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FREE speech and freedom of expression are under attack from the Conservative government.
Historically the left has been the champion of these rights against governments and states which have tried to constrain dissent through legislation and delegitimisation.
The Johnson government has already passed laws and is proposing new laws which will restrict freedom of expression.
This is a matter of concern for the whole trade union and labour movement. It is time to reaffirm the left’s tradition of defending freedom of speech and expression.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is going through Parliament.
The Institute of Employment Rights has described the 300-page Bill as a “Trojan horse” within which a wide range of measures are proposed which directly threaten the rights to demonstrate.
British Security Forces ‘Tricks’ are Still Around and the ‘Dirt’!
Another interesting article here from declassified that comments on the partition issue and asks if lessons have been learned;
“On the centenary of Ireland’s partition, Northern Ireland is changing. But the lessons from its recent violent ‘dirty war’, in which British agents colluded in killings, risk being ignored by the current British government.”
The article concludes that ‘lessons have not been learned’ and cites the recent ‘Covert Human Intelligence Sources Act’ and the original draft of the ‘Overseas Operations Bill’ designed to protect British military and Security personnel who commit war crimes including murder and torture.
THE series of Bills outlined in the Queen’s Speech show that this government marks a radical departure from its predecessors a radical shift rightwards.
Taken together the legislation proposed and laws already enacted make this a new type of authoritarian government in this country, one we have not seen previously in the era of the universal franchise.
No government which has Boris Johnson at its head and Priti Patel as its Home Secretary can be expected to be a champion of civil rights or a guardian against an over-mighty state. But this is something quite new.
Included in the Queen’s Speech are Bills that would disenfranchise millions of poorer and younger voters by barring those without photo ID. Black and Asian voters would also be disproportionately affected. This is straight out of the voter suppression tactics of the Southern US.
Colonial powers carved up land between them, dividing age-old settlements, tribes and indigenous peoples. A map of Africa can tell us that. Other maps show boundaries, the result of partitions by Britain that remain a cause of violent conflict in the Middle East, Asia and the United Kingdom.
This year, 3 May marks the centenary of the creation of Northern Ireland, made up of six of Ulster’s nine counties (widely but wrongly referred to as “The Province”). It is not a time for celebration, even by Unionists, who support the UK.
Two books have now been added to the voluminous library devoted to this troubled land. One considers its uncertain future, the other how it became the killing field for the Irish Republican Army (IRA), “loyalist’ paramilitary groups, the British army, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC the Northern Irish police force), aided and abetted by Britain’s domestic security agency, MI5.