Daniella Lock

THE STATE OF CRITIQUE
Join us to celebrate the launch of the new Centre for the Critique of Law and Society (formerly Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context)

tinyurl.com/stateofcritique

The “war on terror” might have left the headlines—but states are still using and abusing ‘counterterrorism’ powers to exert control.

And for the past two years, we have been gathering evidence to show exactly how they do it.

Swipe to read some of our key findings, or go to nois.statewatch.org

Lots of reporting that universities are already having meetings with Reform UK. Can't think of a better way to ensure that 1. Reform wins power before even being elected and 2. the overton window has shifted to give way to Reform's worst impulses if it does win the next GE.

If the UK government violates its Manifesto promise to have day one rights to fair dismissal (p.45), the UK will move from being the 3rd worst country in the OECD to being the 8th worst.

Not much "change", when 21% of British people live in poverty, struggle with bills + have no security at work.

Manifesto text referring to introducing basic rights for workers from day one

The manifesto commitment is in page 45 of Labour's 2024 manifesto labour.org.uk/wp-content/u...

Text of manifesto commitment referring to introducing basic rights from day one

Page 45... labour.org.uk/wp-content/u...

There is also something disingenuous about the government claiming it needs to drop its own manifesto commitment to appease the Lords - there is a long constitutional tradition of governments pushing back against the Lords to pass law containing manifesto commitments. 7/

Revealed: how members of House of Lords benefit from commercial interests Months-long Guardian investigation exposes weaknesses in code of conduct that could trigger calls for greater reform

This shows the need for further investigation into the Lords' extensive commercial interests and the influence of these interests on law-making in the UK. 6/ www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

While the Lords' timidity was rife when rights were being removed, this restraint has been abandoned when employers' interests are stake and rights are being enhanced. 5/

In the last government, the Lords repeatedly justified not obstructing legislation on grounds of needing to show constitutional restraint - despite the law undermining democratic safeguards and human rights and not containing manifesto commitments. See here - resolve.cambridge.org/core/journal...

This arrangement is often justified on grounds that the Lords, not democratically elected, should not be obstructing the business of a democratically elected government, particularly where that business was directly voted for by the electorate in the form of a manifesto. 3/

The UK constitution is meant to make it particularly easy for the government to turn manifesto commitments into law (e.g. see the Salisbury Convention). Governments in the past have also been willing to bypass the Lords entirely where manifesto commitments have been blocked (see Jackson). 2/

A union source said the changes had been agreed to allow the bill to progress faster through the House of Lords, which has significantly delayed the legislation. It will mean the qualifying period for unfair dismissal will be reduced from two years to six months.

The Lords have departed from years of restraint in standing up to the Government, to obstruct a manifesto commitment giving workers basic day-one protections. Here is a clear case of constitutional double standards, spurred on by business interests 1/ www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov...

‘Unavoidably unfair’: the secret courts system hearing part of Palestine Action case The CMP system means Huda Ammori will not be allowed to know what allegations were made against her

Members of Palestine Action challenging proscription will be excluded from parts of their legal proceedings giving the government a huge advantage in the case and creating a process where evidence presented without challenge may 'positively mislead' www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov...

📢DIARY DATE!📢
Dec 5th, 5:30pm. Cardiff Uni's School of Journalism.
Get the inside story about the #SpyCops scandal from Kate Wilson (‪@spiesoutoflives.bsky.social‬) & Chris Brian (Undercover Research Group) @ this free public talk.
More info and tickets here 👇
events.cardiff.ac.uk/view/spycops...

Thank you to @alangreene.bsky.social for hosting me and @colinmurray.bsky.social on the new Counter Terrorism podcast to talk about the proscription of Palestine Action. It was great to have this chat. The hearings for the full judicial review of the proscription take place on 25-27 November.

Good post on the available space for reforming article 8 cases in domestic law, featuring an expert demolition of some dubious claims about family life in the Wolfson Report

Christopher Bertram | ‘Core Protection’ Refugeehood is not supposed to be like this. The ideal envisaged by the Refugee Convention is that refugee status should...

‘The sections of “Restoring Order and Control” that mention children are chilling, suggesting that many asylum seekers bring their children not because they love and care for them but as a “fact” to “exploit ... in order to thwart removal”.’

Christopher Bertram:

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/no...

Elections watchdog examining Labour drinks receptions with businesses The party classifies such events as ‘commercial partnerships’

The Electoral Commission is making enquiries into whether Labour should have declared sponsorship from a series of drinks receptions with businesses under the UK’s political donation rules. on.ft.com/48ogXN1

Review of public order and hate crime legislation Lord Macdonald to lead review of public order and hate crime legislation.

Expect more anti-protest laws coming in 2026: as ministers announce a new public order policing review framed around "abuse" of protest rights and free speech. Led by a former Director of Public Prosecutions, the "expert" behind the scenes is an ex senior police officer www.gov.uk/government/n...

International Criminal Court to ditch Microsoft Office for European open source alternative | Euractiv The court will move its internal work environment to Open Desk, a German-developed open source software

The International Criminal Court is ditching Microsoft Office, saying it’s too dependent on US tech, in favor of Open Desk, a German open source alternative.

The move comes after Microsoft revoked ICC head Karim Khan’s email access when he was sanctioned by the US for the warrant against Netanyahu.

📣 BREAKING: One out of every 25 attendees walking around the #COP30 climate talks is a fossil fuel lobbyist.

New research from #KickBigPollutersOut reveals there are more than 1,600 in the UN negotiations in Brazil.

Here's a thread with the top findings 🧵

kickbigpollutersout.org/Release-Kick...

💸 Do you know how much money Big Tech is spending on lobbying in Brussels? How has this amount been increasing? On what is the money being funnelled to and what can we do about it?

📻 Listen to our new #podcast episode to find out 👉 corporateeurope.org/en/2025/11/t...

Excellent piece on powers in the Crime and Police Bill to ban face coverings at protests. It argues that such powers 'cannot be squared with the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of contemporary protest in Britain', and shows how they will drastically undermine freedom of expression at protests.

'BBC Bias' Memo Was Authored by Lobbyist Tied to Pro-Trump Tech Giants The leaked memo that fuelled Trump’s attack on the BBC was written by a lobbyist at a firm paid by US tech giants tied to the President

🧵On our revelations today about the BBC Coup and the Prescott Dossier.

The leaked ‘BBC Bias’ memo Trump used to attack the BBC was authored by Michael Prescott — a Hanover lobbyist paid by US tech/media giants tied to Trump. Full story: bylinetimes.com/2025/11/11/b... 1/12

These new changes to protest law, related to cumulative disruption, seem to have originally been a Policy Exchange proposal published here: policyexchange.org.uk/publication/...

Contested Commons

Formidably erudite, compellingly argued, and dryly humorous, Contested Commons will change the way you think about the politics of space, the "myth of the commons", and the history of England since the eighteenth century: MATTHEW KELLy, author of The Women Who Saved the English Countryside "Starting with Kennington Common, and ranging from Steeple Bumpstead to Sheffield, Stonehenge and Brixton, and with a cast that includes ramblers, ranters, revolutionaries and ravers, this is a superb, sweeping but fine-grained history. It's also a highly necessary, politically urgent reminder of what public space is - places for everyone, owned by everyone, accessible to everyone, whether carefully tended or wild - and what it isn't, the tradition of pseudo-public space that runs from Victorian parks to privatised malls.' OWEN HATHERLEY, author of A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain

A reminder that my book on the history of protest is now published. It is superbly produced with a great cover. Buy it now from @reaktionbooks.bsky.social

Great thread problems of lockin to AWS, due to lack of alternatives. AWS has hosted all of the UK Government's classified data since 2021.

Richard Martin: Counting Cumulative Impact: More Public Order Law Additions Following the horrific antisemitic attack at a Manchester synagogue in October, the government has announced plans to amend sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act 1986. The proposed changes wou…

Richard Martin: Counting Cumulative Impact: More Public Order Law Additions ukconstitutionallaw.org/2025/10/22/r...

The AWS outage today proves how fragile our digital infrastructure can be.

Now, imagine the government had introduced #DigitalID cards on that same system.

Who’s responsible when outages or breaches occur?

Offline alternatives to digital ID MUST be protected.