UK
'Right to strike' protest planned for town centre
Shuiab Khan
Mon, 30 January 2023
The demonstration will take place outside the town hall (Image: LT)
A 'right to strike' protest will be held in Blackburn town centre in response to proposed legislation which looks to curtail industrial action.
Blackburn and District Trades Union Council is organising the demonstration at 12.30pm outside the town hall on Wednesday, February 1, the same day National Education Union members walk out over pay and conditions.
Speakers will include CWU Regional Secretary Carl Webb, Jenny Pollard from PCS and Andrew Pratt from the NEU.
Organisers say the Government is 'proposing legislation to undermine the impact of strikes in some sectors' and 'pass a law that will allow employers to dictate to individuals that they must work even when they are in dispute'.
Blackburn and District Trades Union Council President, Vikki Dugdale, said: “The timing and scope of this muddled idea shows it is really just a reaction to the current cost-of-living strikes by a Government that thinks it can solve anything by giving itself new powers.
"Strikes in transport and education can be inconvenient, but there are really no public safety issues at stake.
"Where public safety might be at risk, British trade unions have always provided emergency cover during industrial action – and they are the best people to do this, having an interest and investment in making that cover effective.
“We are workers, not conscripts or slaves. This is an affront to liberty and democracy, and nothing more than a blatant attempt to use the power of the state to frustrate workers' efforts simply not to continue getting poorer."
The Government says the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill would allow government to set minimum levels of service which must be met during strikes to ensure the safety of the public and their access to public services.
It added the bill would ensure crucial public services such as rail, ambulances, and fire services maintain a minimum service during industrial action, reducing risk to life and ensuring the public can still get to work.
Business Secretary Grant Shapps said: "The first job of any government is to keep the public safe.
"While we absolutely believe in the ability to strike, we are duty-bound to protect the lives and livelihoods of the British people.
"I am introducing a bill that will give government the power to ensure that vital public services will have to maintain a basic function, by delivering minimum safety levels ensuring that lives and livelihoods are not lost.
"We do not want to have to use this legislation unless we have to, but we must ensure the safety of the British public."
Protesters removed from House of Lords as peers debate controversial laws
Demonstrators have disrupted proceedings in the House of Lords as peers debated controversial new protest laws.
The group of around 12 were escorted out of the public gallery by doorkeepers and security staff.
One of the protesters said they were from the environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion.
The protesters were all wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan Defend Human Rights.
The upper chamber was adjourned for five minutes.
The Public Order Bill would allow police to intervene before protests become “highly disruptive” and give officers greater clarity about dealing with demonstrators blocking roads or slow marching, the Government has said.
Amendments to the Bill are aimed at curbing the guerrilla tactics used by groups such as Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “At approximately 15:50 hours on Monday January 30 police were made aware of a protest in the public gallery of the House of Lords.
“The protesters were escorted from the gallery – there were no arrests.”
The Guardian view on Brexit’s unsound legal thinking: turning back the clock
Editorial
Mon, 30 January 2023
The government “should not proceed” with its bill of rights. That was the withering judgment delivered last week on Dominic Raab’s proposals by parliament’s joint committee on human rights. MPs and peers assessed the bill and correctly decided that the ideal outcome for the country was to drop the deeply flawed legislation. It’s not a bill of rights so much as a bill of wrongs. The cross-party committee said the justice secretary’s proposals would reduce the protections currently provided, make it harder to enforce human rights, and show contempt for international obligations.
The Conservative party in its present guise is determined to free the executive from accountability, and Mr Raab’s ideas are part of a power grab that includes attempts to restrict judicial review, the right of protest and freedom of expression. Making his bill law would see Britain turn its back on the gains made by human rights legislation. Major advances made by disabled people, same‐sex couples and Windrush victims would never have occurred under these proposals.
The committee’s report warns that had Mr Raab’s bill been enacted earlier, there would have been no challenge to the police’s flawed investigation into serial sex offender John Worboys and no Hillsborough inquest. Unsurprisingly, there is no significant backing from the public, the judiciary or civil society for Mr Raab’s bill. Neither the government-commissioned independent review nor the government’s consultation produced much support for the proposals.
Instead, the evidence was “overwhelmingly” against Mr Raab’s bill, which aims to repeal and replace the Human Rights Act. Since 2000 this law has allowed British people to enforce the rights afforded by the European convention on human rights in UK courts rather than going to Strasbourg. Mr Raab’s proposals plainly imply that the ECHR has been taken too far, with the bench unearthing new rights that were not in the text of the convention.
This a Brexit version of American rightwingers’ “originalist” legal argument. It sees the convention as the people who wrote it – in this case in the early 1950s – would have. This would upend the prevailing “living instrument” doctrine, where the convention is understood in the light of present-day conditions. The committee drily notes that the government wants to “encourage the courts to interpret convention rights as they would have been read in the 1950s, not the 21st century”.
Worse may be yet to come. The European court of human rights in Strasbourg applies the same principles across the 46 Council of Europe member states. Mr Raab has refused to rule out the UK leaving the convention in the future, putting Britain alongside rogue regimes like Russia and Belarus. The legal writer Joshua Rozenberg points out that this country has the best human rights record in Europe. Putting the UK, which had violated the convention in just two cases, on a par with Russia, with 374 violations until it was expelled over its Ukraine invasion last year, would be ludicrous, it seems, to all except Conservative ministers.
Even if Mr Raab leaves the cabinet, others are likely to take up the baton. Last August, Suella Braverman, the current home secretary, said it was a “national priority” to extricate the UK from the influence of the Strasbourg court. The good news is that Mr Rozenberg thinks it is “unlikely” that the bill would pass in its present form. It would be better if the legislation was dropped entirely.
SKY NEWS
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has urged peers to back "proper penalties" for disruptive protesters in a proposed new law.
The new powers would allow police officers to intervene before protests become "highly disruptive" and give them greater clarity about when they can intervene to stop demonstrators blocking roads or slow marching, the government said.
The amendments to the Public Order Bill are aimed at curbing tactics used by groups such as Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion, according to the home secretary.
On Monday, the bill reaches the report stage in the House of Lords, with debates on measures used by some protesters such as locking-on and tunnelling, the thresholds as to what point the police can intervene, and new stop and search powers.
Under the proposed changes, police would not need to wait for disruption to take place and could shut demonstrations down before they escalate.
Ahead of the debate, Ms Braverman said: "Enough is enough. Blocking motorways and slow walking in roads delays our life-saving emergency services, stops people getting to work and drains police resources.
"Around 75 days of Just Stop Oil action alone cost the taxpayer £12.5m in policing response. This is simply not fair on the British public.
"I urge colleagues across the House of Lords to pass this measure tonight - it is our duty to stand up for the law-abiding public and protect their right to go about their business."
The Public Order Bill is considered a successor to the controversial Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act passed last year, which was criticised for introducing curbs on the right to protest.
A Just Stop Oil spokesperson said: "Suella Braverman may borrow phrases from popular protest movements, but she is part of an anti-democratic minority that is on the wrong side of history.
Read more:
PM backs further crackdown on 'disruptive' protests
Extinction Rebellion 'to temporarily shift away from public disruption'
"The government is seeking to close all avenues for legitimate protest - by anyone about anything. The police already have adequate powers to arrest people for obstructing the highway."
Oliver Feeley-Sprague, the military, security and police programme director at Amnesty UK, said: "This bill, and its last-minute amendments, are deeply draconian and must be called out and rejected before it's too late.
"The right to protest is fundamental to a free and fair society - a right for which people have had to fight long and hard. Without the right to protest, everyone's ability to hold the powerful to account suffers.
"These types of restrictions are likely to have a chilling effect by seriously dissuading people from joining protests in the first place."
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