PARLIAMENTARY ANTI-FREE SPEECH ACTIVISM

 

PARLIAMENTARY ANTI-FREE SPEECH ACTIVISM

 

Looking beyond the current froth of the Conservative leadership election it is noteworthy how large a majority there seems to be in parliament across all the British Establishment parties, to crack down on free speech and on many traditional English civil liberties. 

 

The On-Line Harms Bill in particular is a Bill that would give concern to any who cares at all for free speech.  In addition to that, there is the clamp down on the right to protest whereby you will be able to get up to 10 years imprisonment for taking part in a protest where you could “Annoy” somebody!  You might think that annoying those people that you are protesting against might be the obvious purpose of such a protest! 

 

We also have the whole “Cancel Culture” phenomenon whereby those members of the Statist Multi-culturalist Establishment who now control many of our public institutions are able to prevent people hearing any contrary narrative.  There was also, of course, the whole Orwellian displacement of free speech during the “Pandemic”.  We were not allowed to protest or otherwise tweet. Also we were not allowed to even tweet anything that disputed their narrative. Anything broadcast on any of the Mainstream Media which challenged the narrative was also banned.

 

We can see where all this is heading towards.  It may not be long before anyone challenging the new British Establishment, or Multi-culturalism, or Globalism, or Internationalism, is likely to be arrested.

 

We saw some of that with a Reclaim activist who merely re-tweeted Laurence Fox’s jokey meme transforming the LGBGTQ+ flag into a Swastika being arrested by Hampshire Police for the possibility for having “Offended” somebody.

 

England was once known for our Rule of Law and our Freedoms - but no longer.  The British authorities think that the Rule of Law is us doing what they tell us to do, which shows us how far gone they are, as the whole point of the Rule of Law was that the authorities were restricted in what they could do by Law. 

 

It is however, as it often is, worth delving back into history to see whether there are any parallels in the past. 

 

I have recently been reading extracts from William Cobbett’s “Rural Rides” from the 1820’s.  William Cobbett was amongst many other attributes of this very able man, a radical politician, who was then called radical for being in favour of universal suffrage i.e. the right of everyone to vote!

 

In 1819 the Parliament passed a series of Six Acts which made it the crime of sedition even to criticise Parliament.  The consequence was that William Cobbett, along with many other “radical” politicians, was regularly being arrested and sometimes locked up for simply criticising the Government and Parliament. 

 

It did take 12 years of campaigning to succeed in getting the enactment of the Great Reform Act in 1832 which brought Cobbett into Parliament and onto the Front Bench and radically changed politics.  By the end of that century we had universal manhood suffrage and less than 100 years later in 1927, we had universal adult suffrage. 

 

The point that I am making is that looking back into history we can now barely imagine the mind-set of a Parliament which opposed widening the franchise so viciously that it would have its opponents locked up! 

 

This is a vivid example of just how wrong headed the current Establishment approach may be in criminalising its opponents.  They are thereby demonstrating that they do not really have very good arguments for their position!

 

Of course, if they did have good arguments, they would be using them, rather than trying to close down our arguments which they fear are likely to beat theirs!

 

My message therefore is don’t be discouraged.  However bad the positon may appear to be now it doesn’t mean that the counter arguments are lost.

 

 

Extracts from our Reply to the Government's Summary Grounds of Defence

Extracts from our Reply to Summary Grounds of Defence

 

“It is not..contrary to first principles of constitutional law to challenge the making of an Act, as Lord Justice Laws observed in the Thoburn case, a later Act does not override a Constitutional Act.  The key Constitutional Acts which are being overridden are the Human Rights Act and still more importantly the 1689 Bill of Rights, which as it was putting into effect the new Constitution agreed in the Constitution and Convention of 1689, known as the Declaration of Right, it cannot properly be overridden by any subsequent Act without a Constitutional Convention or equivalent process, such as a referendum.  The Scottish Laws long held that there is a limit to the constitutional remit of legislation and that there is in effect an over-arching constitutional structure and the Supreme Court, in the Prorogation of Parliament case, followed the Scottish decision, finding that even a Royal Prerogative decision, such as Proroguing Parliament, must be consistent with the over-arching constitutional framework.  And in so far as the Coronavirus Act is not in conformity with the Human Rights Act or the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Rights 1689, it is respectfully submitted that is unconstitutional and illegal, so far as it is in breach of the English Constitution and should be null and void, but in so far as it is in breach of the Human Convention of European Rights then under the Human Rights Act the remedy is as indicated a Declaration of Incompatibility. 

 

So far as the Regulations are concerned and there is an on-going tsunami of Regulations, most being made not under emergency legislation, but instead under the 1984 Act which does not even purport to grant powers to Ministers to override basic constitutional freedoms and liberties.  The Regulations and continuing amendments should be set aside and, whereas the specific regulations have been overtaken, the legal principles remain relevant as the Government is continuing to issue a torrent of Regulations purportedly under the 1984 Act which are constitutionally improper.  It is noted of course that the response to the Claimant’s case rests heavily on the decision of Mr Justice Swift in the Dolan case, for which Permission to Appeal has been granted by Lord Justice Hickinbottom, albeit the hearing before the Court of Appeal has been postponed.  The fact that Permission to Appeal has been granted, it is respectfully submitted, shows that the Mr Justice Swift’s decision is challengeable and is not yet through the process of precedent an inherent part of the law. 

 

So far as Guidance is concerned, the Government has repeatedly issued Guidance which is not an accurate or fair reflection of the Regulations that they have produced and again in the interests of constitutional propriety, the fact that they have now changed the Guidance, that was the target initially of criticism of these proceedings, does not make it a moot point, when the Government is continuing to behave in such a way.”

 

I have also looked again at Lord Justice Law’s Judgment on Thoburn.  I thought that paragraphs 62, 63 and 69 were exceptionally well worth considering and I accordingly copy and quote them in full as follows:-

Thoburn v Sunderland City Council [2002] EWHC 195 (Admin) (18 February 2002)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2002/195.html
Cite as: [2002] EWHC 195 (Admin), [2002] 3 WLR 247, [2003] QB 151

 

62. Where does this leave the constitutional position which I have stated? Mr Shrimpton would say that Factortame (No 1) was wrongly decided; and since the point was not argued, there is scope, within the limits of our law of precedent, to depart from it and to hold that implied repeal may bite on the ECA as readily as upon any other statute. I think that would be a wrong turning. My reasons are these. In the present state of its maturity the common law has come to recognise that there exist rights which should properly be classified as constitutional or fundamental: see for example such cases as Simms [2000] 2 AC 115 per Lord Hoffmann at 131, Pierson v Secretary of State [1998] AC 539, Leech [1994] QB 198, Derbyshire County Council v Times Newspapers Ltd. [1993] AC 534, and Witham [1998] QB 575. And from this a further insight follows. We should recognise a hierarchy of Acts of Parliament: as it were "ordinary" statutes and "constitutional" statutes. The two categories must be distinguished on a principled basis. In my opinion a constitutional statute is one which (a) conditions the legal relationship between citizen and State in some general, overarching manner, or (b) enlarges or diminishes the scope of what we would now regard as fundamental constitutional rights. (a) and (b) are of necessity closely related: it is difficult to think of an instance of (a) that is not also an instance of (b). The special status of constitutional statutes follows the special status of constitutional rights. Examples are the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights 1689, the Act of Union, the Reform Acts which distributed and enlarged the franchise, the HRA, the Scotland Act 1998 and the Government of Wales Act 1998. The ECA clearly belongs in this family. It incorporated the whole corpus of substantive Community rights and obligations, and gave overriding domestic effect to the judicial and administrative machinery of Community law. It may be there has never been a statute having such profound effects on so many dimensions of our daily lives. The ECA is, by force of the common law, a constitutional statute.

 

63.Ordinary statutes may be impliedly repealed. Constitutional statutes may not. For the repeal of a constitutional Act or the abrogation of a fundamental right to be effected by statute, the court would apply this test: is it shown that the legislature's actual – not imputed, constructive or presumed – intention was to effect the repeal or abrogation? I think the test could only be met by express words in the later statute, or by words so specific that the inference of an actual determination to effect the result contended for was irresistible. The ordinary rule of implied repeal does not satisfy this test. Accordingly, it has no application to constitutional statutes. I should add that in my judgment general words could not be supplemented, so as to effect a repeal or significant amendment to a constitutional statute, by reference to what was said in Parliament by the minister promoting the Bill pursuant to Pepper v Hart [1993] AC 593. A constitutional statute can only be repealed, or amended in a way which significantly affects its provisions touching fundamental rights or otherwise the relation between citizen and State, by unambiguous words on the face of the later statute.

 

69. (2) The ECA is a constitutional statute: that is, it cannot be impliedly repealed. (3) The truth of (2) is derived, not from EU law, but purely from the law of England: the common law recognises a category of constitutional statutes. (4) The fundamental legal basis of the United Kingdom's relationship with the EU rests with the domestic, not the European, legal powers. In the event, which no doubt would never happen in the real world, that a European measure was seen to be repugnant to a fundamental or constitutional right guaranteed by the law of England, a question would arise whether the general words of the ECA were sufficient to incorporate the measure and give it overriding effect in domestic law. But that is very far from this case.”

 

 

 

JUDGE BRETT KAVANAUGH, THE LEFT’S CULTURE WAR AND THE US SUPREME COURT NOMINATION PROCESS

JUDGE BRETT KAVANAUGH, THE LEFT’S CULTURE WAR AND THE US SUPREME COURT NOMINATION PROCESS

Over the last few weeks we have been “treated” to the all too typical unbalanced and hysterical mis-reporting of any issue which our indigenous Left-wing media types have aligned themselves with - which they do if Left-wing Americans have strong views on any issue.

The latest and in many ways the most appalling example of this was the treatment in America by cynical and manipulative Left-wing “Democrat” Senators, spearheaded by the Senator Feinstein.  They sought, on the flimsiest evidence (which wouldn’t even have got as far as a decision to prosecute from any unbiased and professional prosecutor in any common law jurisdiction), to trash the reputation of Judge Kavanaugh. 

It should be borne in mind that this is a Judge who had been serving for many years, with a generally strong professional approval rating, in the second most important appeal court in the United States!

What was proposed by the President Trump therefore was simply a one-step promotion for this Judge.  This is equivalent to promoting a Judge from the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court.

Judge Kavanaugh himself would, 50 years ago, have been thought to be a completely normal and unexceptional candidate to be one of the most important American Judges.  

He is not only a well-respected lawyer in practice but also has had an excellent track record as a Judge.  As an individual he appears to be a practicing and principled Roman Catholic, who is happily and faithfully married with children.  These days it seems that being a white, heterosexual, married, professional, Christian family man is unacceptable to the increasingly multiculturalist, Left-wing American party which, with unwitting irony, still calls itself the “Democrats”!

The reason that these Leftists have behaved in the appalling way that they did towards such a decent and respectable candidate wasn’t just that he was nominated by Donald Trump (who of course all Leftists in the United States and those working in the British “mainstream” media loath), but also because Judge Brett Kavanaugh has shown himself to be a lawyer who believes in constitutionalism.  This means that he does not think it is the role of the Supreme Court to invent new rules in order to justify and legitimise current social fashions.  On the contrary Judge Kavanaugh appears to be the sort of Judge who seeks to apply the law accurately and literally.   This doesn’t suit the so-called “Democrats” because they want Judges who will legitimise their increasingly mad rainbow multi-culturalist agenda. 

Judge Kavanaugh wasn’t even particularly a supporter of Donald Trump.  Judge Kavanaugh comes from the more traditionalist Republican Party.  Given his treatment however I suspect he is much stronger in his support of Donald Trump than he was before!

What Donald Trump brought to this fight is something that has not been seen amongst the leaders of so-called conservative parties for many years in the West, which is an iron determination not to be cowed by Leftist smear tactics and indeed to fight back vigorously. 

This is a much more gutsy approach than we are used to here.  In this case it has led to a tremendous political victory for Donald Trump and the Republican Party.  They have now established a conservative majority on the Supreme Court which will be of the greatest significance to American politics for many years to come.

These cultural divides are politically crucial nowadays because America’s Constitution has, through decades of Supreme Court rulings, made them the subject of national political debate.  The traditional understanding that the federal Constitution debate underlining, and especially the First Amendment, did not apply to the individual states was overruled in a series of cases between 1925 and 1947.  Since then, virtually every major issue concerning traditional Christian views of morality has been decided via a Supreme Court decision, not by legislation.  As a result cultural questions have been made legislative in a way the drafters of the US Constitution sought to prevent, and so control of the US Supreme Court is thus vital to each side’s interests.

Also President Trump has proved beyond all doubt his usefulness as a dauntless leader of the Republican Party at a time when the appalling behaviour of Democrats has made Republican voters realise how much is at stake in their “Culture War”. 

It would be great to see that willingness to fight spilling over across the Atlantic to our people here in England.  Unfortunately what I tend to find is that most people don’t understand what has happened in this fight and what the issues were.

I did however see this YouTube interview which gives an excellent explanation of the situation.  

Click here to view the interview>>> Katrina Pierson: ‘Destructive’ Dems Miscalculate ‘Women Think with Their Genitals,’ Backfiring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOXZafZ3gXI

What do you think?