Too tired to say much, but Liberty Central is live and taking user registrations - go take a look if you’re interests.

Oops - the url’s www.libertycentral.org.uk

Very slight delay on Liberty Central going live - underestimated the impact of the day job and the need for sleep on my timings.

Will definitely be live by Monday morning - maybe Sunday afternoon if I get some time tonight after doing all my ‘dad things’.

Still 48 hrs late at most isn’t bad - ID cards are already 12 months behind schedule and slipping.

In the meantime, the ‘look’ is pretty much complete - just a bit of configuration and testing to conclude before opening doors on the project.

So to keep the interest, here a few screenshots of what’s coming, starting with the home page. There will be a few additions to the sidebar on the right as I finish configuring other components, but the business end of things is on there.

Next, the submissions screen - any registered member can submit content to the main articles sections.

Very nice events calendar.

Here’s the Wiki - need to set up the real start page

And the directory section, again any member can add links tot he directory

And finally, for now, the Wordpress Blog.

The general gist of how things will run at the start will be that the site will be loosely moderated in the sense that as people we already know come on board, we’ll bump up their permissions to allow them to publish direct to the site. Unknowns will, at the start, have to wait a few hours while theur stuff is cued, but once we know them they’ll be going up in the permissions and, initially, at least I’ll be umpiring, which is how I prefer to see things rather that use anything formal like ‘editor’.

While we intend to stick to clearly to the principle of free speech - in fact the only directive thing I will say is that Article 1 of the draft Bill of Rights WILL be the right to free expression - we will need just a little bit of time to organise things hence the need for a bit of ‘control with a very light hand’ at the outset until we get the project bedded in, just so we get off on the right track.

I’ll reiterate, again, that what we need most at the outset is willing hands to help with the management of the site, content (lots of it) - oh, and we will be promoting relevant campaigns and projects via a standard Advertising banner (478×60) to begin with, plus a text link in the campaigns menu. This is purely to avoid visual clutter by having a shed load of different sizes logos and buttons running down the sidebar. Any existing campaigns that want to get the ball rolling should email me a banner and link, and I’ll get it included in the site ASAP.

And banners are free.

And we have a central e-mail address, which is libertycentral@googlemail.com for direct contacts, although their is a contact us section on the site which can be used once its live.

Just sorting out the final tweaks on the template for Liberty Central and I’ve discovered a new mantra that we all should learn.

Internet Explorer. Kill! Kill! Kill!

I suspect any web designers know exact what I’m on about - suffice to say that LC will most definitely be sporting a ‘Spread Firefox’ button.

Will be a bit light on the blogging front for a day or two due to the work on the Liberty Central site. ETA for the live site is either Friday evening or, more likely, Saturday morning.

In the meantime, I have found time to start writing up a bit of guide to the project as its conceived at the moment, the first part of which you’ll find below.

——————————————-

Liberty Central – Project Guide

With the Liberty Central website going live, its time to put some flesh on the bones of what is an idea that has come together so quickly that there has been barely time to pause for breath; to explain what Liberty Central is, what it aims to do, how it will work (at least to begin with) and how it may develop over time.

What is Liberty Central?

First and foremost, a meeting place for projects, campaigns and individuals who believe that our essential liberties and freedoms are, today, under threat as never before.

Liberty Central is not an organisation and it is certainly not a political party. It has no formal membership, no committees, no management, no leaders and no particular structure. The term that has come up most often in discussions about this project has been ‘a coalition of the willing’ and this is perhaps the most apt description that anyone has arrived at as yet – a loose coalition of people who are willing to try to work together in many different way to preserve and secure, in perpetuity, the liberty of the citizens of the United Kingdom.

The central premise of this project is perhaps best expressed in this quotation from the 28th President of the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson:

“Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it… The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.â€?

This is very much how we see Britain today.

Talk to any politician from any political party, especially at election time, and they will tell you that, yes, they are all in favour of liberty. And yet, time and again, on achieving high office their actions say otherwise; then we are told that we must first have security if we are to enjoy our liberties and that the price of security is always that we surrender some liberties to preserve others and that the means by which this is best accomplished is by the increase of governmental power, so that they can secure our liberties for us.

And the joke here is that so many people in this country buy into this, that they will give up liberty for the vague promise of safety without ever considering just what is they’re giving up. As Benjamin Franklin so aptly put it:

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.�

Liberty Central is for and about people who take a contrary view; one best expressed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

“I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery�

We believe that the slow and steady transfer of power to government over the last 30-40 years and, in particular, the transfer of power directly to Ministers and from Ministers to various QUANGOS, functionaries and other unelected and unaccountable bodies, has already gone too far; in fact under this present government it is accelerating at a rate which threatens not only the liberty of citizens but the very fabric of the constitution of the United Kingdom and the social contract between its citizens and the State.

If the slide towards totalitarian government has not yet begun in earnest then, at least, the machinery of state authority necessary to affect such a form of government is slowly and surely being assembled in the name of security, public safety and efficiency.

If government is permitted to continue with this unchecked that we will have, within the next few years, compulsory Identity cards and a National Identity Register, which will place our very identities into the ownership of the State, a national CCTV system with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) monitoring our roads twenty four hours a day, seven days a week and potentially a ‘Road Pricing System’ that uses satellite tracking, both of later enabling the state to monitor and records our every movement.

We already have, in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, emergency powers accorded to Ministers which, if used, would permit them to make emergency regulations equivalent to an Act of Parliament or direct use of the Royal Prerogative, powers from which not even the provisions of Magna Carta are exempt and which would permit the confiscation and destruction of property (without compensation), the restriction of movement, censorship of the free press and even the curtailment of habeas corpus; all by Ministerial decree. To that we may shortly be adding the provisions of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, already dubbed the ‘Abolition of Parliament Act’, which again will permit legislation to the passed by Ministerial order with the minimum of Parliamentary scrutiny and with few exemptions – such orders may not introduce new taxes, create new criminal offences with a maximum penalty of imprisonment in excess of two years or increase the maximum penalty for minor offences beyond two years or tinker with arrangements for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly but otherwise provides Ministers with a blank legislative cheque on which to write, amend or repeal laws. And again, there is no exemption from its provisions for core constitutional and civil liberties legislation; Magna Carta could be ‘reformed’, habeas corpus suspended, Christmas cancelled – and all by Ministerial edict.

(And yes, that is a ‘Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves’ gag in there - who said liberty can’t be fun)

We could go on to catalogue many further examples of law-making from recent years which has strengthened the power and authority of government, even to the extent to taking power away from Parliament itself and handing it, of course, to Ministers – the Inquiries Act 2005, which places all future inquiries under direct Ministerial control, removing provisions under which such inquiries reported directly to Parliament without Ministerial interference, being one such prime example. For brevity we won’t, at least not here – but Liberty Central will and will, over time, develop a series of briefings showing the full extent to which power has been, and is still being, accumulated at the centre of the government at the expense of civil liberties and Parliamentary democracy.

The Constitution of the United Kingdom is such that it affords no explicit protection against the unrestrained use of Parliamentary sovereignty. There is nothing in our present constitution, whether written in law or accepted by convention and tradition that Parliament cannot alter, amend or sweep away on a whim. If the political elite of this country, the people we elect to serve our interests, suddenly decide to pursue interests of their own without restraint; cancel elections, restrict movement, repeal habeas corpus, shut down the free press, etc. then there is quite literally nothing to stop them but their own consciences.

This is the argument being put forward, in an inverted form - in relation to Identity Cards, the Terrorism Bill with its provisions for criminalising the ‘glorification of terrorism’, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, even the attempt to outlaw religious hatred. Whenever it is pointed out that the powers that Ministers are granting themselves go far beyond those necessary for the preservation of order in a free and civilised society; that they create, in potential, the machinery necessary to put in place a totalitarian state, always we are told not to worry because our politicians have no intention of using these powers in that way, that we should trust them not to abuse these powers – after all, its only for our protection that they are being enacted at all.

No. Not good enough. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

If the liberty of citizens hangs solely on the honesty and promises of politicians then it hangs by an ever fraying thread; a thread that may too easily break and plunge us all into the nightmare world that George Orwell imagined in ‘1984’.

If Liberty Central is to be a coalition of the willing then the question has to be asked, ‘what is it that we are willing to do?’

The answer to that question, we hope, is that the many groups, projects, campaigns and individuals who do care about liberty, people from all walks of life and of all political persuasions, will come together and work collaboratively towards a greater goal – a new social contract between the people and the state and a new constitutional settlement for the United Kingdom at the heart of which will sit a written constitution and Bill of Rights in which will be entrenched out most fundamental freedoms and liberties such that no Parliament, no politician and no would-be despot may disabuse the citizens of this nation of their inalienable rights to life and liberty save by force of arms and in the face of the sternest possible resistance from the British people.

What is liberty?

This, said Thomas Jefferson:

“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.â€?

And who are we to argue.

1. It blew up.

2. We’re fucked if we know why.

Hat Tip: Mr Eugenides

The word’s spreading nicely and, as I expected, throwing up a few anxieties and misconceptions along the way that require a little clarification.

The first thing to be clearly understood by everyone is that what we have here in terms of looking at the possibilities of a cross-party coalition is very new and, at this stage, very loose and unformed even down to our conceptions of the nature of liberty itself to some small extent.

What we are trying to capture here is a mood that’s been growing amongst bloggers in the UK over the last year, one that recognises certain common interests and values which cut across traditional party lines and the old left-right divide.

There are limits and boundaries, however, to the extent of that common ground - in any project which seeks to bring left and right together in a common cause there will be differences of opinion, some of which are going to be very deep seated and intractable.

Which is absolutely fine as what we’re about is a coalition with a specific purpose not the creation of a new libertarian political party - our aim is not to take power and become a government, merely to reconfigure the parameters of power, the social contract and the relationship between the citizen and the state in such a way as to secure our essential liberties.

To do this, at this early stage, we must be as open as possible and exclude nothing from consideration at the outset.

Ideas on the Bill of Rights are already emerging that will certainly gain support across the whole coalition - who could argue with the aim of securing the constitutional entrenchment of habeas corpus.

Other ideas will emerge that are less likely to garner such wide support, ones which some will see as going too far down a particular political route.

At this early stage we should not exclude anything from inclusion in the initial debate, even if our instincts are against it from the outset.

We are not going to agree on everything, but that does not mean that we should be excluding things from discussion at the outset or drawing hard and fast lines in the sand straight away. We need to collect and collate all the various ideas, views and opinions from all sides of the debate to begin with. Once we have that then the debate starts in earnest and we begin to winnow out ideas on which we cannot form a concensus, leaving us with a core package of proposals on which we can agree.

No one is being asked to compromise here, merely to be a little bit patient until we have everything on the table to sift through.

The social contract, which lies at the heart of what we’re doing here, functions at many different levels and in many different contexts. Ideas that may not work as global provisions and provoke an instinctive dislike in some quarters may look very different which applied in a limited form and a specific context. For example, it has been suggested that we look at Colorado’s TABOR provisions, which, having looked them up as this was a new one on me, are a ‘Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights’, which is defined as follows:

TABOR is a set of constitutional provisions Colorado voters adopted in 1992 to limit revenue growth for state and local governments in Colorado and to require that any tax increase in any state or local government (counties, cities, towns, school districts and special districts) must be approved by the voters of the affected government.

My instinctive reaction to this is that it looks a little too severe and constraining a regime to be workable at national level, at least for the time being, given the complexity of the national finances, but that it may well have merits when it comes to looking at local government. To be honest I’m not economically literate enough to judge such an idea at the moment but pretty sanguine about throwing the idea into the pot for discussion - for one thing its not so very far removed from provisions put in place by the democratic socialist Worker’s Party-led civic government of Puerto Allegre (Brazil) in which city budgets, revenue and expenditure have to be approved annually by its citizens and is, therefore, another example of the left and right can arrive at similar ideas by very different routes.

The fact that I have doubts about TABOR at this stage does not mean I want to exclude it from consideration - it’s there to be looked at and debated as far as I’m concerned and there are bloggers out there on the left and right, like Chris Dillow, Wat Tyler and Tim Worstall who’re far better placed than I am to look over something like TABOR and clarify what it would mean in practical economic terms and give a view on whether they see scope for its inclusion in the final package - if it can be agreed on by all sides.

TABOR, and many other ideas beside, may not ultimately gather the consensual support necessary for them to be included as a ‘definite’ in the reform package but can could certainly be highlighted as options for further debate - that’s the beauty of democracy, we can put different options on the table for consideration without compromising core values and the common ground we discover as we work on this.

By the same token I don’t expect that everyone who is interested in what we’re trying to do will necesssarily be interested in every aspect of the debate - there will be generalists who look at the big picture and specialists whose interests run more towards specific issues and (hopefully) some will bring specialist knowledge to the table with them as well as their opinions and views.

By definition, this project will have a somewhat anarchic streak running through it, in the philosophical sense. This is not about leaders and followers it about common ground and consensus amongst equals. No one is, or will be asked to sign up to something they feel they cannot support nor are they to be asked to give up their core political beliefs and loyalities in order work on this. Dissent is very much part of the overall process, part of process of winnowing out of ideas from all strands of political thought until we reach core consensus positions that we can all support - by its very nature such a process sets boundaries for the project which will limit how far it can go in any one political direction and will keep us focussed on the core issues.

This isn’t going to be like a political party, with an official party line and a manifesto and an expectation that everyone toes the line irrespective of thir personal beliefs and values. Its a debate with points of consensus and points of disagreement expressed openly, honestly and, I hope, rationally.

Call me optomistic and idealistic if you will but after a year of blogging and interacting with people from across all traditional political camps, I happen to believe that, whatever our differences, we can have this debate and arrive at a core agenda for consititutional reform with broad cross-party support.

We can do this for two main reasons - first, because at the heart of this are issues we care about deeply and on which there is common ground but also because we’re British and one of the defining characteristics of the British blogosphere - and one which separates us from many of our cousins over the pond - is our ability to be reasonably civilised about our disagreements and not automatically adopt a contrary position simply because some belongs to an different political ‘power-unit’ to our own.

That brings me to the one big misconception that is emerging, in relation to the ‘Anyone But Labour’ tactical voting campaign.

This is NOT the first stage of Liberty Central, it is a parallel development that has emerged out of the same ‘mood’ of opposition to the present govenment’s authoritarian legislative programme that also gives impetus to the Liberty Central project.

Some of those who are working on this project are working on that campaign, some aren’t - its not an ‘official sanctioned’ offshoot of Liberty Central mainly because we’re not in business of officially sanctioning anything or sanctioning/constraining anyone in their actions.

It’s worth noting that we’ll be supporting other existing projects with aims that coincide with our own; whether that’s Charter 88, Liberty, Make My Vote Count, Elect the Lords or NO2ID. We’ll also welcome input from those campaigns and others like the Campaign for an English Parliament, for example, and any support they may feel they can offer.

Liberty Central is, quite deliberately, a pluralist project which will reflect a wide range of differing views and opinions - much of the heart of the project lies in ‘having the debate’, especially those debates that the political elite would much rather we didn’t have.

There is no controlling mechanism here and if people want to work together in their own campaigns that’s up to them. That’s, as I see it, entirely consistant with a libertarian philosophical outlook as well as a recognition of the fact that trying to curb such things would not only be beyond our core principles but rather like trying to herd cats - it’s a non-starter however you look at it.

Liberty Central’s main electoral focus is on the next general election, which is at least three and maybe four years away short of unforseen and dramatic circumstances. What we’re trying to put together can only be enacted, to begin with, at Westminster and its there that Liberty Central must focus its efforts and attention - if people want to organise and take action in the meantime in local or European elections that’s their choice and they’re free to make it. Liberty Central will certainly report on and highlight such activities and offer a platform to those engaging in them to make their case for what they’re doing, but such things remain separate and distinct from the portal itself and from the core project of pulling together a new constitutional settlement.

In terms of our relationship with political parties and individual MPs, the way I personally see it is that we will be putting forward an agenda for change and it is for each party, each MP and each Parliamentary Candidate, when the time comes, to decide how to respond to that agenda.

However, we should take nothing on blind trust. The view we may take of those seeking office at that time will look not just at what they say in their election briefings and manifestos but at the evidence of their track record - whether they have practiced what they preach.

Liberty Central will certainly work to collate such information and make it available to people visiting the site. We may even go further is some instances and make voting recommendations based on the information to hand, on a seat by seat basis, but we have no control over how people choose to vote, nor indeed control over how the main political parties choose to campaign or whether they, either nationally or locally, engage in coalition-based activities.

Like it or not, under the present electoral system, tactical voting is a legimitate ‘weapon’ and people will use it, whether they do so or in an organised way or merely individually and based on their own judgment of the situation as they sit it when the time comes. Liberty Central is not about tactical voting but neither will ignore it as a option for future action - it all depends on how things develop over the next three years.

As a purely personal view, I think the best outcome for what we are seeking to achieve would not necessarily be a hung parliament with no overall control but one in which the number of votes cast at the general election is so low as to challenge the idea that any party - or coalition of parties - has a mandate to govern. Of course, delivering that would be no mean feat and realisitically is problably unachievable as to really make it stick it needs more than just people not voting, which can be written off to apathy, but a large body of people deliberately entering spoiled ballot papers, which would be difficult to organise and execute.

All that is, however by the by. For now what’s needs to be understood is that Liberty Central’s focus is on constitutional change and not tactical voting, at least for the time being - what people working in the coalition do on their own time and under their own steam is their business and others working on this project are free to support other campaigns - or not - as they wish.

A couple of days ago, Craig Murray broke the story of the arrest an interogation of the three of the stars of the award winning film ‘The Road to Guantanamo’

The Lip, an online multicultural magazine, has now added a new strand to the story with an exclusive account of what actually happened at Luton Airpost direct from Riz Ahmed, one of the actors who was arrested.

It’s best to read the account in full, but I do want to quote one section of the article, which deals with some of the questions that Riz was asked.

Under the threat of “prolonging� my detention, I cooperated in allowing her to go through my wallet. She took detailed notes on all its contents. All of my bankcard details were noted down, as were the details on other people’s business cards I had in my wallet. I was searched for objects that I might use to “hurt� the officers. However this took place about halfway through the interview after I had been with the interviewer alone for some time.

While searching through my wallet she asked me whether I intended to do more documentary films, specifically more political ones like The Road to Guantanamo. She asked “Did you become an actor mainly to do films like this, you know, to publicise the struggles of Muslims?�.

She also asked me what my political views were, what I thought about “the Iraq war and everything else that was going on�, whether the Iraq war was “right� in my view.

She then asked me whether I would mind officers contacting me regularly in the future, “in case, for example, you might be in a café, and you overhear someone discussing illegal activities�.

I don’t know about anyine else but there seems to me to be something pretty McCarthyist about that line of questioning.

Anyway - read the full article.

Ok, things will probably go a little quiet for a few days on here, while I pull together the Liberty Central portal, but as I said last night, the techie bit a relatively straightforward, the more pressing need is content, and content needs some structure if it going to make sense, which is that this piece is about.

My thinking is that we need to start out with four defined main sections to the site as follows:

News – with subsections for both specific campaign news and more general new alerts on new developments i.e. keeping up with what the politicos are up to in the Commons/Lords

Themes – with subsections for articles on the key issues of the campaign which, at the outset are likely, I think, to be:

Constitutional Reform
Bill of Rights
Electoral Reform
Second Chamber
Devolved Government & Local Democracy
Judicial/Legal reform
Reforming the State

These are all working titles and additional sections can easily be added, but as a baseline a new constitutional settlement must tackle the overall framework of a new UK constitution, Bill of Rights, the separation of powers between the executive, legislature and judiciary, reform of the electoral system, the role, function and composition of a second chamber, the parameters of devolved government and local democracy, the judicial and legal system (including policing) and, under reforming the state, the relationship between government, Parliament and the machinery of state, i.e. the Civil Service, Quangos, etc.

At this early stage people should openly put their ideas and thoughts on the table but recognise that this necessarily will mean that they will read things that they both agree with and disagree with – we need to identify the consensus points and where the difference of opinion lie and that can only be done is we are open in our views to begin with. We must remember that we will not agree with everything that’s said at this early stage but that’s important that people are able to voice their views openly and without rancour.

I don’t doubt that as we brainstorm ideas the right will see things which they see as ‘too socialist’ and the left see things they perceive to the ‘too right-wing’, and we will all see things we think are potentially unworkable – none of that matters for now, we need the ideas to start with and from there we can begin to debate and sift what we have to bring us eventually to a reasonably cohesive programme.

Over time we will come to positions on which there is consensus and which every feels can be taken forward; there will be points on which there is disagreement but on which a compromise position can be found and there will be points on which we can’t agree, in which case we have the option of putting those matters to one side or putting forward the different positions as options for future debate. There is, as I see it, nothing wrong with openly admitting that on a particular issue there is no consensus but there are options which reflect differing viewpoints and setting out those views fairly and honestly.

This is about liberty and about democracy, so on issues we cannot ignore but on which we cannot reach a common view, the right thing to do is outline the options and leave the final choice to the people of the country and to a democratic decision by the people.

This is, I think, important but needs to be done carefully. One of the factors that most strongly reinforces authoritarian tendencies in government is the idea, pitched relentlessly by the media, that differences of opinion and debate equal ‘splits’ and that any political grouping that fails to subscribe to the concept of ‘Ein Volk, Ein Reich’ is automatically unelectable. We need to move beyond that and take a pluralist position which says clearly that there are differing view and opinions on some issues, one that can and should be debated openly and maturely and the place to settle those differences is in the ballot box and not be the edict of political leaders.

The clearest example of the failings of uniformitarian view of politics, at the moment, lies in the near constant citing of the Salisbury convention by the current government whenever it meets opposition in the House of Lords and the idea that anything and everything in the Labour general election manifesto must be accepted without question on the pretext that it has the ‘mandate of the people’.

That may well have been true in 1945, when the Labour Party ran on a 5,000 word manifesto which set out a clear programme about which readers could have no doubt as to its intent, but as a Labour Party member, myself, I could not in all conscience say the same of our most recent manifesto, which ran to over 24,000 words. It is nonsense to suggest than everyone who voted Labour at the last election did so because they were in full and absolute agreement with every last element of the manifesto – most people would not have read it at all and would have voted on longstanding loyalties, on agreement with certain key policies – mainly on the economy and public services – or simply because the saw Labour as the least worst option of the three main parties. Not even the membership of the Labour Party subscribes in full to the content of that manifesto and yet the government is pushing through legislation in the full expectation that the Lords will accept every single measure as having a democratic mandate from the people of this country. This is so absurd that you couldn’t make it up, yet this is really what they expect.

The Salisbury convention is a constitutional convention of its time, one which rested squarely on the fact that in 1945, there was a clear, unassailable and unelected opposition majority in the House of Lords which could have delayed Labour’s entire programme, forcing them to use the Parliament Act to put through every single measure that it had clearly put the country and received a democratic mandate for – but this is not 1945 and conditions have changed to the extent that I would argue that the Salisbury convention is no longer valid – it certainly ceases to be valid, as does the Parliament Act itself, should we move to a completely or largely elected second chamber in future.

I’ve digressed but the point I’m trying to make is, I feel, important to what we’re trying to achieve. We must be pluralist in outlook, recognise our differences and be honest about them as we move forward – it’s not wrong to disagree so long as we agree that if and when a decision is to be made on something, one way or another, that decision should be made democratically by the British people and may the best argument win.

Legislation

We need two things here – a news subsection to keep people in touch with proceedings in Parliament, what’s happening, when etc.

The other we need is to highlight and unpick the various pieces of authoritarian legislation that have been passed in recent years, are going through Parliament now and which may be introduced in future.

Much of the worst examples of authoritarian and overtly centralising legislation pass almost unnoticed in clauses buried in otherwise uncontroversial portmanteau Bills, in secondary legislation and in Bills that are so complex and seemingly boring that not even the media can be bothered to take note.

We need to try and document this clearly and show people what’s really happening, how, for example, the Inquiries Act 2005, which passed without a vote and with barely a murmur in the press, dismantles the independence of public enquiries, etc.

This is one area where we can build a relationship with the media, by putting together briefings which unpick the complexities of legislation, making it easier for them to report on what’s happening by saving them the trouble of trying to unpick it themselves.

Blogging/Getting involved

We need a section on how to get involved, not just in this but in general – more people means more pairs of eyes, more views and more debate, all of which is good for liberty and democracy and bad for authoritarianism.

This should include promoting things like the Political Weblog project and just blogging in general – how-to guides on getting started on different platforms ranging from hosted services like Blogger to running your own independent blogs using B2Evolution, Wordpress, etc; information on resources like Blogcode which can get you noticed, blogging conventions and ‘blogspeak’, even the nitty-gritty of tackling annoyances like link and trackback spam.

That, with the Wiki for drafting things like a Bill of Rights – and I will look into how we manage that fairly and openly – and downloads of important political and philosophical texts for Locke, Mill and others plus a web-links section and – if I can get it working – an aggregated RSS feed – should do for starters.

Eventually, I think a tactical voting section should be added, but I would want to see us having done the background work for that properly, first, so that what we come up with is carefully targeted on our objective and not a scattergun approach.

Right – I’ll shut up and get back to work, I just wanted to post this to get people thinking (hopefully) about content and about others who could and should be invited on board.

More soon…

Couple of posts here from James at Quaequam and Joe Otten which raise points which need to be addressed.

First off, as one of the Labour contingent in this I should address the raising of the ‘Old Labour’ appelation. The one thing this is not about is ‘Old Labour’.

What you see in the Parliamentary Party in the likes of Jeremy Corbyn, Peter Kilfoyle, Bob Marshall-Andrews and others, is not necessarily reflected in the Labour members who will be working in this coalition.

There is certainly common ground between people like myself and the current Labour ‘rebels’ on civil liberties. It’s easily forgotten, but it has traditionally been the left of the party that has taken the strongest libertarian line in the past - read any of Tony Benn’s work on constitutional matters and you’ll see exactly what I mean - but make no mistake here, this a new generation on the Labour left that’s starting to emerge, one not caught up in mistakes of the past, the biggest of which being the unquestioning acceptance of the Soviet system as ’socialism’ when it bore little or no relationship to what we understood to be socialism in Britain.

I really don’t want to go too far into matters of ideology - part of what we’re trying to achieve, after all, is to step outside the old economic left-right divide and move the debate to a new axis, that between authoritarian and libertarian - but I suspect this cannot go entirely unaddressed.

So, for the record, what you will see from those amongst Labour ranks who work with this coalition is the emergence of a nascent ‘Rational Left’, the roots of which lie very much in the individualism and libertarian values expressed by George Orwell in his political essays, especially in ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ - oh, and before Conservatives head off, read it and have an attack of the vapours in relation to his comments on economic matters and nationalisation, those views were very much of his time and are, shall we say, noticably dated and of little relevance.

Socialism as was, was the product of the industrial age of the 19th Century and the utopian ideals of those who never really expected to gain power and have their ideas and values put to the test. The task facing the Labour left in the post-Blair era will be to do what he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, and bring the core values of the party into the 21st Century and the realities of a modern post-industrial society - and that’s our task and one that has little or no bearing on this coalition other than to note that that we will benefit the same as everyone else from a new and genuinely democratic constitutional settlement.

Joe asks the question ‘But what are you [the coalition] for?’.

As I’ve said, a new constitutional settlement for the British people, one which, over time, the coalition will work together to define in detail.

Remember this is very early days as yet, and we’re talking principles and identifying key influences, although the combination of Locke, Mill and Paine is a pretty good staring point to which I would add Isaiah Berlin’s work on liberty and pluralism and Montesquieu on the separation of powers.

This is, it has to be remembered, very new - a broad consensus between libertarians on the left and right has emerged and been apparent in the blogosphere for some time but only in the last week have people been saying ‘Hey, maybe we can work together!”.

It will take a while to scope out the boundaries of this new working arrangement, so at this stage it is entirely valid for people on all side of the old political divide to make it clear where their personal boundaries lie - if we all know where we stand from the outset then we should be able to work more effectively together simply because we know clearly what we can work together on.

The overall aim here is to build consensus around a clear package of constitutonal reform and then to push that up the political agenda with the aim of having a Great Reforming Parliament.

Now as I see it, there are two approaches we can take, the route America’s founding fathers, that of careful negotiations leading to measures that are clear, simple and have widespread support, or that taken by the EU which loaded its constitutional treaty with all manner of unconstitutional buy-offs, lock-ins and concessions in an effort to articifically generate support. Look, it’s Jefferson and Franklin or Giscard D’Estang - I know which approach I prefer and which one will deliver what’s needed and it sure as hell didn’t originate in amongst the technocrats in Brussels.

So right now, I have absolutely no problem with the various groupings which make up this coalition stating right out where their boundaries are - this is about liberty not artifically embedding social democracy or free-market capitalism into a constitution; democratic elections will determine which economic route the country takes in future and respective governments will then legislate accordingly, for example a Bill of Rights might well set out a belief in the right of everyone to education from 5 to 16 - that’s fine, but what it shouldn’t and won’t do is set out how that should be delivered. That’s a matter of policy and one on which democratically elected governments should decide according to their mandate.

This isn’t about boosting support for any one party, it’s about setting a clear agenda for constitutional reform which individual parties, MPs and candidates will respond to according to their views and beliefs.

Which rather bring me on to the subject of tactical voting - in and around this there will be some who look, over the next three years, to organise tactical voting against Labour, which is my own party. That’s their choice - this is about liberty after all, so we should practice what we preach - but its not what this coalition is necessarily about.

If we are to look at tactical voting - and I suspect we will - then it will be in a rather more sophisticated way than simply ‘let’s get rid of New Labour’. We need to do the numbers, look at voting records on key liberty issues and see how people respond to the agenda we’re putting forward.

Liberty Central will be about supporting the long game, picking off the authoritarians and supporting the libertarians no matter what party the come from. My own personal view, and this has to be debated by everyone, is that we should consciously stay out constitutencies where the battle, come the next election, is between candidates who support what we’re trying to achieve and let the electorate take its natural course. Where the choice is between a libertarian and an authoritarian then yes, we look at how best to intervene and who we should be advocating that voters support on a case by case basis, but this has to be backed up by research and analysis - there is no point putting our efforts into unwinnable situations nor should we allow ourselved to be conned by candidates who suddenly discover the cause of liberty just in time for the general election. Our aim should be to profile constituencies and individual candidates and decide how we go on the evidence - to make unbiased recommendations based on what we know, not guesswork or rhetoric from party leaders.

It’s a two-pronged strategy. Within individual parties those party members who work with us would, I hope, actively support libertarian candidates and push to get our agenda accepted and supported by those candidates - we have three years to work on this, lets not forget. Come election time, whenever that is, we look at the hand that each party has dealt us in each constituency and make an informed choice as to what line we should take, if we take a specific line at all.

If that leads to organised tactical voting, then that’s where it leads - but that has to come from with the members and supporters of individual parties. I’m a member of the Labour Party, so what business is it of mine to tell Lib Dem or Conservative party members how they should be voting in a general election. As a campaign we will certainly highlight candidates who are notably supportive of our values and those who are clearly against our objectives, but if people want to cut deals on a local level to achieve a specific outcome then that’s up to them to organise and put together in detail.

Let’s put it this way, the last thing a libertarian project is or should be doing is coming over all authoritarian with its supporters.

To those like James and Joe who are suspicious of what we’re doing and where we’re going, what I will say at this stage is, please keep an open mind and give things time to develop. If you’re still not happy with the direction this is taking further down the road, then fine, that’s your choice. If, on the other hand, you change your mind, the door’s open.

This is about liberty, after all, so what else would we be saying but ‘it’s your choice’.

First the link dump…

Great Britain, Not Little England

Getting New Labour out of office
Coalition: feedback and where next?
Coalition: Bringing the Right onboard

Strage Stuff

Coalition: Bringing the Right onboard

Blairwatch

The Tipping Point

Charlie Whitaker at perfect.co.uk

The Tipping Point

Europhobia

Those who forget their history, etc.
The delights of the British constitution

Got the general picture?

A non-partisan grand coalition of the British people with a uniform objective - a new constitutional settlement with all the trimmings; a written constitution, bill of rights, electoral reform, the full works. Think the Levellers, the Chartists. Think John Locke, J S Mill and Thomas Paine.

You’ll also see me popping up in conversation in relation to hosting a new website called Liberty Central, which will hopefully provide a central gathering point for the ‘coalition of the willing’.

This new site will be up in a few days with a target ‘official’ launch date of March 6th to coincide with the return of the ID cards bill to the House of Lords.

The purpose of this site will be all the usual things, to educate and inform, lobby, campaign, help people to organise, meet and shared ideas plus one very special purpose that I want to flag up.

There have been campaigns of this kind before, many of which are still active. Some of these have been ‘global’ in scope (Charter 88), others like Elect the Lords, NO2ID, Make My Vote Count focus more on specific issues - and naturally we want them all to work with the ‘coalition’ and contribute their expertise and experience.

I’ve spent the last day or so mooching around some of the existing campaigns and form what I’ve seen, I’ve come to what I see as an important conclusion - to make a real impact we need to take this one step further than any of them have done as yet.

There is a hell of lot a good material in all these campaigns, information and resources which need to be taken on board to frame the debate - but what is lacking in pretty much of all of the them is, to varying degrees, specificity. It is not enough, I believe, for us campaign, lobby and inform in general terms; to say ‘yes we want a Bill of rights and these are some of the issues that should be debated, but we’re really not sure what will come of this at the end’.

We have go beyond debate and beyond principles and be bold enough to say exactly what is it we do want in quite precise terms - if a Bill of Rights is one of our objectives, then we should debate and discuss it, of course, but we should also be clear about what the contents of that bill of rights should be, take the debate beyond principles and actually draw up a Bill of Rights.

We have the tools to do this - the site will incorporate an integrated Wiki module, part of which will be turned over to actually drafting a constitution, Bill of Right, etc - and we also have amongst bloggers, I believe, the necessary talent and ability to do this. In the case of a Bill of Rights I believe the skills are out there to go as far as drafting the necessary legislation, on the constitution we may not get quite that far but we should get far enough to be clear about what it should look like and what should be in it, even if it requires the work of a specialist in law, or two, to draw up the finished article.

I realise this also opens up a number of potentially contentious debates, on the role of the Monarchy and the Church of England for starters but also the dreaded spectre of Europe.

My own position on this is that even here we can find a consensus that accommodates everyone, even if that consensus in not everyone’s ideal. At the heart of this lies a simple principle; that any substantive change in the status of the Monarchy or Britain’s relationship with Europe must be subject to a referendum, that these are issues on which only the people of this country can make the final decision.

There is not, I believe, widespread public support for bringing about the end of the Monarchy, even as a republican I have to concede that. Any such debate must therefore focus not on the Monarchy itself but on the constitutional position of the royal prerogative and how we curb its misuse by politicians.

As for Europe, there is no absolute compromise position between pro-Europeans on the left and the Eurosceptic/nihilist wing on the right and therefore no perfect solution - what I hope we can agree is a position which stresses the primacy of the British constitutional settlement we are working towards and that implicit - or even explicit - in what we do is a message to the technocrats of the European Union that on constitutional issues says ‘this far and no further’, that here are the boundaries of sovereign national authority in the UK and we will go no further. Hopefully that principle is one behind which we can all work together in ways which do nor make Europe a wholly divisive issue.

Liberty Central will serve as a open hub for the coalition - which reminds me of how much work I should be doing on it rather than waffling on about it here - and will be live in a few days, before the Terrorism Bill returns to the Lords on Feb 28th.

The server side of things is sorted - Joomla powered site with an integrated WordPress blog for the best of both worlds - and I’ll post a full feature set list some time tonight. Currently the work is going into the templates, a basic look is coming together nicely (going for clean, clear and simple).

What’s needed most - and this is where you folks come in - is content, articles on constitutional reform, civil liberties, the government’s current legislative programme, any thing relevant to the overall objective of a new constitutional settlement for Britain. This can be new stuff, if you’ve a mind to write something fresh, or material you’ve written in the past which you think is worth adding to the debate.

Couple of things here - please keep the language fairly moderate, we need to be taken seriously which means toning down the usual ranting (me included, or perhaps especially), and a point well made has been that we need to keep of the full-on right-wing wingnuttery and left-wing moonbat-ery as well.

We’ll also need volunteers to help out with the site admin and editorial - I’d prefer people from all wings of the coalition especially as I think it will be easier to stay on the rails if each segement of the coalition is ’self-policing’; it’s proably not a good idea to have lefties doing editorial on articles from the right and vice versa, avoids arguments and that kind of thing.

And last, for the moment, spread the word.

As soon as I have an ETA for Liberty Central, I’ll post it here. In the meantime if folks who interested in getting involved in any way want to email me - scroll down and you’ll see the address - I’ll start compiling a mailing list.

More later on tonight.