As you will know, the Justice and Security Bill went unamended after the debate in the Lords on Tuesday, and so will now become law - and secret courts will become a reality in the Civil Court. I find it extremely upsetting that this could happen with Lib Dems in government.
There is an excellent round up of the events of Tuesday over at LDV from Caron, where you can find a list of the Lib Dem peers who defied the three line whip to Vote against the government. Also over at LDV today there is a great piece from Paul Strasburger on the shenanigans that went on Tuesday both to keep Tory peers in the House (they all watched a film rather than the debate), and the delay on the debate which meant many peers sloped off home before it even took place.
All in all quite disgraceful
This debacle has cost us some wonderful members, notably Jo Shaw but I also learned last night that David Allen Green has now let his membership lapse as a direct result of the secret courts issue. A very sad loss to the party. I hope we get him back some day soon, and those of us staying need to fight to overturn this law - and uphold party policy, that so many of our parliamentarians have ignored.
Jo is also founding 'The Project for Open Justice' and I hope many will contact her to see how they can help. As someone else has said, it's astonishing we find ourselves on the other side of a civil liberties issue from Reprieve, Index on Censorship and Liberty
Finally, here's an interesting little factoid.
Next up, as Liberator has pointed out today, is the Snooping bill, which it is rumoured may get introduced in the May Queens Speech. Again, if that's correct, our Westminster representatives can expect a fight.
I'm a Liberal Democrat and I'm against this sort of thing.
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