The Wardman Wire

Wow. What an unexpected outcome of the lost vote over 42 days detention. Not something I was expecting to see when I clicked on to the BBC website at lunch time!

The resignation of the Shadow Home Secretary, not just from the Shadow Cabinet but as an MP. But only so that he can take the question directly to the people, and with any luck win the people of this country over to the idea of freedom from the creep of the Big Brother state.

David Davis made today a very courageous decision. And a very important one for us all. Yesterday our freedoms were taken away from us; today a very senior, well-known and well-respected politician is fighting to get them back to us. A very refreshing scene.

Even though it will very much be a walk into the unknown. He may not win the by-election, despite Haltemprice and Howden being a pretty safe seat. But it is a massively rare move. A politician doing something on a principle? Especially when it means actually resigning his own seat and position?! He would have been Home Secretary if the Conservatives won the next general election, so it’s certainly not just to do with getting some publicity, as he’s not getting his old job in the Shadow Cabinet back - if any.

What David Davis has done is firmly nailed the flag of the Conservative Party to civil liberties. He has made it party policy, and this is not the sort of thing that can be quietly changed at a later date. The new Shadow Home Secretary, Dominic Grieve, has already made it clear that a Conservative government will repeal the 42 days legislation. And, even more successfully, he has managed to do the same to the Liberal Democrats who are not standing against him in this by-election.

He is fighting for us. For our rights, for our liberties. For our future. And for our freedom from an ever-more-intrusive state. We can stop the “insidious, surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms” if we make it known that we support Davis, that we want the government to back off from us.

We do not want to live in surveillance or police state. We want to live in freedom, as is our birthright as human beings. And we must make this very very very clear. Or they will keep on chipping away. And then, suddenly, we’ll find ourselves with any freedoms left at all. Too late to do anything about it. So David Davis must be praised for making the stand for us all.

Davis has also done the impossible and united people from across the political spectrum in support.

You can watch David Davis’ barn-storming speech here, or read it here.