions to scapegoat from the problems that they created. One of these is leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (EHCR).
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However the arguments made are not good faith. First, although the European Court is based in Strasbourg, France, it is not a “foreign court”. The United Kingdom has a driving force in creating it, led by Winston Churchill with British lawyers were key to drafting the text. It was created in 1951 to enshrine basic rights to every human, ensuring the atrocities that preceded WWII and the holocaust could never be repeated.
The ECHR acts as guardrails against politicians of-the-day with fringe views that could be dangerous. Elected politicians are not legally allowed to do whatever they want and it is important that they cannot. These protections also exist in UK law, as the below social media community note shows.​
Anti-ECHR campaigners cite migration as the sole justification for leaving, however leaving the EHCR would have far more far reaching implications for Britain.
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Everyone is protected under the ECHR. The freedoms we enjoy are part of that, and removing ourselves from it, even by using a single factor as a pretence (such as migration), puts at risk all other rights we have. Either everyone has human rights or no-one does.
Some examples where the EHCR has protected and advanced human rights in the UK include:
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Freedom of expression for the press
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The decriminalisation of homosexual acts in Northern Ireland
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Removing the ban of LGBT+ people from serving in the Armed Forces
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Ensuring employers respect the religious freedom of their employees.
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Emphasising the state's duty to provide disabled people with appropriate care.
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Underpinning the Good Friday agreement. Therefore abandoning the EHCR puts this peace at risk. [source: Liberty]
