Save Parliamentary Democracy

This came my way yesterday, and I thought it was worth publicising.

The Government are trying to pass a bill that will enable them to create laws completely by-passing parliament. That means, without any parliamentary debate, the government (0r any future government) could:
Create new offenses punishable by two years imprisonment.
Abolish trial by jury.
Allow the Home Secretary to put someone under house arrest.
Allow the Prime Minister to sack judges.
Rewrite the law on nationality and immigration.
“Reform” Magna Carta (or what remains of it).

Essentially this would be an amendment to the British constitution, that is trying to get passed without anyone noticing.

So please take a look at some of these links, and write to your MP.

Save Parliament

Letter to the Times from six Cambridge Law Professors

Letter to the Times from David Howarth, MP

Comments

Anonymous said…

Well, it was - sort of - in the Queen's Speech... it's known as a "Henry VIII" bill in the trade. What is, if possible, even more alarming, is that had the Conservatives won the last election they had plans to do pretty much the same thing.

8:39 pm

Radical?

When I started this blog nearly 4 years and nearly 300 posts ago one of the labels I used for it/me was "radical." Perhaps I used it a little unreflectively. Recently I've been pondering what radical means. A couple of things have made me think of this. Firstly this blog series from my friend Jeremy, which explores a distinction between "radical progressives" and "rational progressives." There is also this definition of radical, liberal and conservative from Terry Eagleton quoted at Young Anabaptist Radicals : “Radicals are those who believe that things are extremely bad with us, but they could feasibly be much improved. Conservatives believe that things are pretty bad, but that’s just the way the human animal is. And liberals believe that there’s a little bit of good and bad in all of us.” What interests me is finding a way to express the tension I feel sometimes between myself and the wider Unitarian movement. One way to express this is to say I tend

What does it mean to be non-creedal?

Steve Caldwell says "The problem here isn't humanism vs. theism for theist Unitarian Universalists -- it's the non-creedal nature of Unitarian Universalism" This is a good point. We need to think much more deeply about what it means to be a non-creedal religion. The first thing I want to say is that there is more than one possible understanding of non-creedalism. The Disciples of Christ are a non-creedal church, they say here : " Freedom of belief. Disciples are called together around one essential of faith: belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Persons are free to follow their consciences guided by the Bible, the Holy Spirit study and prayer, and are expected to extend that freedom to others." Quakers are also non-creedal and say here : Quakers have no set creed or dogma - that means we do not have any declared statements which you have to believe to be a Quaker. There are, however, some commonly held views which unite us. One accepted view is that th

What is Radical Christianity?

Radical Christianity is about encountering the God of love . It is first and foremost rooted in the discovery of a universal and unconditional source of love at the heart of reality and within each person. God is the name we give to this source of love. It is possible to have a direct and real personal encounter with this God through spiritual practice. We encounter God, and are nourished by God, through the regular practice of prayer, or contemplation. Radical Christianity is about following a man called Jesus . It is rooted in the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish prophet living under occupation of the Roman Empire two thousand years ago. It understands that's Jesus' message was the message of liberation. His message was that when we truly encounter God, and let God's love flow through us, we begin to be liberated from the powers of empire and violence and encounter the "realm of God" - an alternative spiritual and social reality rooted in love rather th

Reignite

Search This Blog