Convention on Modern Liberty

Monday, 2nd March 2009

I was really sorry not to get along to the Convention on Modern Liberty at the weekend. I think this is an important development on the political landscape and I salute the organisers. I have been impressed by the energy of Henry Porter in getting this onto the agenda and the coalition is an interesting one. Henry's article in the Observer was correct to point out the role played by Jack Straw in the erosion of our liberties. Straw, argues Porter is "now carving out a historic role for himself as one of the enemies of democracy and civil liberties in the United Kingdom". I also enjoyed Suzanne Moore's take on the event: "The enemies of freedom have shown themselves to be not simply murderous bombers but smiling legislators who know what is best for us."

But I am equally interested in the sceptical voices. An early note of caution was sounded by Paul Evans on the Liberal Conspiracy website. Paul argued that " we need to collectively hold our noses and get involved in local political parties again instead of lifestyle politics and single-issue pressure groups that sit on soft end of the direct-democracy continuum." Slugger O'Toole worried that the concerns of the convention were too metropolitan despite meeting in various parts of the UK. David Aaronovitch also worried in the print edition of Times on Saturday that we were getting too hung up on minor infringements of civil liberties. Melanie Phillips is also worth reading on the subject.

But of everything I've seen about this (and there is a lot), the response on James Graham's Quaequam Blog is the most interesting. The real question is, where does this take us? What action should be taken if our liberties really are being eroded?

James, who was trying to collect pledges of action at the event wrote: "I have lost count of the number of young people I’ve spoken to in recent years who have told me that the reason they haven’t joined a political party was that they didn’t agree 100% with any one party and that joining, they felt, would mean having to sign up to their whole policy agenda. Those of us on the inside of course know that is utter nonsense. But we do seem to have created a society whereby people are so precious about their identities that they would rather hold back and continue to be pushed around than join in, enjoying strength of numbers but risking some dillution of self. It is why libertarians, in the main, are such paper tigers."

The worry is that this could turn out to be a massive act of masochism. One almighty, self-satisfied, complacent and ultimately fruitless national moan.

Filed under: Civil liberties (9 more articles) , Freedom (1 more articles) , Jack Straw (8 more articles) , Liberty (1 more articles)

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Jack R

March 3rd, 2009 10:40am Report this comment

A litmus test on whether a 'liberal' pundit supports liberty, is whether that person supports the right of Dutch MP, Geert Wilders to enter, and to speech in Britain, despite Lord Ahmed.

No wonder Mr. Wilders is rightly campaigning for a European First Amendment.

Steve.W

March 3rd, 2009 12:01pm Report this comment

Like Martin Bright I did not go to the London event, Convention on Modern Liberty, but did go to one of the regionally cloned versions. There was a live link, of reasonable quality, from London, our version ended for 1.00pm but London carried on. Ours was free though, so did we, about forty souls, feel second class citizens? Not at all!

Shami Chakrabarti did the warm up act which at times looked as if it was to go the way of Neil Kinnock at the Sheffield Arena in 1992, I could sense a collective curling of toes in boots.

Some of the worthies on the platform allowed themselves snooty digs at both daily Mail and Sun readers. This always happens on such occasions and is pathetic. If the liberal left could manage to create a single newspaper/magazine to match the circulation of the titles they hate then they would be doing well. But they are not and if the worthies on offer that day were writing for such a newspaper/magazine it simply would not sell.

After a time our free fun was over and the link from London closed down. We were on our own. A few people spoke well but the tendency was for rambling on about subjects not related to the London event. And then we all went home.

Later at home I looked at the video of Lord Bingham speaking at London, brilliant but also noticed that had I been at London I would also have had to endure total fluff like Yasmin Alibhai Brown.

Chakrabarti spoke of 'boiling the frog'. How it is possible to kill frogs slowly by raising the temperature of their water. The analogy here is that our freedoms are being removed incrementally. Bingham laid into the weakness of our government, weakened in the case of the UK by volunteering power away to the EU. But of course no gathering of the liberal left could ever get around to talking about the elephant in the room. This meant that although there was much good stuff on offer at London there was a lot bollocks as well. Pity, because this is vital to us all.

Steve.W

March 3rd, 2009 12:28pm Report this comment

Shami Chakrabarti did the warm up act which at times looked as if it was to go the way of Neil Kinnock at the Sheffield Arena in 1992, I could sense a collective curling of toes in boots.

Later at home I looked at the video of Lord Bingham speaking at London, brilliant but also noticed that had I been at London I would also have had to endure total fluff like Yasmin Alibhai Brown.

Andrew Withers (LPUK)

March 3rd, 2009 1:02pm Report this comment

I did go on Saturday, I posted a full roundup on the LPUK unofficial blog.We may be paper tigers at present, but most of our members are under the age of thirty, are are not attracted to being Libertarians in such overt statist parties as the Cons/Lab/Social Democrats. Therefore we are in for the longhaul unless STV is 'granted'

Alf Tupper

March 3rd, 2009 6:10pm Report this comment

I too wanted to get to the Convention on Modern Liberty.

Just couldn't escape.

Alf Tupper

March 3rd, 2009 6:14pm Report this comment

Steve.W

What elephant?

And if your answer sees light then I'll show me arse in't Co-op windah.

Steve.W

March 3rd, 2009 8:35pm Report this comment

Dear Alf -
The elephant in the room is the EU. At the London Convention on Modern Liberty Lord Bingham talked about our weak, UK, government. Now as about 80% of our law comes 'plug and play' from the EU with no prospect of debate this is a prime example of weakness. I assume liberty has a direct link to democracy, as I cannot vote to affect the work of the EU Commission or the Council of Ministers I cannot have an impact on what comes my way. Galileo is typical, the EU satellite that was funded deceitfully and now is ready for 'security' work. This means spying on people like you and me. It is all very well NO2ID saying our liberty is threatened by the actions of the UK government, it is, but what about the intentions of the EU? It is pointless to swap one tyrant for another.

PS – Sorry I posted twice, a heady mixture of tea, sandwich and anger!