Right so the public order bill was passed into law just before the Coronation, signed off into Royal Assent hurriedly by old sausage fingers to ensure the police had the full powers of this new law at their disposal to do away with Night Star volunteers ensuring people were OK on London’s streets the night before and also to shut down Republic protesters or Just Stop Oil demonstrators from ruining the day because God forbid protest cause inconvenience, I mean, that’s only literally the point of a protest right? The police came in for a public rinsing in light of their overtly heavy handed approach, they claim to have been leant on, that has not ever been followed up on that I’ve seen, but you can only assume the Home Office ordered that, did it come from Suella Braverman herself as Home Secretary, or was it just her policing ministerial minion Chris Philip? We just don’t know. Given it’s the Met it could just be excuses, they’ve made plenty in recent times.
Anyway, you’d think it was over then wouldn’t you maybe? Fallen out of the news now? Au contraire mes amis, the fight within parliament has continued. The Tories lost a vote in the House of Lords regarding what counted as ‘serious disruption.’ They wanted this to mean anything other than minor disruption, so there was no middle ground, no room for circumstance or intent to be questioned and queried, just a black and white cut off between what counted as minor and what didn’t which regardless what it might be would be considered serious disruption, with the restrictions and the sentencing that carries with it. Functionally this meant peaceful protest, no matter how disruptive, the whole point of a protest of course, has been protected. This is why you’ve still seen slow marches blocking roads for example, it isn’t serious disruption. It might wind you up if you’re stuck in it, it might be annoying, but it isn’t causing harm, it isn’t causing damage, you might not agree with the tactics, I’m not a fan myself, but appreciate for one moment why these people are protesting to begin with. Anyway. The Lord’s removed this bit of the Public Order Bill, it was not allowed to be re-added at third reading before the bill was passed, so the Public Order Bill, intended to crack down pretty much on the likes of Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion, wasn’t as tough as the government would have liked. Well the Tories haven’t given up and feeling thoroughly affronted at democracy blocking them from the authoritarianism they wanted rammed through, they’re now trying to get this passed anyway, but via the backdoor, with so called secondary legislation. Now this is dirty. Secondary legislation is supposed to be used to fill in the gaps, add in the detail of primary legislation such as the Public Order Bill that has already been passed, it is not there to put back in bits of the primary legislation that got voted down, that is totally undemocratic, it’s the sort of s**t dictators pull. The excuse is this is perfectly legal, it’s simply an amendment to existing law, which secondary legislation can be used for, for example a new drug appearing on the market can be added into the Misuse of Drugs Act without the need to bother parliament, that is what this mechanism is for, not to slip back in something which has been voted on in and of itself, voted down, the government barred at the time from adding it back in and now thinking, ah, well sod the Lords, we’ll just slide it back in later. Due to the nature of secondary legislation being about the minutiae of an Act, minor changes, it doesn’t get debated in parliament, so by going about things in this sneaky way, the government is also avoiding Commons scrutiny too, not taking up parliamentary time. It also, crucially, cannot be amended. So you can see here how this is an abuse of executive power going on here. However, the House of Lords has a secondary legislation scrutiny committee and anything of this nature coming down the line does get looked at by them and whereas on any given normal day it would just be a case of nodding through a minor change, like the drugs example I gave before, they are not happy with this one and have flagged it up as something warranting special attention. They issued a statement on this saying: "As well as not justifying the substance of the provisions, the Home Office has not provided any reasons for bringing the measures back in the form of secondary legislation, which is subject to less scrutiny, so soon after they were rejected in primary legislation.
“We are not aware of any examples of this approach being taken in the past; the House may wish to verify this with the Minister. We believe this raises possible constitutional issues that the House may wish to consider."
Functionally what is happening here is a first. Suella Braverman, who’s Bill this obviously is, we’ve seen enough of her bleating about protesters to know this, is basically trying to use secondary legislation to directly overturn the will of parliament. The Lord’s voted this down. It was blocked as a result from being reinserted into the Public Order Bill at third reading, they killed off what Braverman wanted to deem serious protest, basically anything more than standing on the roadside with a placard in reverent silence. A end not just to slow walking in roads, but an end to protest right outside parliament on parliament square, the marches to Downing Street, all would be outlawed and Braverman is trying to get this through without scrutiny, despite having had it voted down, democracy be damned she wants her way and won’t let a pesky thing like the law or rules it seems stop her. It could trigger a constitutional crisis of course. If this function of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of parliament can be subverted and rendered pointless that’s one heck of a dangerous precedent to set. Surely Labour are all set to oppose this in the Lords then Damo, you might be thinking and if you recall, you might remember that Keir Starmer ordered his peers to abstain on blocking the passage of this bill, which ought to alarm protesting trade unions quite frankly that their party, that they may well be funding, just sat on their hands as this passed and if you or they wanted a change of heart and some action to be seen from them here, you can forget it. They’re putting forward a motion of regret, basically saying we’re voting to say this isn’t very nice and that’s about that. If passed it would go down as a strongly worded letter of complaint in effect, having zero impact on the rule change being passed. Opposition in the Lords does exist though and no less than a fatal motion has been tabled against this legislation by, Green Party peer Jenny Jones. This is the strongest opposition, the House of Lords can take and if democratic process in parliament is basically at stake here, no Lord should sit on their hands and not support it. A fatal motion kills off legislation, it does exactly what it says it does and this has been tabled for the 13th June. These things are so rarely used, the last time a fatal motion by the Lord’s was triggered was 8 years ago, when the Lord’s took issue with cuts to Tax Credits, David Cameron intent on continuing austerity with his small majority as he had at that time, continuing his war on the poor and the Lords took issue with it. Got Dodgy Dave so mad he threatened Lords reform and almost triggered a mini constitutional crisis over it as he spat his dummy. Cameron was just cruel, but what we’re seeing now shouldn’t even be legal and undermines the House of Lords, whatever you think of it, as a mechanism to hold government to account. We have enough toothless statutory bodies in this country, without the Lords becoming another. This passing sets a dangerous precedent, a Green peer is leading the fightback, every Lord should follow suit frankly if they want their place to remain relevant, if this fails the government will be able to pass literally anything they want. Jenny Jones herself has said: “This is a make-or-break moment for parliamentary democracy. The Lords defeated the government on this issue and the Minister is now acting like a seventeenth-century monarch by using a decree to reverse that vote.
“What is the point of Parliament if a Minister can just ignore the outcome of debates and votes by imposing draconian laws on the public?”
“This is not a one-off, but part of a trend of legislation that undermines parliamentary democracy by giving Ministers increasing powers to make, delete or change laws. In the last four years, we have seen a series of skeleton bills pass through parliament that hand over powers and discretion to Ministers to make decisions with minimal parliamentary scrutiny." Couldn’t have said it better myself and I’ve waffled on for long enough trying. You’d think this would be making headline news wouldn’t you? Yeah…not with our media, especially with a Green leading the fightback, God forbid they get any coverage, I really can’t imagine why(!) but that’s why you’re here watching independent media instead and once you’ve liked, shared and subscribed to the channel to ensure you are getting the important stuff that the press baron media aren’t interested in, doesn’t affect them after all, you can see that trying it on is Suella Braverman’s stock in trade, not even stopping short of breaking the law necessarily as you can see in my video recommendation here. Plenty more content to see after you’re done with that, stick with the channel, hundreds of vids on offer to keep you busy, keep you informed, new stuff out daily, so I’ll see you on the next one. Cheers folks.