The House of Lords considered the government's draconian public order Bill last night and according to the Guardian inflicted a series of defeats on the government. These included moves to stop:
- a measure to let police exercise stop and search without suspicion to tackle disruptive demonstrations.
- the use of protest banning orders
- sanction being imposed against people who had not been convicted of any offence
- a ban on slow marching.
This is all very welcome and shows that there is some sense in some parts of the Uk legislature, albeit that it is uncomfortable that it is in the unelected art of it.
Unfortunately, the moves do not necessarily mean that the Bill is defeated. The Bill will return to the Commons who will no doubt reinstate these provisions. But as this was not a manifesto issue the Lords can continue to object, and I suspect that they will.
It is welcome that the Lords are fighting this cause. It is grim that our human rights depend upon them and the absurd process of parliamentary ping-pong which will now ensue. We deserve better than this.
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“to stop …. restrictions on the use of protest banning orders” ?? Surely the opposite (at least I hope so!).
As The Guardian reports: “peers backed restrictions on the use of protest banning orders”
I will edit…
It is ironic that of all the constitutional problems of the UK, the change that would be easiest to make in isolation – elected membership of the Upper House – carries such a risk of taking away the only significant check on a rogue government that currently exists in practice.
Since it seems unlikely that a future government will address wider constitutional issues with any urgency, it is particularly important that replacement of the Lords doesn’t simply create a copy-cat Commons more interested in partisan point-scoring than the interests of the country. Those thinking about it need to avoid losing the benefit of having a significant core of engaged cross-bench Parliamentarians, and I am not sure simply using PR and overlapping election terms will achieve that.
[…] The Lords are fighting back against fascism Richard Murphy […]
Like it or not, the Lords is frequently a voice of reason, in contrast to the knee jerk populism of the Commons, and often in defence of human rights and such principles of democracy as we have.