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by freshflowers 3587 days ago
Ironically, the same issue is exactly why I, as a citizen of the Netherlands, support leaving the EU.

Because even at this point, Net Neutrality is still less well protected by the EU than it was under our own national legislation.

I cannot in all good conscience support a union that has the power to undermine our civil rights. If Brits don't want those civil rights, that's their choice.

Brussels is not a force for good simply because in this case it would be an improvement for the Brits.
1 comments
ZenoArrow 3587 days ago
I agree with your general sentiment, but wonder where you get the idea that Britain is somewhat backward when it comes to civil rights. Whilst challenges to civil rights will continue to exist and be resisted, it should be noted that the European Convention on Human Rights was influenced by the UK's approach to civil rights: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human...

If you have concrete examples of poor civil rights in the UK, by all means share them, I'm not pretending things are perfect here, and would be happy to get a better grasp of where things could be improved.

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M2Ys4U 3585 days ago
The UK's continuing contempt for the unanimous ruling of the ECHR in Hirst v United Kingdom would be one good point.

Likewise the continued push for mass surveillance (see: DRIPA, the defunct Draft Communications Data Bill and the seemingly inevitable Investigatory Powers Bill) is another - the most recent legislative attempts have been to make legal what the state has been doing illegally for many, many years. What worries me is that there is no common-law right to privacy in English law; our modern privacy rights stem almost exclusively from the ECHR and the EU.

The recent clampdown on the rights of trades unions is a third example. Despite an historic low number of days lost to industrial action, the government has been making it much harder to legally strike, or even to _fund_ trades unions (for example, imposing high thresholds on ballots and attempting to remove the option of payroll funding for union membership).

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