Four bills, one clear picture

Our democracy is under attack on all fronts.

Parliament has now broken up for the summer recess, but there are still four dangerous bills looming over us.

Together, these bills if passed will stop the Government being held to account in Parliament, in the streets and in the courts.

The Elections Bill is jam packed with proposals which threaten the integrity of our elections. The bill will neuter the election watchdog by putting it under the control of a committee of Conservative MPs and remove its power to propose criminal prosecutions.

Alongside this, the Elections Bill seeks to disenfranchise millions of people by requiring photo ID to vote. A tactic the Government has borrowed straight from the Republican Party playbook.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is also making its way through Parliament. In a recent survey, a lot of our supporters named this bill the ‘single most dangerous threat to our democracy’. 

The bill will restrict our right to protest by giving the police powers to limit protests deemed ‘a nuisance’ or ‘noisy’. Even more alarming, it gives them the power to ban a demonstration outright. 

And the Government’s attack on democracy does not stop there …..

The Judicial Review and Courts Bill was published last week. It is designed to make it harder for individuals to challenge unlawful decisions made by the Government and public bodies. The bill will limit the remedies that the courts can provide when the Government acts unlawfully. The president of the Law Society warns that this will have a ‘chilling effect on justice’.

The Government also wants to sneak through the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill, which will stop Parliament from having a say on when General Elections will be held. Instead, the power to call a General Election will be solely in the Prime Minister’s hands.

Each of these bills is worrying enough by itself. But put together, they make up a huge power grab by the Government and a concerted attempt to stop anyone from holding them to account. 

That is why 93% of our supporters believe that these bills will have a huge impact on our democracy. 

To make matters worse, these bills are not publicised enough by the media. 60% of our supporters stated that the media is doing a ‘very poor’ job of covering these threats to our democracy.

This is why Unlock Democracy will continue to draw attention to these bills, which together present a huge and sustained threat to our democracy.

Through passing these bills, the Government is trying to make itself untouchable.

We must stop them. 

Your support has never been more important as we gear up to fight for our democracy. 

Could you help us by making a donation to our campaign today?