Where was the Tory outrage over the attacks on liberty over photo ID for elections or the attacks on the right to protest?
The rank hypocrisy of the Tory libertarians opposed to Covid restrictions, is quite something. This month 99 of them voted against tougher measures to combat the spread of the virus, invoking liberty as the reason they chose to do so.
Many voted against Covid passports as well as the wearing of masks, with Tory MP Marcus Fysh claiming ‘we’re not a ‘papers please’, society. Yet the same Tory MPs decrying the perils of a ‘paper please’ society had absolutely no issue supporting plans for photo ID to be made compulsory at elections, which could disfranchise millions of voters. Where was the staunch defence of liberty by Tory libertarians then?
Wasn’t this also a ‘massive imposition on our liberties, a massive attack on personal freedom’ as Fysh claimed against the vaccine passports. What about the government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill which is currently in its committee stage in the Lords?
It contains a fundamental assault on our liberty and democratic rights, allowing police to prevent demonstrations they deem too noisy or causing “serious disruption”. The human rights group Liberty has said that the Bill ‘contains a concerted attack on the right to protest, arrived at through several different means from amending previous legislation to extend the police’s already extensive powers, to creating new offences, and targeting the manner, the method, the location and even the volume of demonstrations.”
It further adds: “Taken together, these provisions would radically restrict not only our deeply cherished principles of freedom of assembly and expression, but also a vital tool and mechanism available to citizens of democratic countries to stand up to the State and make their voices heard.”
Wouldn’t the same Tory MPs who railed against the ‘attack on our liberties’ because of Covid restrictions be against such an illiberal law? Not a single Tory MP voted against the government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill at its third reading.
Then there’s the Nationality and Borders Bill, a bill that would see millions, and ethnic minorities and Muslims in particular, become eligible to be deprived of their citizenship without warning. It also criminalises asylum seekers.
You would also think that a basic principle of law, that people should know about a decision that adversely affects their rights, would be protected. Yet depriving people of their citizenship without warning throws that principle out of the window.
What all of this shows is that the Tory libertarians have a rather selective and hypocritical approach to liberty.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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