I'm more worried about the very real and considerably more developed plans to drastically change how the legal aid system works in the UK. In brief, the UK gov

I'm more worried about the very real and considerably more developed plans to drastically change how the legal aid system works in the UK. In brief, the UK government is planning to stop the current legal aid system - where solicitors (lawyers) are paid based upon how much work they've actually done on the case - and replace it with a flat rate. The flat rate is the same regardless of a guilty or not guilty plea. It should be immediately obvious that this means it's in a solicitor's best interests for a client to plead guilty, as they'll the same amount of money but for considerably less work. Additionally, the government plans to remove the right to choose your own lawyer when on legal aid, and allow law firms (or, indeed, any company) to 'bid' to provide legal aid services exclusively across a geographic area. What's particularly bad is that these proposals are being brought in as secondary legislation, which means they don't require a debate in parliament. That's very much unlike the 'snoopers' charter', which has a very strong chance of either being killed outright or considerably watered down as it works through parliament. The end of the blog post linked to here discusses this a little - there's also a petition that UK residents can (and should) sign: https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/48628 https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/48628