Why we’re working with ConHome and The Taxpayers’ Alliance…

Imagine a law so bad, that it sees LabourList and ConHome united against it. Imagine it’s so bad that both the Countryside Alliance and the League Against Cruel Sports down tools to work together and oppose it. Imagine 38 Degrees siding with the Taxpayers’ Alliance, because of a Bill that’s so bad it’ll even impede the kind of work Hope Not Hate do targeting fascists and racists.

Welcome to the “Lobby and Transparency” Bill.

Seemingly motivated by a desire to clamp down on trade unions (tacked on to the end of legislation that was meant to be about a lobbying scandal) and a wish to remove third party scrutiny of the government (why else limit the activities of the Red Cross or Christian Aid?) – this dog’s dinner of a Bill, rather than being denounced as the deeply illiberal measure that it is, and stopped in its tracks in the Commons, is about to be debated in the Lords.

And that’s where this dreadful bill needs to be killed stone dead.

As I wrote back in August:

“It’s an outright attack on Civil Society and free speech. And it could mean every majority charity, community group and campaigning organisation in the country could be restricted in how they campaign…This is the politics of the repressive regime. This is deeply illiberal. This is not meant to be how we do things in Britain.”

And if you don’t believe me – ask ConHome. As Mark Wallace rightly noted earlier today, the government’s three replies to criticism of the Bill are deeply unconvincing – bordering on absurd. This is a bad bill that doesn’t seem to have anyone backing it who doesn’t sit on the government benches – and most of those MPs, if they were honest with themselves, didn’t come into politics to gag Oxfam or silence Citizens UK.

If you believe in a vibrant, passionate civil society where free speech is valued, charities aren’t shackled during election campaigns and independent organisations aren’t silenced, then join us in trying to kill this bill – before it damages us, several major UK charities, and gags free speech.

Here’s the advert that appeared in today’s Telegraph and The Times: