Civil liberties – Blair loses on hatred Act
WORKERS, APR 2006 ISSUE
The Government amendments to the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, defeated by one vote when Blair absented himself from the Commons, ensured that the government's five year assault on free speech and civil liberties was blunted. If the unamended Act had been passed, anti-civil liberties measures first mooted in 2001 and on par with US Patriot Homeland legislation, would have been smuggled into British law.
The defeats inflicted on Blair and his pandering to the fundamentalist religious lobbies are due to the efforts of the National Secular Society and represent a great victory for the civil liberties long fought for by British workers.