Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Do the police now decide who can attend the Liberal Democrat Conference?

A post from Disgruntled Radical this evening:
Today I received a message from Liberal Democrat HQ telling me that I must supply my passport (or other ID) details if I want to attend party conference. Guidelines on the website make it clear that the information will be passed to the police. They also make it clear that I may be refused "accreditation" presumably on police advice.

There is nothing in our party constitution about accreditation. Local parties elect representatives and there is no power for the party nationally to choose which of these may attend. We must fight this illiberal procedure which is against what we stand for and our constitution.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Utterly and absolutely agreed.

I was so proud of Nick Clegg when he said he'd go to jail rather than be forced to have an ID card. He's had nothing to do with this decision, but the Federal Conference Committee needs to show his sort of courage and tell the police, politely, to go forth and multiply.

Lavengro in Spain said...

Why is it not against your national constitution? Ah yes of course, I forgot, you don't have one.

Anonymous said...

Not forgetting of course one has no obligation to obtain nor, indeed, any actual right to be issued a passport.

Lavengro in Spain said...

I have to have a British passport. The Spanish State insists that I have one and anyway I can't get into the UK without one!
http://lavengro.typepad.com/lavengro_in_spain/2008/04/experiencing-di.html

Lavengro in Spain said...

Though I can of course travel from here to Lisbon to Helsinki to Athens without ever showing any identity document at all.