Online Safety Act erodes liberties under guise of child protection
With the communist Labour government just over a year into its first term, Keir Starmer and his cabinet of finger-wagging busy-bodies, who all know what is best for you, have done a very good job of vilifying and silencing British citizens who have concerns about the direction of their country.
As an example, last week, on Monday, July 28, the Online safety Act went live – billed as the government just wanting to protect your children from seeing online porn by deploying age-check gateways for certain websites. Who could possibly disagree with such a noble cause?
A catch-all piece of legislation
In reality, the government has used a well-meaning, nice-sounding legislative title to push a darker cause for its own purposes of further control over what people are allowed to view, and what they are able to say online. In many cases, you will have to use biometrics, banking and other personal details to be able to get on to websites which have previously been (as they should be) an open forum for discussion, information and enjoyment without the state injecting itself and its controlling rules to create a back door to all your personal data. Another step to towards digital ID.
The Bill of Rights 1689
You have a God-given right to speak your mind and, equally, to view content on any platform (as long as it is not unlawful) you want.
The Bill of Rights 1689 (1688 CHAPTER 2 1 Will and Mar Sess 2) is one of the ancient founding documents which is still part of UK law. It sets out the people’s birthright and the parliament its power to govern within the points set out within it.
It is a constitutional statute, and essentially cannot be repealed without parliament taking away its own contracted rights to introduce legislation. Boris Johnson, although unsuccessful in his 2019 prorogation case (R (Miller) v The Prime Minister and Cherry v Advocate General for Scotland), invoked this very document, specifically the point regarding to freedom of speech in parliament.
Freedom of speech
“That the Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parlyament”.
This is a point from said document, and while it specifically pertains to talking of freedom of speech for parliament, it must be noted that a maxim of law, and a core principle of it, is that all are equal under the law, and nobody is above the law.
As parliament was raised by the people to represent them in the face of an aristocratic tyranny, it can be therefore logically deduced that if parliament has the right to speak freely without attracting the ire of the judiciary or any other individual wishing to prosecute another for the words they speak, then it must be equally as lawful for the people to speak freely and be afforded the same lawful rights.
We all need to know our rights as UK citizens
The obligatory disclaimer must be made, as I am no legal expert: the point I make is that although it is repeated ad nauseam these days that the UK doesn’t have a written constitution like the US, we do have lawful rights that we are able to stand on and which prevent us from being tyrannised.
Knowledge and understanding of these ancient documents – the Magna Carta documents 1215 and 1297, the Bill of Rights parts 1/2 and Coronation Act 1688, the Act of Settlement 1701 – should be criteria learning in every school across the United Kingdom.
They afford every person the right to know and understand what gives parliament and the government the right to govern. They are devised to set out the parameters within which statute law should be written. If this is not the case, then what would stop a government making laws in which it could do just as previous tyrannical English monarchs as they subjected the peasants into serfdom?
The cynic in me cannot help but think that successive governments may be complicit in the omission of this key learning from the curriculum. Maybe it makes for a more complicit and bovine society.
My advice: Know your rights, as he who does not stand on them has none.
