The thoughtful 49 who fought against DRIP

Amidst the media storm about David Cameron's cabinet reshuffle, which notably saw the departure of Ken Clarke, Michael Gove, William Hague and Owen Paterson from the Cabinet, the three mainstream parties gathered together to rush through the 'emergency' Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill, aka the 'snooper's charter', without giving MPs nearly enough time to scrutinise it properly. An earlier attempt at such a law was thankfully blocked by the European Court of Human Rights, which the coalition government (especially the Home Secretary, Theresa May) clearly has no respect for.

The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill, also known as DRIP, will require all telecommunications and internet companies to store all of your data of all types for 12 months, even if it states access to actual content can only be given to authorised people (the security services) by a Secretary of State. 

Even though the Liberal Democrats had opposed such an unjust law before, they joined in with the Conservatives and Labour (who whilst in government before extended surveillance powers significantly without good cause) to rush through this bill; at the crucial third reading, 436 MPs voted in favour, and only 49 MPs voted against.

I am pleased to say that Green MP Caroline Lucas, all three SDLP MPs, all six SNP MPs, and all three Plaid Cymru MPs voted against this awful measure (as did DUP MP Sammy Wilson), showing themselves to be the true opposition in Parliament. The only thing Ed Miliband (the 'official' opposition leader) is opposing right now is his voters' real conscience. An honourable mention must of course go to the MPs from all the three major parties of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative who also voted against DRIP.

The list of the MPs from 'mainstream' parties who voted against DRIP is below-was your MP among them?

Diane Abbott (Labour, Hackney North & Stoke Newington)
Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield South East)
Brian Binley (Conservative, Northampton South)
Peter Bone (Conservative, Wellingborough)
Nicholas Brown (Labour, Newcastle-upon-Tyne East)
James Cunningham (Labour, Coventry South)
Phillip Davies (Conservative, Shipley)
David Davis (Conservative, Haltemprice & Howden)
Nick De Bois (Conservative, Enfield North)
Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid-Bedfordshire)
Robert Flello (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)
Hywel Francis (Labour, Aberavon)
Roger Godsiff (Labour, Birmingham Small Heath & Sparkbrook)
Duncan Hames (Liberal Democrat, Chippenham)
Dai Havard (Labour, Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney)
David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton & Frome)
John Hemming (Liberal Democrat, Birmingham Yardley)
Kate Hoey (Labour, Vauxhall)
Philip Hollobone (Conservative, Kettering)
Kelvin Hopkins (Labour, Luton North)
Ian Lavery (Labour, Wansbeck)
Mark Lazarowicz (Labour, Edinburgh North & Leith)
John McDonnell (Labour, Hayes & Harlington)
Michael Meacher (Labour, Oldham West & Royton)
Nigel Mills (Conservative,Amber Valley)
Grahame Morris (Labour, Easington)
George Mudie (Labour, Leeds East)
Linda Riordan (Labour, Halifax)
Adrian Sanders (Liberal Democrat, Torbay)
Dennis Skinner (Labour, Bolsover)
Andrew Smith (Labour, Oxford East)
Andrew Turner (Conservative, Isle of Wight)
Tom Watson (Labour, West Bromwich East)
David Winnick (Labour, Walsall North)

Regards, Alan.




 

 

 

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