Liberty Central is not an organisation and it is certainly not a political party. It has no formal membership, no committees, no management, no leaders and no particular structure. The term that has come up most often in discussions about this project has been ‘a coalition of the willing’ and this is perhaps the most apt description that anyone has arrived at as yet – a loose coalition of people who are willing to try to work together in many different way to preserve and secure, in perpetuity, the liberty of the citizens of the United Kingdom.

The central premise of this project is perhaps best expressed in this quotation from the 28th President of the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson:

“Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it... The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.”

This is very much how we see Britain today.

Talk to any politician from any political party, especially at election time, and they will tell you that, yes, they are all in favour of liberty. And yet, time and again, on achieving high office their actions say otherwise; then we are told that we must first have security if we are to enjoy our liberties and that the price of security is always that we surrender some liberties to preserve others and that the means by which this is best accomplished is by the increase of governmental power, so that they can secure our liberties for us.

And the joke here is that so many people in this country buy into this, that they will give up liberty for the vague promise of safety without ever considering just what is they’re giving up. As Benjamin Franklin so aptly put it:

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Liberty Central is for and about people who take a contrary view; one best expressed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

“I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery”

We believe that the slow and steady transfer of power to government over the last 30-40 years and, in particular, the transfer of power directly to Ministers and from Ministers to various QUANGOS, functionaries and other unelected and unaccountable bodies, has already gone too far; in fact under this present government it is accelerating at a rate which threatens not only the liberty of citizens but the very fabric of the constitution of the United Kingdom and the social contract between its citizens and the State.

If the slide towards totalitarian government has not yet begun in earnest then, at least, the machinery of state authority necessary to affect such a form of government is slowly and surely being assembled in the name of security, public safety and efficiency.

If government is permitted to continue with this unchecked that we will have, within the next few years, compulsory Identity cards and a National Identity Register, which will place our very identities into the ownership of the State, a national CCTV system with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) monitoring our roads twenty four hours a day, seven days a week and potentially a ‘Road Pricing System’ that uses satellite tracking, both of later enabling the state to monitor and records our every movement.

We already have, in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, emergency powers accorded to Ministers which, if used, would permit them to make emergency regulations equivalent to an Act of Parliament or direct use of the Royal Prerogative, powers from which not even the provisions of Magna Carta are exempt and which would permit the confiscation and destruction of property (without compensation), the restriction of movement, censorship of the free press and even the curtailment of habeas corpus; all by Ministerial decree. To that we may shortly be adding the provisions of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, already dubbed the ‘Abolition of Parliament Act’, which again will permit legislation to the passed by Ministerial order with the minimum of Parliamentary scrutiny and with few exemptions – such orders may not introduce new taxes, create new criminal offences with a maximum penalty of imprisonment in excess of two years or increase the maximum penalty for minor offences beyond two years or tinker with arrangements for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly but otherwise provides Ministers with a blank legislative cheque on which to write, amend or repeal laws. And again, there is no exemption from its provisions for core constitutional and civil liberties legislation; Magna Carta could be ‘reformed’, habeas corpus suspended, Christmas cancelled – and all by Ministerial edict.

(And yes, that is a ‘Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves’ gag in there - who said liberty can’t be fun)

We could go on to catalogue many further examples of law-making from recent years which has strengthened the power and authority of government, even to the extent to taking power away from Parliament itself and handing it, of course, to Ministers – the Inquiries Act 2005, which places all future inquiries under direct Ministerial control, removing provisions under which such inquiries reported directly to Parliament without Ministerial interference, being one such prime example. For brevity we won’t, at least not here – but Liberty Central will and will, over time, develop a series of briefings showing the full extent to which power has been, and is still being, accumulated at the centre of the government at the expense of civil liberties and Parliamentary democracy.

The Constitution of the United Kingdom is such that it affords no explicit protection against the unrestrained use of Parliamentary sovereignty. There is nothing in our present constitution, whether written in law or accepted by convention and tradition that Parliament cannot alter, amend or sweep away on a whim. If the political elite of this country, the people we elect to serve our interests, suddenly decide to pursue interests of their own without restraint; cancel elections, restrict movement, repeal habeas corpus, shut down the free press, etc. then there is quite literally nothing to stop them but their own consciences.

This is the argument being put forward, in an inverted form - in relation to Identity Cards, the Terrorism Bill with its provisions for criminalising the ‘glorification of terrorism’, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, even the attempt to outlaw religious hatred. Whenever it is pointed out that the powers that Ministers are granting themselves go far beyond those necessary for the preservation of order in a free and civilised society; that they create, in potential, the machinery necessary to put in place a totalitarian state, always we are told not to worry because our politicians have no intention of using these powers in that way, that we should trust them not to abuse these powers – after all, its only for our protection that they are being enacted at all.

No. Not good enough. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

If the liberty of citizens hangs solely on the honesty and promises of politicians then it hangs by an ever fraying thread; a thread that may too easily break and plunge us all into the nightmare world that George Orwell imagined in ‘1984’.

If Liberty Central is to be a coalition of the willing then the question has to be asked, ‘what is it that we are willing to do?’

The answer to that question, we hope, is that the many groups, projects, campaigns and individuals who do care about liberty, people from all walks of life and of all political persuasions, will come together and work collaboratively towards a greater goal – a new social contract between the people and the state and a new constitutional settlement for the United Kingdom at the heart of which will sit a written constitution and Bill of Rights in which will be entrenched out most fundamental freedoms and liberties such that no Parliament, no politician and no would-be despot may disabuse the citizens of this nation of their inalienable rights to life and liberty save by force of arms and in the face of the sternest possible resistance from the British people.

What is liberty?

This, said Thomas Jefferson:

“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.”

And who are we to argue.