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Just for clarification. House of Lords amendments do not have to be accepted by the House of Commons and may not make it into law. If you do not agree with an

Just for clarification. House of Lords amendments do not have to be accepted by the House of Commons and may not make it into law. If you do not agree with an amendment then write to your MP, write to the ministers concerned. If you do not tell them your concerns they will not know. You can ask for an appointment with your MP. You can ask for an appointment with ministers. Better still you can form an advocacy group and lobby.

graemep 9mo ago
No, but it does mean that MP's have to make a positive decision to reject it, the proponents of the amendments (who are well financed) will claim anyone who opposes the amendment is pro-pedophile (as happened with the online safety act) which makes it hard to reject. To stop it now we need a majority of MPs who are willing to take a political risk to reject it.
- FrostViper8 9mo ago
  > To stop it now we need a majority of MPs who are willing to take a political risk to reject it. Which isn't going to happen.
FrostViper8 9mo ago
> If you do not agree with an amendment then write to your MP, write to the ministers concerned. If you do not tell them your concerns they will not know. It is an utter waste of time. MPs already know about the concerns. They don't care. I wrote to my MP about many of these concerns in the past. You either get ignored, told you are enabling pedos, told there will be protections put in place (ignoring the whole point is that I don't trust the government), or you get a boilerplate reply. Moreover The vast majority of people (unfortunately this includes people in my own family) have been propagandised to agree with all iffy censorship, monitoring and other spooky nonsense the UK state engages with.
aranw 9mo ago
I've written to my MP several times about this. Each response just repeats the same talking points about safety whilst completely missing the underlying technical issues and consequences.
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  I've been met with that kind of stone walling before too, you know what eventually worked to actually turn the position of a local councilwoman? Going to her office and demand to speak with her, then sitting down, listening and having a conversation with her. Turns out that most of the emails "she" wrote to me was written by an assistant "to save her time" and she weren't aware of the points I was trying to bring up. Granted, this was like one and half decade ago, but if I was met with something similar today I'd try the same thing. People tend to be a lot more reasonable in person, and also if you listen to them first.
  - hexbin010 9mo ago
    Councillors have a totally different role though and aren't involved in creating legislation
    - embedding-shape 9mo ago
      Yeah, also they could be male. Don't take it so literal, the point I'm making is about going and physically meeting people, not about what title/label those people have.
      - hexbin010 9mo ago
        Yeah, fair enough, just didn't want people to waste their time with the councillors regarding national legislation
- badgersnake 9mo ago
  Same, my MP is clueless. They won’t listen to the experts. This is what he said: The UK has a strong tradition of safeguarding privacy while ensuring that appropriate action can be taken against criminals, such as child sexual abusers and terrorists. I firmly believe that privacy and security are not mutually exclusive—we can and must have both. The Investigatory Powers Act governs how and when data can be requested by law enforcement and other relevant agencies. It includes robust safeguards and independent oversight to protect privacy, ensuring that data is accessed only in exceptional cases and only when necessary and proportionate. The suggestion that cybersecurity and access to data by law enforcement are at odds is false. It is possible for online platforms to have strong cybersecurity measures whilst also ensuring that criminal activities can be detected.
bananasandrice 9mo ago
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zrn900 9mo ago
> House of Lords amendments do not have to be accepted by the House of Commons and may not make it into law Except the Lords can send back a law indefinitely until the Commons accepts it. There have been cases in which laws were sent back 60 times until what the Lords wanted was added. A house with hereditary posts with infinite veto power. The UK is not democracy. It never was.

graemep 9mo ago

No, but it does mean that MP's have to make a positive decision to reject it, the proponents of the amendments (who are well financed) will claim anyone who opposes the amendment is pro-pedophile (as happened with the online safety act) which makes it hard to reject. To stop it now we need a majority of MPs who are willing to take a political risk to reject it.

FrostViper8 9mo ago
> To stop it now we need a majority of MPs who are willing to take a political risk to reject it. Which isn't going to happen.

FrostViper8 9mo ago

> If you do not agree with an amendment then write to your MP, write to the ministers concerned. If you do not tell them your concerns they will not know. It is an utter waste of time. MPs already know about the concerns. They don't care. I wrote to my MP about many of these concerns in the past. You either get ignored, told you are enabling pedos, told there will be protections put in place (ignoring the whole point is that I don't trust the government), or you get a boilerplate reply. Moreover The vast majority of people (unfortunately this includes people in my own family) have been propagandised to agree with all iffy censorship, monitoring and other spooky nonsense the UK state engages with.

aranw 9mo ago

I've written to my MP several times about this. Each response just repeats the same talking points about safety whilst completely missing the underlying technical issues and consequences.

embedding-shape 9mo ago
I've been met with that kind of stone walling before too, you know what eventually worked to actually turn the position of a local councilwoman? Going to her office and demand to speak with her, then sitting down, listening and having a conversation with her. Turns out that most of the emails "she" wrote to me was written by an assistant "to save her time" and she weren't aware of the points I was trying to bring up. Granted, this was like one and half decade ago, but if I was met with something similar today I'd try the same thing. People tend to be a lot more reasonable in person, and also if you listen to them first.
- hexbin010 9mo ago
  Councillors have a totally different role though and aren't involved in creating legislation
  - embedding-shape 9mo ago
    Yeah, also they could be male. Don't take it so literal, the point I'm making is about going and physically meeting people, not about what title/label those people have.
    - hexbin010 9mo ago
      Yeah, fair enough, just didn't want people to waste their time with the councillors regarding national legislation
badgersnake 9mo ago
Same, my MP is clueless. They won’t listen to the experts. This is what he said: The UK has a strong tradition of safeguarding privacy while ensuring that appropriate action can be taken against criminals, such as child sexual abusers and terrorists. I firmly believe that privacy and security are not mutually exclusive—we can and must have both. The Investigatory Powers Act governs how and when data can be requested by law enforcement and other relevant agencies. It includes robust safeguards and independent oversight to protect privacy, ensuring that data is accessed only in exceptional cases and only when necessary and proportionate. The suggestion that cybersecurity and access to data by law enforcement are at odds is false. It is possible for online platforms to have strong cybersecurity measures whilst also ensuring that criminal activities can be detected.

bananasandrice 9mo ago

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zrn900 9mo ago

> House of Lords amendments do not have to be accepted by the House of Commons and may not make it into law Except the Lords can send back a law indefinitely until the Commons accepts it. There have been cases in which laws were sent back 60 times until what the Lords wanted was added. A house with hereditary posts with infinite veto power. The UK is not democracy. It never was.