Demonstrators take part in a ‘Kill The Bill’ protest against The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, on College Green, Westminster, January 17, 2022
RIGHTS advocates have launched a campaign to overturn Tory legislation attacking the right to protest.
Liberty, formerly the National Council for Civil Liberties has condemned the government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 as part of a clear pattern in which the right to strike and the right to vote had also been attacked.
It has launched an online petition and is gathering signatures for a letter to Home Secretary James Cleverly calling on him to scrap the legislation.
Liberty director Akiko Hart said: “No matter where we live, our backgrounds, or who we vote for, we all want people in power to listen to our concerns and work to build a brighter future for us and our loved ones.
“But this government is clamping down on the ways we speak up on important issues. Most recently it has given the police dangerously broad powers to crack down on protests and arrest demonstrators.”
Ms Hart said Britain’s leaders are “criminalising protesters to hide from their own failings.”
“This is part of a clear pattern of shutting down the ways we can all hold them accountable for their actions,” she said.
“They have also created laws that stop workers from striking and block countless people from voting.”
Rishi Sunak met media representatives more than any other sector of the UK economy between July and September, analysis by Byline Times shows.
The Prime Minister met senior executives from Rupert Murdoch’s media empire alone four times in the space of three months, compared to just once for NHS representatives.
Sunak met Daily Mail editors twice in that time, while meeting housing sector figures once. Several of the meetings were listed as “social”, meaning they are unlikely to have been minuted. That includes meetings with the departing News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch, and separately, his son Lachlan who is taking over at the helm.
Every single one of the PM’s eight media meetings in that time is with right-leaning media outlets.
Journalism professor and Byline Times contributor Brian Cathcart said: “These depressing figures reveal just how close the connection is between the right-wing billionaire press and our multi-millionaire prime minister.
“Forget democracy and forget parliament: this is where the real power in this country resides, and worse still, what we see is just the tip of the iceberg. Contacts of this kind are maintained at every level of Government and are so intensive it’s impossible to say where press influence ends and Government begins.”
Then-U.S. President Donald Trump spoke to supporters near the White House on January 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
“Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president,” the state’s highest court found, citing his role in fomenting the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
This is a breaking news story… Please check back for possible updates.
Colorado’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that former U.S. President Donald Trump—the 2024 Republican presidential frontrunner—is barred from holding future office under the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause due to his incitement of the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack.
In a decision likely to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Colorado justices ruled 4-3 that Trump’s effort to thwart the peaceful transition of presidential power for the first time in the nation’s history rendered him constitutionally ineligible to hold elected office.
The majority found that a state court “did not err in concluding that President Trump engaged in… insurrection through his personal action” before and on January 6.
Enacted after the Civil War, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars from public office any “officer of the United States” who takes an oath to uphold the Constitution and subsequently participates in an insurrection or rebellion against the U.S. government.
“President Trump asks us to hold that Section 3 disqualifies every oath-breaking insurrectionist except the most powerful one and that it bars oath-breakers from virtually every office, both state and federal, except the highest one in the land,” the court said.
“The sum of these parts is this: President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president… because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the [secretary of state] to list him as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot,” the ruling states.
BREAKING: The Colorado Supreme Court holds, 4-3, that Trump "is disqualified" to be president under the Fourteenth Amendment, and "it would be a wrongful act" for him to be listed on the Colorado presidential primary ballot. More to come at Law Dork: https://t.co/oFbD0ZqThapic.twitter.com/REMOI7kpvm
“We do not reach these conclusions lightly,” the court stressed. “We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.
Last month, Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace ruled that Trump “engaged in insurrection” but allowed him to remain on the state’s 2024 presidential ballot because she determined he was not “an officer of the United States,” and therefore could not be proscribed from holding office under the insurrection clause.
This, despite Wallace citing examples in her ruling of times when the president has been considered an “officer of the United States.”
BIG NEWS! Colorado's Supreme Court has banned Trump from the state's primary ballot because the 14th Amendment bars insurrectionists from running for office. This will surely be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Here's what you need to know about the underlying argument. pic.twitter.com/bQGxVFnh23
The pro-democracy group Free Speech for People said in a statement that “this is a victory for the principle that a president who loses his re-election bid must step down peacefully, not launch a bloody insurrection to intimidate Congress, disrupt the electoral count, and remain in power after his term ends.”
Noah Bookbinder, president of the government accountability watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said in a statement that “the court’s decision today affirms what our clients alleged in this lawsuit: that Donald Trump is an insurrectionist who disqualified himself from office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment based on his role in the January 6th attack on the Capitol, and that [Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold] must keep him off of Colorado’s primary ballot.”
“It is not only historic and justified,” he added, “but is necessary to protect the future of democracy in our country.”
We’re up against industry giants at the British Journalism Awards for our work on the NHS, politics and civil rights
openDemocracy has been shortlisted for news provider of the year at the British Journalism Awards | openDemocracy
OpenDemocracy has been shortlisted for the most prestigious prize of its 22-year history: news provider of the year at the British Journalism Awards.
We are one of six news organisations to be shortlisted for the award, putting us up against industry giants Sky News, The Guardian, The Times, the Daily Mail, and the Financial Times.
The news follows a year in which openDemocracy broke scandal after scandal in the UK, revealing the hands of lobbyists, corporations and vested interests behind crucial decisions about the NHS, housing, the Covid inquiry and restrictions on protest.
Satbir Singh, the CEO of openDemocracy, said: “Being shortlisted for an award of this size is such a well-deserved boost for this brilliant team. And being up against five much larger newsrooms shows we really do punch above our weight.
“I’m extremely proud of how far we’ve come and look forward to our next chapter.”
Ramzy Alwakeel, the head of news, said: “I’m beyond proud of everyone. To come out of this year with our biggest-ever award nomination is a giant credit to this team’s brilliance and commitment.”
openDemocracy reporter Adam Bychawski has also been individually shortlisted in the health and life sciences category.
Transformative politics and a renewed commitment to democracy are needed if we’re to build a more equal, sustainable and peaceful world, writes JEREMY CORBYN MP
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
…
Devoid of solutions for the crises they have created, the Tories have resorted to punching down on the most marginalised people in our society.
Rishi Sunak’s speech was an equally spineless charade. Not a word on housing. Nothing on social care. Does he care 4.2 million children live in poverty? Does he know that we’re sleepwalking into climate catastrophe?
Having witnessed this horror show of fear, despair and division, the Labour Party has a choice this week in Liverpool.
Do we let their hatred spread unchallenged? Or do we offer an alternative of inclusion, equality and hope? Do we allow them to convince the British public that inequality and poverty are inevitable? Or do we mobilise around the possibility of a better world?
Unprecedented crises call for bold solutions. That means building a new economy that satisfies human needs, not corporate greed.
…
There is a reason why these demands for a more equal, sustainable and peaceful world are not being made by the Labour leadership.
The absence of transformative ideas has been caused by a dearth of democracy. This year marks 50 years since we founded the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy.
We did this to empower party members and expand their rights. Today, these rights are under attack up and down the country.
Local branches like my own are being sidelined, party members are being silenced and democracy is being stifled. This is not coincidental to the drastic political shift away from our redistributive programme.
Our transformative policies from 2017 and 2019 were not imposed from the top. They were developed, formulated and defended by members and affiliates.
That is how it should be. Democracy is the foundation of the Labour Party. It is essential to a healthy, creative and collective movement.
And, ultimately, only a movement that empowers its members can generate the transformative policies this country desperately needs.
