I have a fear about what Yvette Cooper did last week. I believe that what she did in promoting the Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025 makes a mockery of the rule of law.<\/p>\n
When the law imposes penalties that are obviously disproportionate to the crime (if there has been a crime) committed, then those who seek to impose such sanctions do not uphold the rule of law, and all that flows from it. They do, instead, turn it into a laughing stock, the subject of ridicule, and something for which respect is lost across society.<\/p>\n
This is what I think is going to happen with regard to this law. Whatever the merits of the issue that the law claims to address (and this is not a matter open for discussion here now), the question is whether the penalties imposed are appropriate, which is a reasonable question to ask. The reason is that there is a long history of juries refusing to find people guilty of offences when they are aware of the possibility that a disproportionate and unreasonable penalty might be imposed as a result. I think that this might be the case when cases resulting from the regulation (and those now seem likely) are brought to court.<\/p>\n
The problem is not, however, ever limited to the one bad piece of law that has been promoted by a government. The discontent spreads very quickly, most especially when the government in question is already suffering a credibility problem.<\/p>\n
The issue then becomes one of government competence.<\/p>\n
And the question asked is whether they are simply abusing the rule of law for personal gain.<\/p>\n
Soon thereafter, doubts began to rise as to whether other law needs to be complied with, because if some law is obviously inappropriate, might not others be as well?<\/p>\n
Obviously, this has not happened yet in reaction to the events of last week, but what can be said with confidence is that Labour already looks like a lame duck government that has no idea what it is doing, and which never did have a clue as to why it wanted to be in office in the first place. Add to those obvious issues the fact that it has now passed a law that makes it a laughing stock because it obviously seeks to overturn natural justice and replace it with draconian measures, and its actions will lose, for many, whatever shred of credibility they once had.<\/p>\n
This is where Labour is going. There is no known road back from there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"