–Key journalist union says : Laura Davison, NUJ general secretary, said: “There needs to be cast-iron certainty that journalistic freedoms are protected in this bill. Anything less leaves a position of uncertainty, which is at odds with a robust approach to promoting press freedom. There should be a moratorium on enacting the bill while this crucial issue is addressed.”

–Bill to be debated Monday (today) in UK Parliament, immediately after England’s World Cup win, when everyone’s tired.

Reporting and opinion by Mathew Carr

July 6, 2026 — The NUJ has called on the union-backed Labour administration of the UK to halt passage of fast-tracked security law while its eroding impact on press freedom is addressed.

The House of Lords did well last week to insert new language into the bill to protect human rights groups and the press, Liberal Democrat Baroness Northover — who tabled the key amendments to the National Security (State Threats) Bill — told me by phone last week.

“We didn’t vote against the government’s will. I can’t imagine there will be a problem” with the passage of the law through parliament this week, she said.

One of the amendments she added made it a defence to show that a person had a “reasonable excuse” for accepting information from a group deemed a threat to the UK. The law, if enacted, would bring a jail term of up to 14 years for people supporting or even merely accepting information from groups deemed a threat to Britain.

Would journalism be a “reasonable excuse”?

NUJ’s Davison seemed skeptical when she responded to my questions Friday.

“There needs to be cast-iron certainty that journalistic freedoms are protected in this bill,” she said, calling for a ban on enacting the bill which need to happen by about July 16 to beat the summer recess.

Today’s scheduled debate on the situation also seems strange.

The House of Commons plans to spend up to three hours debating whether to spend more time on the bill … and only two hours debating the amendments.

WTAF?

UK ‘State Threat’ law will place journalists in an impossible position; NUJ speaks (2)

CarrZee:

Like Davison, I’m also concerned about the rushed nature of this bill. This bill seems like it might be yet another an attempt to control humanitarian organisations and the press. The state threats element seems like it might be a cover story.

I asked Northover was this the appropriate time to be giving a single minister (Home secretary Shabana Mahmood) the ability to throw journalists into jail for accepting information from organisations deemed “state threats”?

When I said “appropriate time” I meant a time when the Labour administration is declining to comprehensively disclose ex US ambassador Peter Mandelson’s links with Epstein …why the UK logistically supported the probably illegal US war on Iran …and nor disclose … the US (UK?) complicity in Covid19 and the deception surrounding it?

This seems like a last-ditch attempt to brazenly grab power over the people by the hated Starmer regime…Trump style. Where is our supposed world-class press on this story?

The LibDems’ Northover said she did not want to engage with these types of questions, nor on why the fast track was even needed in the first place. “Come back to me in September,” she said.

NOTES

Key Details of the Amendments