The Government’s Counter Terrorism Bill has now moved to debate in the House of Lords. The Liberal Democrats opposed the bill in the House of Commons for a simple reason: this bill does little to keep us safe, but a lot to erode the individual freedoms of people in the UK.

In the future we might have a Government who are prepared to ride roughshod over our freedoms as citizens.

Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights, and the human rights group Liberty have both said that this bill is wrong in balancing security and individual freedoms.

It’s a huge authoritarian overreach. This is a bill that seeks to:

• Create a new offence of “entering or remaining in” areas outside the UK designated by the Home Secretary punishable by up to ten years in prison
• Make it illegal to view online material that is “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”, with those convicted facing up to 15 years in prison
• Expand existing powers to detain people at ports and airports and for the police to retain innocent people’s DNA.

During the debate Lib Dem peer Jonathan Marks said:

“We must balance the security imperatives to protect the public and to combat terrorism against the liberal imperative to safeguard our freedoms as citizens in a democratic society.”

“While our Government struggle to improve domestic counter terrorist legislation, they nevertheless risk through Brexit abandoning most of the UK’s international work in this area over decades.”

The solution is not this dramatic overreach by the Conservative Government, running roughshod over civil liberties in the process.

The Government’s laws do nothing to address the real challenge of fighting terrorism. Instead, the bill contains worrying and wrongheaded measures that are unnecessary and attack individual freedoms.

• criminalise “reckless” speech
• make it a crime just to travel to certain places
• criminalise what you read on the internet
• allow police to hold innocent people’s DNA for longer
• give officers more power to detain people at airports without suspicion.

We’re delighted to announce that the new online Liberal Democrat Christmas Draw has been launched.

The Liberal Democrat Christmas Draw has been operating for over 20 years, and exactly the same principles of the old draw have been brought to the new one.

The Campaigns and Elections Team have released the latest leaflet templates and examples to help you win next May.

These templates for November include:

Will Corbyn stand up to the Tories and their chaotic Brexit? Can Theresa May provide any clarity about what a real Brexit deal might look like?

No, and no.

Labour’s Conference was riven with divisions over Brexit. Keir Starmer said he wanted to give the people the chance to remain, John McDonnell says this isn’t on the table.

Clear as mud, Labour.

Eventually, the big letdown from Jeremy Corbyn: they would rather have a General Election before giving the people the final say on the Brexit deal.

Unfortunately – in the unlikely scenario that Corbyn secured and won an election – he has not committed to stopping Brexit. 

Through all the cross talking and distraction, Labour leadership continues to aid and abet the Tory Brexit.

Meanwhile, the story of the Conservative Party Conference was the bitter infighting between Theresa May and Boris Johnson. The Prime Minister continues to be distracted from the real work of government by childish squabbles in her party.