Democratic Choice is a new movement born out of frustration with the malaise in British Politics and the lack of adequate opposition to New Labour’s apparent determination to control every aspect of our lives. As a nation we are in danger of losing many of the freedoms we have struggled throughout history to achieve – freedoms we have grown to cherish and take for granted. Democratic Choice intends to offer a platform and be voice for the preservation of such freedoms.
New Labour professes to be the listening government but it seems to listen only to what it wants to hear. It certainly turned a deaf ear to the million or more people on the peace march in 2003 demonstrating against the impending invasion of Iraq.
When New Labour came to power in 1997 few voters expected it to support an American led war against Iraq - especially when Britain and the UN voted against such an offensive after Saddam Hussein`s invading army was forcibly removed from Kuwait in 1991. Had an invasion of Iraq by The US and the UK taken place at that time, it would at least have been more understandable to the rest of the world.
It is not just concerns about the Iraq war - the biggest can of worms to be opened for a long time - it is the ever-increasing threat to personal freedoms in our own country. Identity cards might seem acceptable under a benign government but there is no guarantee that a government will remain benign when the taste for total control over every aspect of our lives takes hold. After ten years in power New Labour has reached such a stage. Our business and private lives, our leisure activities and popular culture are being subjected to more and more government control and interference. George Orwell’s ‘1984’ seems to be coming true - his predictions just twenty years out. Today the government has the surveillance capability to monitor practically every part of our existence enabling it to punish and fine members of the public for every minor misdemeanour it sees fit. The most recent example is the smoking ban, which is about to spawn a whole new industry of spies and snoopers to persecute and to punish previously innocent citizens caught smoking in public places. It will turn citizen against citizen in a totally unnecessary way.
New Labour’s new laws create new crimes and new law-breakers - many from previously law-abiding citizens. Do the police and the courts really need more criminals to contend with? Surely there is ample crime on our streets already. Or is it just another way to raise taxes and create employment? The £9 billion revenue a year collected from smokers (six times the amount the NHS needs to treat smoking related diseases) will presumably be diminished and will have to be found elsewhere – something the anti-smoking lobby might not immediately realise. Who will pay to enforce the smoking ban and all the literature, posters and stickers it has sent to every business in the country? Who will pay the wages of the enforcement officers? Revenue from fines will be minimal. In England the government informs us that local councils will be responsible for enforcing the new law – i.e. council tax, our money that would be better spent fighting real street crime.
