By Anthony Webber:
There is a Parliamentary Petition for a Referendum to abolish the UK Coronavirus Act.
This explains the twenty good reasons why it is so important to sign it.
The Petition’s link is:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/597665
Reason 1:
To stop it being more forcefully used in the future
Although some aspects of the Act are no longer used, and we have had a slight relapse in restrictions, there are justified fears that all aspects will be fully re-implemented in the near future.
It is only necessary to see what has been happening in Austria and some other countries to understand that while the Act is in existence, there are major concerns as to how it is being used and will be used in the future.
We have real concerns about this.
Actions taken by governments which we thought would never happen, have now taken place, except even worse than many feared !
Those who were accused of being “Conspiracy theorists” are sadly having their predictions come true.
It is really is an Orwellian nightmare becoming a reality. Very scary indeed, and with justification.
We have to put a stop to this.
It takes a few seconds to sign this Petition.
Signing it is saying we are pressurising the government to abolish the Act totally.
If not we demand a Referendum !
Reason 2:
The Act itself and its provision are effectively a link to all the awful covid-19 policies of the government, and has to be abolished !
We believe that it is vital to scrap the Coronavirus Act.
This act is like the snake’s head. If you cut it off, the rest of the snake’s abilities wither away into nothing.
This is what we want to do by abolishing this Act, because by doing this it will also become like a fallen domino, and like a fallen domino, it will topple over the many other dominos which are linked to it.
So it is not just an end to any future use of the Act, because it will be non-existent, it will also mean that other government actions linked to it will start to collapse and die too.
Thus the related Acts in the three other Home Countries of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and those in the fourteen British Overseas Territories and three British Crown Dependencies, will also be toppled and disappear. In fact they will all die as fast as they came into existence when the UK Coronavirus Act came into force.
Reason 3:
The Act has encouraged the misuse of other Acts and government decisions:
The Act has encouraged the misuse of other Acts, such as the Public Health ( Control of Diseases) Act 1984 and the Civil Contingences Act 2004, and that they will inevitably be urgently reviewed and changed once the Coronavirus Act goes. It is an extension of the domino theory.
Reason 4:
The Act is against human rights and freedoms
A number of human rights organisations have criticised the Act.
The Liberty Human Rights organisation said that they were very concerned about it and felt it needed to be replaced with an approach that respects human rights, such as their recommended Protect Everyone Bill.
The Government said it wants to build back better. This is one way how this can be achieved.
Reason 5:
The Act has brought about the biggest expansion of executive power in a generation and this is not acceptable
Kathy Gyngell ( Editor of the Conservative Woman) appealed to MP’s back in March just before the Act was renewed on 25th for a further six months :
“A year after this emergency Act was passed, we urge you to repeal the Coronavirus Act on 25th March, to protect rights and justice in the UK.
The Coronavirus Act represents the biggest expansion of executive power in a generation.
Some of the powers in the Act are extreme, unexplained and simply unjustified – but, nodded through on the premise of urgency, the Act suffered from a lack of parliamentary scrutiny.
It is vital that this motion to review the Act is not a rubber-stamping exercise, but a genuine review and repeal of the Act’s unnecessary and dangerous powers. The most dangerous and excessive of these powers are Schedules 21 and 22 of the Act.
Schedule 21 contains some of the most extreme detention powers in modern British legal history. It gives unprecedented, almost arbitrary, powers to the police, immigration officers and public health officials to detain ‘potentially infectious’ members of the public, including children, potentially indefinitely and in unspecified locations. In a pandemic, that could mean anyone.
Schedule 21 detention powers have been used for 252 prosecutions – every single one of which was found unlawful by the CPS on review.
This 100 per cent unlawful prosecution rate, which has continued month after month over the past year, is unprecedented and unacceptable. Big Brother Watch has found cases of innocent and healthy individuals not only being arrested and fined, but even held in police cells unlawfully under these draconian powers.
Renewing Schedule 21 in the Coronavirus Act would be dangerous and indefensible.
Significant powers in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 already allow for the forced detention and testing of potentially infectious people with the authorisation of a magistrate, which is a vital safeguard.
Furthermore, the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation) Regulations 2020 require individuals who test positive to self-isolate and give police the power to forcibly return an individual to an isolation place.
Schedule 22 gives the Secretary of State extraordinary powers to prohibit gatherings, meaning protests, vigils and political assemblies could be banned at ministerial discretion.
Schedule 22 has never been activated in England and so is plainly unnecessary, but neither is it proportionate in a democracy. All the time it sits on the statute books, it poses a threat to the right to free expression, freedom of assembly and democracy.
Please vote to repeal these dangerous powers on 25th March.”
As we know, MP’s ignored her pleas.
Lawyers for Liberty UK at the time said gave similar warnings:
URGENT: The Coronavirus Act is due for renewal TOMORROW, 25 March
Section 51 gave police the powers to arrest “potentially infectious” people.
But it’s overwhelmingly been used to unlawfully detain healthy, innocent people.
TAKE ACTION! Send this template letter to your MP: https://lawyersforliberty.uk/coronavirusact/#action
As we know, these calls fell on deaf ears too.
Reason 6:
The ending of the Act means taking away the shackles on our society and on us as individuals.
We will see the ending of other important dictates such as Track and Trace, Testing, Quarantine, Travel restrictions, mass covid-19 vaccinations without informed consent, vaccine passports and mandates, and more. The reason is that all these policies are based on falsities which will no longer survive because the Octopus of the UK Coronavirus Act and its tentacles will at last have been removed from its threatening grip over the nation.
Reason 7:
MP’s renewed the Act for another six months without a recorded vote
We are also painfully aware that the UK Coronavirus Act was renewed for yet ANOTHER six months when MP’s voted to do this on October 14th of this year.
In fact millions of people were appalled and disgusted that such an important decision had such a derisory low attendance of MP’s, just a few not very impressive speeches to say the least, and a decision made without even a recorded vote.
It was this appalling behaviour by our MP’s which was a key reason for this Petition.
We the British public had never given our democratic consent to the imposition of the UK Coronavirus Act in the first place. In fact we were not even the remotest bit consulted !
The Act was supposed to be for just three weeks but ended up constantly being renewed, like a “Never Ending Story.”
It was clearly an unacceptable situation for the electorate to contend with, to have a situation where MP’s of all political parties were voting for this Act continuously when they knew they had no such authority to do so from such electorate.
It was also very obvious that the public were losing trust and faith in MP’s and the system they worked in. This system is not working for us, the Electorate !
Reason 8:
Don’t let the authorities demoralise you into not signing Parliamentary Petitions!
Sign more, not less !
At the start of the covid crisis the system of using Parliamentary Petitions was used as a means of expressing protest and concern to MP’s about how the government was abusing its powers in dealing with covid-19.
However, over a period of months the way the government and indeed Parliament has handled such Petitions has been far from impressive.
A Petition which asked Parliament to prevent any restrictions on those who refused to have a covid-19 vaccine, and which achieved 337,145 signatures, was debated in Parliament on 14th December 2020 and was fobbed off by assurances from the government which they have gone back on.
The same happened with a Petition which said “Do not roll out covid-19 vaccine passports.”
This achieved 375,209 signatures, was debated on 15th March 2021, and again was fobbed off and the government have gone back on their word on that too.
It is not surprising that most similar petitions since then have achieved less signatures and just as little success.
One Petition is currently doing well with the signatures, and that is to Prohibit Employers from requiring staff to be vaccinated
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/599841
Like all these Petitions I have signed it too.
It has qualified for consideration for a Parliamentary debate, and will probably get one even though a slightly similar one ( mentioned in this article) has been debated already. This is good news for all of us who signed it !
However, that has a good chance of being fobbed off too.
It could be the government requiring the vaccine mandate rather than the employers, but the government will come up with something. After all, they have already gone down this road and it will take a lot to make them stop and turn back.
What has to be accepted is that it is pretty hopeless relying on MP’s, who can be whipped into voting for what their parties decide.
To hope that in the current circumstances there is going to be any change of any covid policy is over optimistic in the extreme .
However, all these points are demoralising and put people off signing Parliamentary Petitions.
That is exactly what the government wants! They can then say that there is little opposition to their covid policies ! We must not fall for it! Instead we should sign more Petitions !
After all, it takes only a few seconds to do so , and therefore easy !
If we can achieve debates, then we are succeeding !
Reason 9:
We have a right to decide this issue, not Parliament, and a right to demand a Referendum!
The only hope for a change of policy is to use the right we have in our system, to ask for a Referendum.
Nobody believes Parliament will change the covid-19 policies without huge pressures put on them.
A demand for a Referendum is a huge pressure, having one is an even bigger one!
It is not a guaranteed right, but it is still one which is available.
If it is turned down the government will be shown up as undemocratic and hypocritical, as they did after all get into power on the back of a Referendum.!
If Parliament turn it down, MP’s who profess to believe in our democratic system of national elections and national Referenda will be shown up too, and the public will no longer have faith in that system.
So whilst it is easy for the government and Parliament to find ways of sidestepping Petitions which achieve a Parliamentary debate, it is an entirely more difficult matter to turn down a Petition for a Referendum.
Reason 10:
There is a precedent for this Referendum, if other countries can have a Referendum on this issue, then so can we !
In June of this year, the Swiss had a Referendum on their equivalent of covid laws.
Their government rather cleverly tried to confuse the public by having a total of five Referenda at the same time . Even so, those who wanted their covid laws thrown out, managed to achieve a laudable 40% of the vote.
This has not stopped the freedom/liberty campaigners in Switzerland. On November 28th they will be having another Referendum, this time on the issue of covid certificates/passports.
These facts are ignored by the mainstream media. They don’t want the public getting ideas about demanding a Referendum in the UK, do they ?!
One important point to bear in mind from the Swiss example is they use Referenda as part of their campaigning. We should do the same because if successful, fundamental change can be brought about!
There are those who worry that if we had a Referendum, that we could lose.
But then you could argue that in respect of any type of campaigning we have done so far.
On the whole, is it not true that we very sadly have lost so far.
But does it stop us being resilient and fighting on ? Of course not !
We must not be defeatist in any area of campaigning, but pick issues which we have chance of winning!
We have a chance of winning back our freedoms with this Referendum and this is why we must go for this opportunity !
Reason 11:
A Referendum will give us open two sided debate, which has been denied to us so far !
One of the main reasons we have not been able to stop the main actions of the government has been because they control the mainstream media. This has meant that the overwhelming number of counter arguments to the government’s policies have simply not been allowed to be put.
To many people this lack of free media and lack of the government’s policies being questioned and scrutinised has been an immense shock.
To others it is something they saw coming.
However, it has happened because of the government’s misuse of emergency and censorship powers, the intelligence services and the massive advertising and promotion budgets they are responsible for.
A Referendum will give us what the government don’t want us to have, the opportunity to put our case forward on all the covid related issues. They will do anything to avoid this, as they know their credibility to give the truth would be completely demolished. They know that there is not one single covid related policy they would win on because none of them is substantiated by actual facts.
The worst that could happen with a Referendum is that millions more would understand that there are viable alternatives to the government policies. The best is that we would win and bring about freedom for the whole of the UK.!
Reason 12: A Referendum is preferable to a General Election held on this issue.
This is because a General Election involves political parties who have different views on many different issues. Thus a General Election would not satisfactorily resolve this important issue. It is exactly why the mechanism exists to hold Referenda, because they are generally held on important cross party issues.
Reason 13:
To ensure it hits the 100,000 threshold to qualify for a Parliamentary debate !
The government do not want this to have a Parliamentary debate !
They have been using every tactic under the sun to discourage people from signing it.
It has been totally no-platformed by the mainstream media, as they know just one mention would get about 500,000 people signing it. At least three press releases on the Petition have been completely ignored ! We know our biggest problem with the Petition is that most people have never heard of it..
We are constantly coming across supporters of freedom and liberty in this category.
This is because as a movement or campaign we only have access to a small number of alternative free media.
As freedom/resistance fighters there is long way to go to improve co-ordination and communications on important issues.
As for the Parliamentary debate, we have strong arguments to give to freedom friendly MP’S to counter the extremely weak justification the government have given so far for rejecting the Petition.
This debate is essential for our cause !
The petition just needs to top the 100,000 signatures to qualify for consideration of a Parliamentary debate.This is very achievable and we need to do it fast !
The sooner the debate the better !
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/597665
Reason 14:
To have our arguments debated in Parliament !
To put the government on the back foot !
So far, it its initial response to the Petition, the government has said “it has no plans to hold a referendum on the Act.” Many believe this reaction has been a huge blunder because it gives the impression that the government was happy to get into power on the back of one referendum ( the EU) and then hypocritically turn down another referendum because it does not suit them.
It will be very difficult for them to deal with this call for a Referendum at a Parliamentary debate
Reason 15:
The UK Coronavirus Act is seen as the embodiment of everything which is evil about government covid-19 policy. Therefore abolishing it totally is essential !
The UK Coronavirus Act is seen in the public mind as the source of most covid-19 policy decisions.
Every time recently there has been an awful government covid policy announcement, it has boosted the number of signatures for the Petition.
The Health Secretary decision on mandatory vaccines for front line NHS Staff is one example.
Also decisions abroad in countries like Austria and Australia on lockdowns against the non covid-19 vaccinated are also a spur for people to sign.
Reason 16:
This Petition represents a banner under which all believers in freedom and liberty should be able to support
The Act has become associated in the public’s mind with everything they do not like with lockdowns and what is seen as the drift towards restricting freedoms, especially vaccine mandates and passports.
Although there have been changes to the Coronavirus Act, it is still seen as the symbol of everything which people feel the government has gone too far on in the exercise of emergency powers.
This is one campaign which everyone can support because we all want the UK Coronavirus Act abolished!
Reason 17:
Camelot TV and others back Petition
The latest body to back the Petition are Camelot TV, along with their association with Camelot castle. The Petition organisers feel highly motivated by this and the association of King Arthur Knights with their chivalrous codes of goodness, truth, honour, justice and protection. They feel that embodies what the Petition is all about.
There have been a number of well- known people who have backed the Petition:
Lawrence Fox, Martin Daubney, Jennifer Acuri ( who knew the Prime Minister very well), and many others
Reason 18:
The detail of the UK Coronavirus Act, as renewed , is in the link below:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9342/
There is nothing there which should not be abolished !
Reason 19:
A previous Petition which also asked for the ending of the Act, but not a Referendum, was fobbed off. Therefore our best chance has to be with a Referendum !
There was a previous Petition on the Coronavirus Act, which called for its Repeal, received 102,809 signatures, and was debated by Parliament on 22nd March 2021. It was a disappointing debate which essentially fobbed off the issue:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/313310
There was also a Parliamentary Petition to end all Covid-19 restrictions, which closed on 3rd June 2021, with 53,230 signatures, but was similarly fobbed of by the government:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/561995
There is currently a worthy Parliamentary Petition to Repeal the Coronavirus Act which is still live:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/592632
It has received 31,328 signatures so far. This is likely to receive the same sort of response as the previous ones, but still merits signing.
Reason 20: We can set and example to the world by this Referendum
If we succeed, we can help other countries be liberated too, and end the oppression and tyranny by the globalists !
Anthony Webber
Joint founder, National Alliance ( UK) for freedom from lockdowns,( non-party political)
Independent Political Commentator
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