UK Parliament Watch

A British Labour MP, Jessica Asato, has announced that she plans to ask Parliament to outlaw online adult content featuring the act of choking. Asato called choking content insidious and claimed that it has led to a huge increase in the practice in everyday relationships. Asato claimed in an interview with GB News that this is also leading to things like spitting, slapping -- all things that actually many women say they don't want, they don't consent to -- so technically, that's criminal.

Asato explained that, should she be successful in passing the proposed law, the British media censor Ofcom would be empowered to levy really big fines or initiate criminal proceedings against sites or platforms that make choking content available online.

Inevitably the moralist Asato doesn't consider her censorship proposal as censorship. Asked whether she opposes nonviolent consensual pornography, Asato responded:

I don't have any problem with that at all, and I'm certainly not here to be a moralist ...BUT... What I'm really concerned about is the damaging impact it has in the real lives of women and girls in relationships.

Earlier this year, a pornography review initiated under the conservative government of former U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recommended banning any adult content deemed degrading, violent and misogynistic -- including material showing choking, eaggeratingly tagged as non-fatal strangulation.

Labour MPs are attempting to launch the most draconian clampdown on sex work devised in Britain in decades, campaigners have warned.

Sex workers told Novara Media that the measures proposed by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi could unjustly criminalise their friends and family and put prostitutes' safety at risk.

Antoniazzi, the Labour MP for Gower, has put forward two amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill, due to be discussed in parliament on Wednesday.

Clause NC2 seeks to make it a criminal offence to enable or profit from the prostitution of another person, including by operating a website hosting adverts for prostitution. This clause states it would be against the law for individuals to assist, facilitate, control, or incite someone to engage in sexual activity for money or another form of benefit anywhere in the world.

Clause NC3 seeks to outlaw buying, offering, or promising payment in exchange for sexual activity.

The English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), a campaign group that supports sex workers, claims the clauses could criminalise anyone who associates with a sex worker -- workmates, drivers, web-makers, receptionists, friends, clients. The clauses would also criminalise the advertising sites which sex workers depend on to work independently and in greater safety.

The amendments to the legislation have gained the support of cross-party MPs, with Labour's Diane Abbott and Sarah Champion, as well as former Labour MP Rosie Duffield (now an independent) among them.

Niki Adams, a spokesperson for the ECP, said the amendments would force us [sex workers] to work in isolation and put us at much greater risk of attack and of violence.

Although it is not illegal for individuals to buy or sell sex from each other in England, Scotland and Wales, many activities associated with prostitution are unlawful, including a sex worker teaming up with another person or a group to protect their safety while working.

Adams warned that the legislation could lead to friends and family being targeted, as the amendments do not specify that the individual must profit from their sex work.