Dear Thangam,
My name is George Harold Millman. I'm an actor, scriptwriter and political activist, and I write about politics under the blog name The Rebel Without A Clause. I am writing to you concerning the most recent harmful legislation pushed through under the current Conservative Government, and the opposition's role in opposing such legislation.
I think political speaking, the last week (w/c 25/04/2022) was the most harmful week in politics in the almost three decades that I've been resident on this planet. Within seven days, Parliament passed the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, effectively outlawing peaceful protest and significantly curbing the legality of the traditional ways of life of travelling communities; the Nationality and Borders Bill, allowing the Home Secretary to deprive British people of their citizenship; the Elections Bill, meaning that people will only be able to vote if they produce voter ID, supposedly in the interests of preventing voter fraud - even though instances of voter fraud are incredibly low (this Act also gives Governments powers over the Electoral Commission, something far more likely to actually increase voter fraud); and to top it all the Health and Care Bill, making it easier for the Government to sell off parts of our NHS for corporate profit. (This is without even mentioning Nadine Dorries' plans to sell off Channel 4, which is pretty much the only major broadcaster to consistently question the role of the state).
In writing to you, I wanted to talk in particular about the Labour Party's position on these things. I am aware that particularly in relation to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Lords were quite particular in passing it back to the House of Commons twice. However, on the third occasion, the Lords representing Labour chose to abstain. I am aware that thrice-blocking a Bill that has been passed by the House of Commons is a difficult position to put the Lords into - however, with the harm that this Bill causes, I find it very concerning that it was not opposed for all it was worth. Likewise with the other Bills - I am aware that the Lords worked on certain amendments to them, but the outcomes still seem incredibly harmful and divisive. Even if the Lords were defeated on things, I would hope that they would fight tooth and nail to keep our NHS public, keep citizenship sacrosanct and keep protest rights essential.
More broadly, I haven't been hugely impressed with Labour's position on very much of Conservative policy over the last few years. In 2019, I voted Labour for the first time, having previously always voted for the Green Party; I was so utterly inspired by the 2019 manifesto. I was terribly upset to lose the election so badly, but worse than that, I haven't felt Labour's response to the worst Government in history since the 2019 election, particularly given that we've had the most major public health crisis in a century since, to be particularly inspiring. There have been a lot of abstentions to harmful pieces of legislation, suspension of left-wing members (particularly left-wing Jewish members actually, in spite of the leader's claim to be trying to make a clean break with anti-Semitism); and even when opposition has been given, it hasn't felt particularly strong (an instance of that is Keir Starmer's recent interview regarding the suggestion of sending refugees to Rwanda; although he quite rightly opposed this idea, he focussed more on practical issues of it being uneconomical and so on. Although that is a concern, the primary concern here is surely that it's a really grotesque abuse of human rights, and I would have hoped the Leader of the UK Labour Party, the party of Clement Attlee, Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn, would attack it from that angle.)
I sometimes question whether I was right to vote Labour last time, but for better or worse, I did and we are where we are. What I am essentially writing to you to ask is, will Labour commit to reversing the harmful pieces of legislation that have gone through in the past week if the party wins the next election? And, if the answer to that is yes, to what degree should I trust the accuracy of that statement given that nearly all of the ten pledges that the current Leader of the Labour Party was elected on have been broken?
Thank you for your attention, and I hope to hear back from you soon.
Best wishes,
George Harold Millman
This letter was sent to my local MP, Labour's Thangam Debbonaire, through the website WriteToThem, through which you can write to any of your local representatives. The links sourcing my points were not sent, they were added to this blog post. If and when I receive any response, I will post it on this blog.
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