No2ID calls in pledge cash to 'probe' ID Act's enabling laws
Legal fund prepares for actions...
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Anti-ID card campaign No2ID has called in the donations offered as part of its 2005 'refuse' pledge. The money, according to general secretary Guy Herbert, will in part be used to "probe" Government statutory instruments brought in to enable the ID scheme.
Calling in the money now also allows No2ID to clear the decks for future campaigns, says Herbert. More than 11,000 people (list here, and possibly also on file at the Home Office) pledged to refuse to register for an ID card and to donate £10 to a legal defence fund. Subsequently the refuseniks have been joined by several high-profile public figures, including Nick Clegg, Chris Huhne and Baroness Shirley Williams of the Lib Dems.
According to Herbert, No2ID doesn't yet have any specific items of legislation in mind for its first challenges, but as the construction of the ID scheme gathers pace it expects the Government to begin tabling measures to implement it. The ID Cards Act is to a great extent framework legislation, or an 'enabling' act which permits ministers to introduce parts of the scheme by tabling statutory instruments.
In theory these are subject to approval by Parliament, but in practice little or no debate takes place, and many of them are barely noticed. "They come before Parliament on a wet Wednesday," says Herbert. "Or they're even tabled over a recess, so that at the end of the recess three men and a dog vote them through" and virtually nobody notices.
It remains to be seen whether No2ID effectively putting them on notice will lead to the Government sharpening up its legislative act. If not, it will assuredly end in tears...
Pledge money for No2ID should be sent to NO2ID, Box 412 LDF, 19/21 Crawford Street, London W1H 1PJ, or by bank transfer to sort code 40-28-15, a/c number 81377965. General donations are no doubt also welcome. ®
COMMENTS
Well...
... the wording on the pledge amounts to "If 10K others give a tenner, I will also" - since more than that 10K have indeed so pledged, the call is valid.
This ignores the fact that any attempt to claim "But it is not defence!" woefully and possibly wilfully misunderstands the nature of British (or more accurately, English & Welsh) law. It's sensible and perhaps even necessary to first establish any obvious flaws and contradictions in the law as presently in force, not least because it may prove impossible or extremely difficult to oppose on any other grounds.
For the record, I pledged, openly and will be sending along the tenner. The message was definitely sent out and I received it before seeing this story, too.
@Tom Welsh (Niemöller was not perfect)
From one of Niemöller's sermons in 1935: "What is the reason for [their] obvious punishment, which has lasted for thousands of years? Dear brethren, the reason is easily given: the Jews brought the Christ of God to the cross!" According to Holocaust scholar Robert Michael, Niemöller agreed with the Nazis' position on the Jewish question"
References are included in the Wikipedia article. Read the entire article, he did change his position on the Jews after being put in a concentration camp himself as punishment for fighting the Nazi influence on his own church and blames his initial support on the basis of Hitler deviating from his initial promises.
I am in fact in favour of ID cards. I'm asian but not a muslim (policement can't tell unfortunately - if you look asian you're a potential islamic extremist... and no, I don't have a beard) - I work in London and have been stopped "randomly" thanks to the Terrorism Act. The Police National Computer checks (they radio in the data) on my ID took quite a lot of time, checking an ID card should take a minutes. Unless they repeal the Terrorism Act legislation and don't have the power to stop, search and question you without reason I'd rather have a card to speed the whole process up.
Title
"Three guesses why most people nowadays conveniently omit the first three lines."
Because folk can easliy relate to the line referring to Jews, and understand the point being made: but the other lines add nothing more ?
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