The Liberal Democrat’s Freedom Bill

This is an interesting one – the other week the Liberal Democrats launched their Freedom Bill.  More details including the full text can be found on their campaign website.

The objective of the Bill is to repeal a large block of legislation that has been put on the Statute Book in recent years, legislation which has taken away or eroded important freedoms that we in the UK had previously enjoyed.  As the Bill stands at the moment (the Lib Dems are asking people to contribute), twenty laws are identified for repeal.

Three that particularly stand out for me are getting rid of Identity Cards, removing innocent people from the DNA database and scrapping ContactPoint.  In my view these represent a paradigm-shift in the way institutions of the state deal with the individual.  In that respect, bringing an end to them means not just changing the way we do things, but tearing down a pillar of New Labour’s ‘war on terror’.  As a civil libertarian, that would make me very happy.

Even if it will be a struggle to make the Bill law, I am very pleased that a major Party is making civil liberties an issue again.  At the very least, the campaign will make it more awkward for politicians to be ambivalent: they will have to take a stance on these issues, and defend it.