UK Parliament Watch

More than 450 high-street head shops and online sellers of legal highs face closure across Britain under the blanket ban on new psychoactive substances to be debated in parliament on Tuesday.

The first Home Office estimate of the extent of the trade in legal highs, which are to be banned from April next year, describes it as an industry making a 40% profit of £32m a year on an annual turnover of £82m.

The psychoactive substances bill, which is to receive its second reading in the House of Lords on Tuesday, is designed to ban the trade in legal highs, probably from April next year. The legislation includes exemptions for everyday legitimate psychoactive substances including alcohol, tobacco and caffeine and is also expected to include an exemption for legitimate medical and scientific research.

The ban will cover a range of synthetic chemical substances designed to mimic traditional illegal drugs such as cannabis and ecstasy and will extend to cover nitrous oxide -- laughing gas or hippy crack -- the second most popular recreational drug in Britain.

The estimate of the size of the legal highs market is the first indication of the scale of the industry that faces closure as a result of the ban. The Home Office estimate that based on police and local authority sources there are about 335 high street head shops for whom legal highs is a main source of income. On top of this there are a further 115 UK-based websites offering them for sale online.

The Home Office says there are a further 210 smaller suppliers of legal highs including tattoo parlours, sex shops and newsagents for whom the trade is not a major source of income but which will also be hit by the ban.

The bill is expected to receive widespread support in its second reading in the House of Lords on Tuesday. But Lady Meacher, of the all-party parliamentary group for drug policy reform, is expected to warn that the blanket ban will lead to young people turning back to street dealers or the internet, and will not reduce their overall use.

A new campaign is calling for buying sex to be made illegal in an attempt to ban prostitution in Scotland.

The End Prostitution Now campaign is being backed by the Women's Support Project and the Glasgow Violence Against Women Partnership. Liz Curran, from the Women's Support Project, told BBC Scotland:

The crux of this campaign is about challenging the demand for prostitution which is inherently harmful to women. We have to tackle the root cause and from our campaign's point of view that is gender inequality and men's demand.

The vast majority of women who are involved in prostitution are not there through choice. A small minority of women may make it a choice but the law does not represent the interest of minorities.

Molly (not her real name) from Scotpep, a sex workers' rights organisation which works with prostitutes on the streets and in saunas, explained the dangers inherent in the feminist campaign:

When the client is criminalised he is more jumpy.

He needs to get away quickly and that means the worker has to get into his car more quickly if she wants to keep his business.

That cuts down on the crucial time that she has to talk about services and prices and to assess whether he seems safe, whether he seems drunk, to write down his car registration number. So there is a huge increase in violence associated with laws like this.

Labour MSP Rhoda Grant has submitted amendments to the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Bill in the hope of banning prostitution. She tried to justify her morality amendment:

It's now illegal to purchase sex in Northern Ireland. We need to follow suit to stop Scotland becoming a haven for sex traffickers moving out of Northern Ireland and into a more hospitable environment here.

The High Court is hearing a legal challenge to the government's 'emergency' surveillance law brought by two MPs.

The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act was fast-tracked through Parliament in three days last July. It allows Britain's intelligence agencies to gather people's phone and internet communications data.

But former Conservative minister David Davis and Labour's Tom Watson will argue that the legislation is incompatible with human rights. The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act was rushed through Parliament in July 2014, after a ruling by the European Union's Court of Justice rendered existing powers illegal.

The plans were supported by the three main parties, but opposed by civil liberties campaigners. 'Lives at risk'

However, Watson and Davis say the legislation was rushed and lacked adequate safeguards, and needs to be re-thought. They will argue that the legislation is incompatible with the right to a private and family life, and data protection, under both the Human Rights Act and the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights.

A former councillor from Slough has effectively resigned from the Labour Party after failing to persuade his MP, (now a candidate seeking re-election), to support the introduction of a new UK blasphemy law.

Mohammed Arif, who was a councillor in the 1990s, was unhappy with Fiona Mactaggart's refusal to publicly back the Blasphemy Law which limits the freedom of expression relating to blasphemy. He said:

I am not happy about resigning but I had no choice, I am not being listened to. She is not listening to us. This has really hurt me.

Arif is the president of the Pakistan Welfare Association (PWA). He wrote to Ms Mactaggart in February, on behalf of the PWA, and asked her to back a Parliamentary bill which would support such a law. He received a response from Mactaggart in April in which she said she would pass a petition on to the correct government minister if the feelings were widespread across Slough. He complained:

I have no difficulty with the Labour Party itself. It is the people who run the local party, they do not bother to listen.

I am not against freedom of expression, everybody has the right to their own views... HOWEVER ...respect is more important.

Arif has now pledged support to the Conservative parliamentary candidate, Gurcharan Singh and says he is in favour of David Cameron's commitment to tackling Islamophobia .

Update: Post-election update

16th May 2015. See article from secularism.org.uk

The Labour MP for Slough has hit out against voter intimidation, after some Muslim voters were told that they were not true Muslims unless they voted against her.

The row centres over a local campaign for a blasphemy law. During the General Election campaign newly re-elected MP Fiona Mactaggart apparently resisted calls for the draconian measure, and when the result was announced she issued a stark warning about spiritual coercion in one community - in an apparent reference to Muslims in Slough.

Mactaggart said voters had been intimidated and that she wouldn't build bridges with those behind the smears:

I don't see how you can build a bridge with someone who says 'you aren't a proper Muslim if you vote for Fiona.

There has been an element of spiritual coercion in one community which I profoundly regret. I think it was an attempt to divide Slough and its community which is dangerous. It is religious intimidation.

Her defeated Conservative Party rival, Gurcharan Singh, said :

The truth is that Fiona refused to listen to the concerns of Slough's Muslim community and the Pakistan Welfare Association about the need for action to provide a legal channel to respond to those blaspheming against their religion.

Worryingly, Singh said the local campaign for a blasphemy law resonated with Sikhs and Hindus too.

Stephen Evans of the National Secular Society said:

The recent election campaign saw numerous attempts to exert religious or spiritual influence over voters. There may well be problems with how the law deals with this kind of action by religious groups and leaders, as some argue. Either way, it is an extremely troubling development. We do not want to see sectarian politics emerging in this country.

As for Mr Singh- it is deeply concerning to hear a parliamentary candidate supporting a campaign for a blasphemy law. Inter-faith support for such a regressive measure is nothing to be proud of.

Scottish National Party MPs are commendably planning to oppose flagship Conservative legislation by courting Tory backbenchers, The Telegraph reveals.

Nicola Sturgeon's Westminster MPs want to block the so-called Snoopers' Charter by courting libertarian Tories who have previously opposed Theresa May's plans for internet mass snooping. The conservatives want to implement a searchable database so that the authorities will be able to more fully analyse people's internet usage and communications.

The SNP MPs also believe they can gather enough cross-party support to kill off reprehensible Tory plans to repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with a lesser British Bill of Rights.

One senior SNP MP told the Telegraph:

Both those issues fall in that tricky civil liberties space for the Conservatives where there are fault lines,

We think the mass collection of data is wrong. There is a line beyond which it is unacceptable for civil liberties can be impinged.

SNP opposition would likely be matched by Labour and the Lib Dems, meaning only a few dozen Tory rebels would be enough to block the flagship manifesto pledges.

A politically charged moral panic over young people's attitudes to sexuality is leading to Internet censorship and the labelling of ordinary young people as sex offenders, civil liberties campaign Backlash warns today.

Backlash will campaign for a change in the law so that prosecutions intended to halt child abuse are not used to instigate the abuse of children through the criminal justice system.

Backlash Action

Backlash is extending its remit to provide legal advice for young people who are threatened with criminal prosecution for possessing sexually explicit images of themselves and shared consensually on digital media.

The campaign will help fund effective defences when support available under legal aid is inadequate, and develop arguments for a judicial review of existing legislation.

Backlash will also disseminate a growing body of robust academic research evidence to policymakers, challenging the current legislative process, which is dominated by a climate of ignorance and hysteria regarding young people's attitudes to sexual relationships.

This campaign is spearheaded by obscenity law expert and Backlash's legal adviser, Myles Jackman.

Sexting -- criminalising ordinary young people

Millions of young people exchange explicit texts and images with each other over the Internet. For the most part this is equivalent to the flirting and sexual exploration typical of adolescence in the pre-digital age. There is no evidence that these activities are intrinsically harmful. However, a flaw in existing legislation means that possession of all sexually explicit images of people under 18 is classified as indecent . This means that people from the age of 16 to 18 are able to consent to sex, but are unable to possess images of their own lawful sexual activities.

A 16 to 18 year old that creates a nude picture of themselves using a camera-phone is, under current law, guilty of the serious offence of creating child pornography , even though their actions do not plausibly justify such a label.

When the authorities detect these images, teenagers themselves become subject to laws originally aimed at stopping child abuse, even though no abuse has taken place. These prosecutions cause immense mental distress and disruption to education. A prosecution, regardless of the sentencing outcome, severely harms the future life prospects of young people. For example, ordinary teenagers, who pose no harm to those around them, can still be forced to sign the sex offenders' register and prevented from participating in a broad range of employment, civic and personal activities years after the offence has been recorded.

Inappropriate criminalisation is a significant danger for ordinary young people growing up in the digital age, made worse by the fact that the source of the danger is the criminal justice system.

Porn panic -- a cross-party delusion

Instead of tackling this flawed legislation to focus on acts of abuse, major political parties have been caught in an arms race towards more criminalisation and censorship of people's sexuality. This process has been fostered by knee-jerk responses to pressure groups that ignore academic research evidence into young people's sexuality and use of sexually explicit media.

An NSPCC survey claimed, earlier this month, that a tenth of twelve to thirteen year olds had reported the fear that they were addicted to pornography. The survey has since been exposed as unreliable, as it was a developed by a marketing company that offers to produce survey outcomes based on pre-defined conclusions.

Nevertheless, the Culture Secretary, Sajid Javid, pronounced that the Conservatives would impose age-restrictions to protect our children from harmful material . This pledge was almost immediately matched by the Labour Party. Such an approach ignores alternative approaches, including providing effective sex education to young people.

Myles Jackman commented:

By criminalising young people between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, our political and justice systems show how disconnected they are from technological change and social values, which is especially worrying so close to an election where politicians have been exploiting selfie culture.

Ukip have reported Have I Got News For You to police over a comment made about Nigel Farage. However commentators have noted that the disputed comments about Farage came after 13 minutes of mocking the Tories, Labour, Lib Dem and SNP campaigns.

The complaint arose from last Friday's edition when journalist Camilla Long spoke about visiting Farage's constituency of South Thanet in Kent. She said:

I went there more than Nigel Farage. By the time I arrived there he'd only been a few times.

When asked by Ian Hislop whether she thought Ukip would win the seat, Long replied:

I don't think they are, I don't think he's going to get a seat at all.

Speaking to Nick Ferrari on LBC, Farage said:

Even through to a programme on Have I Got News For You last week where comments were made about an individual in a constituency, namely me, that I just don't think would have been said about any other candidate in the country.'

According to ITV Nnews, Ukip's advisors claimed the comments were inaccurate and that their broadcast breached the Representation of the People Act.

Kent Police confirmed they received a complaint, but said they would not be launching an investigation. A spokesman told Chortle:

Kent Police received a complaint regarding comments made on a television broadcast last week. It was suggested that the comments breached the Representation of the People Act. The matter has been reviewed by officers but there's no evidence of any offences and there will be no further action.

The Labour Party made a very worrying policy announcement that was hardly noticed by the media: Labour would outlaw Islamophobia , said Ed Miliband in an interview.

The proposals are fairly nebulous at this point: Ed says he intends to make Islamophobia an aggravated crime and toughen existing hate crime legislation . Defenders of freedom of speech should be alarmed at this, because Labour has dangerous previous form in exactly this area: the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006.

What Ed is proposing looks like a return to finish the 2006 act. In 2006 Labour originally tried to criminalise deliberately insulting a religion. Those opposed to that law argued that it would become a criminal offence mock a religion, or to say that a religion damages British society, because in doing so they would be accused of inciting religious hatred *. There was a huge public out-cry, led by academics, artists, writers and comedians (notably Rowan Atkinson), and in the end the Labour government was defeated by a single vote and the law was watered down. Ed Miliband personally voted for the original wording.

Such oppressive laws are two edged. Not only do they deny people free speech, but they also provide weapons to bullies and aggressive people by allowing them to accuse people of islamophobia.

Lets face it, the need to criticise religion is massively important, unchecked religions have spawned some of the nastiest regimes known to mankind.