In the run up to the Convention, we’re running a series of short blogs from each member of the Convention team. This one is by Matt Brian who has responsibility for producing the CML Briefings.
Matt Brian: The election of Barack Obama last November really brought home to me the problems we have here in Britain. Whilst in the short term we may face the same economic challenges as our U.S counterparts, such a significant and positive political leap in America only served to highlight the almost continual procession of negative steps seen in our own political system over recent years. The subject which raises the greatest concern is the incessant attack on our civil liberties, and Labour’s attempts to prey on people’s fear of terror to justify chipping away at our freedoms in return for supposed sanctuary.
Since joining the Convention team, my knowledge of what is really happening to our rights and privacy has exploded, but very few people have had the time or patience to trawl through the material needed to understand what is going on. As a result, people haven’t questioned in any great numbers, for example, the government’s legitimacy to ask for 53 pieces of information before you leave the country, or a local council’s right to spy on innocent school children and their parents.
What the convention brings is a chance to spread the truth of what is actually happening under our noses, that surrendering our hard won freedoms is not the way to secure our safety, and acts as a timely reminder to those in Whitehall that they work for us, and not the other way around.
