Together Declaration

I’ve just joined an outfit that calls itself “Together Declaration.” Their website is here: https://togetherdeclaration.org/. Their stated purpose is: “to unite people from all walks of life to push back against the rapidly growing infringements on our rights and freedoms.” I thought now would be a good time to use all the communication channels I have open to me to make as many liberty-loving people as I can aware of this organization.

The organization was originally formed in August 2021, to protest against the threatened imposition of COVID vaccine passports. You can find their original Declaration here: https://togetherdeclaration.org/sign/#. I can’t remember exactly how it was that I found out about them. But I was one of the original signatories of the Declaration back in August. We got more than 200,000 signatures on that Declaration. That may seem small compared with some of the numbers change.org can muster (nearly half a million have demanded the resignation of Johnson and Sunak over Partygate!) But it was a decent start.

Apart from my libertarian writings, my own civil liberties activism goes back to NO2ID, which I joined in 2006. There are a lot of seeming parallels between Together Declaration and NO2ID. But this time round, unlike NO2ID, we are fighting on many fronts at once. Having seen off the medical passports (for now at least) and the “no jab, no job” scheme for NHS and other medical staff, we are now turning our attention to some of the most urgent human rights issues in the UK today. At the top of the list right now is freedom of speech. This is in light of the “on-line safety” bill currently going through parliament, that plans to force take-down of on-line material that government arbitrarily declares to be “harmful.”

This organization seems to offer a good possibility for a start to a new phase of civil liberties activism in the UK, that can work for real people. It is sorely needed. For example, I was a member of Liberty for about 15 years, and I always felt it was over-leftist and over-feminist. But after Shami Chakrabarti left, it became wedded to minority issues like LGBT, not to the rights that really matter for ordinary people. So, I left it about five years ago.

There are a lot of good people out there, on both left and right of the political spectrum as well as none-of-the-above, who could help make Together Declaration into a real force to be reckoned with. I am particularly pleased that they have rejected the idea of forming a political party to campaign for civil liberties. I am currently a member of the Reform UK party. But I have been very disappointed by the lack of radicalism they have shown in recent months, and the consequent seeming lack of progress. I shan’t be renewing my membership when the renewal comes up in August.

Here are links to three short videos recently produced by Together Declaration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TWMJkELf-w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtNNuc90jug

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiwdRiDdSus

And here is a list of their main people: https://togetherdeclaration.org/meet-the-team/. I hadn’t heard of Alan Miller until the last few days. But he was a speaker at Claire Fox’s Battle of Ideas last year, so he can’t be all bad! Judging by their bios, they look like a pretty media savvy lot. And there are some interesting names on their executive board, too.

I’ve also seen two people I already know featured in their videos. One, Ahmad Malik, the foot surgeon who was a (withdrawn) Brexit Party candidate for the 2019 election (and to whom I gave my “party pitch” at the party’s Maidstone meeting). And two, Dominique Samuels, who was a speaker at the Reform Party’s first conference last year.

The price of a year’s Together Declaration membership is £50, though as an original signatory I get the first year for half price (and I’ll save even that, when I don’t renew with Reform UK). I am looking forward to getting involved with them in one way or another. Let’s get a proper UK civil liberties movement on the road at last!