Over the last week over 18,000 of us  have written to their MPs urging the Government not to rush the bill into law without a democratic debate.

There have been so many emails we can’t reply to them all so please post any replies you get from your MP here so other 38 Degrees members can see them, comment and help you reply.

Most common questions
We asked Jim Killock, Executive Director of Open Rights Group, to list put together some responses to the most common points MPs are raising. Here they are:

Only persistent offenders will be disconnected
Firstly, this is expected to mean after 50 infringements, although the Bill does not say. The retail value of a song can now be as low as 35p on emusic – so the retail value of the infringements needed to qualify for disconnection could be less than £18.

Furthermore, not only an infringer, but their family, would be disconnected. They would almost certainly be innocent.

There will be lots of tests to make sure this is appropriate
Disconnection is never appropriate, ever. Disconnection – even for a repeat offender – is a serious infringement of their ability to exercise freedom of expression and association and their right to work and an education.

Constraining these implies a very serious, for instance, imprisonable offence. Yet copyright infringement remains a civil offence, with lower standards of evidence, and with civil punishments, that is, fines.

Nobody has explained at any point why a civil wrong should be punished, without the need for a trial, by a punishment as intrusive as disconnection

People can just move to another Internet Service Provider (ISP)
Such points are governed by as yet unwritten codes. There is nothing in the Bill to suggest this.

There will be a full debate before any of this happens, in the next Parliament
The measures will be introduced by Statutory Instrument. Such debates are short, limited, and do not require line by line scrutiny. MPs will be lucky if the SIs will be amendable. They certainly do not invoke national democratic debate and press attention. That debate is needed before introducing a measure like this.

What did your MP reply? Let us know here and crowdsource help replying.

If they didn’t, or you haven’t written to your MP opposing rushing the DEB into law just click here to write to your MP now.

We asked David to give us his thoughts on our general election consultation, you can see what he has to say here:

David talks about the election consultation from 38 Degrees on Vimeo.

You can support 38 Degrees election campaigning here: https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/contribute/Election-donate

As well as working together to bring about change on a national scale, we’ve also been focussing on issues that affect specific areas of the UK. We’ve fought to stop the expansion of Bristol airport, and to prevent Donald Trump forcing families out of their homes in Aberdeenshire.

Recently, we had a brilliant local campaign win when Boris Johnson finally agreed to keep his election pledge and provide funding London Rape Crisis Centres. We’d teamed up with the Boris Keep Your Promise campaign to make sure this happened.

But Boris also announced that he’s cutting the funding for important London events like Africa Day and Black History Month, at the same time as giving an extra £100 000 to USA day, a festival celebrating America. This is on the back of canceling Europe’s biggest anti-racism event, Rise, last year.

We asked members in London whether we should take action to put an end to these cuts. We had an overwhelmingly positive response – 86% said yes.

We also asked what other local issues we could campaign on in London. There were a wide range of responses, but the most popular suggestions were:

We should campaign for a living wage.

We should campaign to improve the quality of travel in London, including making city roads more friendly for cyclists, fighting bus fare hikes, and improving disabled access to the tube.

We should campaign further to protect women in the city from violence, and improve provision for victims of it.

If you have a local campaigns suggestion for anywhere around the UK, we’d love to hear it. Please let us know by filling in our campaigns suggestion form, here: http://38degrees.org.uk/page/s/suggestcampaign

38 Degrees is campaigning with the Kidney Wales Foundation to make it easier for people in Wales to donate their organs. There is an acute shortage of organs for donation – today in Wales there are nearly 500 people waiting for a transplant and not all those waiting will be successful: every 11 days someone dies waiting for a transplant. Click here to email your MP: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/kidney-wales

Only 27% of the Welsh population are on the organ donation regiester today, but there’s a real chance we could change this by taking action together. In December 2009 the Welsh Assembly Government made a crucial announcement – they intend Wales to become the first place in the UK to have an opt-out rather than an opt-in organ donation system. This means doctors could assume that organ donation can go ahead, rather than having to see if someone has given explicit permission.

This is an excellent opportunity to help thousands of people in need of a transplant and a chance for Wales to set an example to the rest of the UK. Click here to email your MP in two minutes and ask them to back an opt out organ donation system: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/kidney-wales

Over the last three weeks, a massive 32,851 of us have signed our petition against the BBC cuts, and 17,817 have also emailed the BBC Trust with a formal response to the official consultation. This is a fantastic response, and if we keep up this kind of pressure we’ve got a real chance of forcing the BBC Trust to drop the proposals.

If you haven’t added your name to the petition, or emailed the BBC trustees, please do so now, and ask your family and friends to do the same.

We will be sitting down with the other key players in the campaign next week, such as the National Union of Journalists and other petition sites. Together we’ll need to make sure we have plans to keep the pressure on right up to May 25th, when the consultation ends.

It is important that we work together to think of creative and intelligent ways to keep up momentum over the next ten weeks. Please share your ideas of how we can keep the pressure on.

In the recession, we want our politicians to spend our money wisely. This means protecting vital public services not investing in controversial defence schemes.

Despite this, the government is planning to replace the Trident nuclear weapons system at a massive cost of £97 billion – more than half of our national debt.

Before the Pre-Budget Report last year, thousands of us worked together to persuade the government to rethink their decision to replace Trident. We sent a clear message to the government that we didn’t want taxpayers’ money being spent in this way.

Now, we’re supporting Greenpeace to increase the pressure on the government to rethink Trident. David has joined his voice with journalists, campaigners, military figures and ordinary voters to tell the government what they could do with the money they’d save from a rethink on Trident.

You can watch his video, here: http://cut-trident.greenpeace.org.uk/

David calls for the government to get their spending priorities right. Together, we’ve been working towards goals like an extension to free school meals for children living in poverty, an investment in low carbon technologies to help the UK fight climate change, and a stop to cuts to the BBC. This is where we think the government should be putting its money first, not in Trident.

In the last 48 hours 38 Degrees members have sent an avalanche of 10,000 to their MPs voicing widespread concern about the Digital Economy Bill.  Why are so many of us so concerned that we’re moved to take action?

This week politicians said that those opposing the bill are “web anarchists”. This is a convenient way for them to avoid the many concerns the public has about this bill. We’re concerned that the government is pushing a complex bill through without addressing our legitimate concerns.

The government is planning to use a special ”fast track” process designed for the weeks before a election to pass urgent and uncontroversial measures, to force thorough these dubious new powers. This process is problematic at the best of times,  because it removes democratic checks. For our members the idea that you’d strip down the scrutiny and debate over such a complex bill that gives unprecedented new powers to the Government is deeply worrying.

The bill contains a wish list of new powers that would (amongst many things) give the government power to disconnect millions of people, block websites, create the potential for back-door censorship and spell the death of open WiFi. Even  Schools and libraries could see their internet cut off if people infringe any copyright.

One group is very keen on it though, the music industry. Early this month it was uncovered that parts of the bill have been copied word for word from a draft “suggestion” written by the music industry lobbyist group, the BPI.  In a leaked memo a few days ago the same lobbyists admitted the only way to get the bill through would be to rush it through without a real parliamentary debate.

Those opposing the bill are a growing and powerful movement of companies, libraries, consumer groups and of course us, the public. Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Virgin, Orange, eBay and BT all came together earlier this month to voice their concern about this bill.

We’ve teamed up with Open Rights Group (ORG) to oppose the bill. As Jim Killock, ORG’s Executive Director says:

“At the fag end of this Parliament, disastrous laws to disconnect families from the internet and introduce web censorship powers that we haven’t even seen, could get passed into law without proper debate.

Serious laws, that would disrupt people’s freedom of speech and their daily lives, and potentially create new web censorship powers, deserve proper scrutiny and debate. Anything less is undemocratic and unaccountable, not to mention deeply irresponsible.

That is why 38 Degrees is joining the Open Rights Groups’ call for a proper open debate on this Bill. Please write to your MP now to demand that this Bill is properly debated.”

The Government is right to attempt to tackle the many issues surrounding the internet. But to rush these complex new measures through Parliament is wrong. To think that they could rush them through before a general election without anyone noticing is naïve. This law needs a real debate, it needs parliamentary scrutiny. That’s why ten thousand of us have written to our MPs.

If you haven’t done so already now is the time to write to your MP and tell them why we oppose the Digital Economy Bill: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/digital-economy-bill

One in three school children lives in poverty in the UK, yet only one in five school children is currently eligible to receive a free school meal. We are working in partnership with Child Poverty Action Group to make sure that every child living poverty is entitled to a free school meal.

Providing free school meals can help to ensure that children eat at least one nutritious meal a day and have a more equal chance of being healthy: at the moment school meals are the only hot meal received by one in four children.  They also make good economic sense as they reduce health care costs and increase educational standards.

In secondary schools today meals are only free for households where none of the adults have job. Yet nearly 60 per cent of children in poverty have at least one employed parent. This means that one million children living in poverty do not get a free school meal.

Join the campaign and help to ensure that all children have the chance to eat and learn well. E-mail your local Parliamentary candidate in 2 minutes to make sure they will support free school meals if they are elected: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/free-school-meals

As reported in the Observer this morning,  we’ve teamed up with the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency to challenge Prospective Parliamentary Candidates (PPCs) on their lobbying links and to urge all PPCs to pledge to support a  statutory register of lobbying activity – so the public can find out who is trying to influence our politicians.

Get Involved – Take Action
Click on the links below if you live in the constiuencies highlighted to find out more and take action. If you don’t live in the constituencies listed you can still ask your PPCs to support lobbying transparency - just click here to get started.

Witham – Priti Patel (Conservative)

Priti hasn’t been completely transparent with voters about her links to lobbying. Priti works for global PR and political lobbying firm, Weber Shandwick. But her campaign website only mentions that she is a director of a company providing “business and communication strategy” advice.

Portsmouth North – Penny Mordaunt (Conservative)
Penny describes herself on her campaign website as a “healthcare consultant”. But according to official documents, Penny is also a director and minority shareholder of a London-based media and lobbying firm, Media Intelligence Partners (MIP), which she co-founded six years ago. The company boasts of its “excellent contacts among senior Conservative politicians”.

Redruth – George Eustice (Conservative)
George hasn’t been completely transparent with voters about his links to lobbying. George is a commercial lobbyist with a firm called Portland PR. But there is no mention of this on his campaign website.

Wolverhampton North East  - Emma Reynolds (Labour)
Emma currently works for a commercial lobbying firm, Cogitamus, where she “plays a leading role… providing a contemporary understanding of the Whitehall and Westminster scene”. Until we contacted her, her campaign website, didn’t mention this job.

Contact your PPCs
If you don’t live in the constituencies mentioned above you can still get involved – just click here to ask all your PPCs to get pledge to support lobbying transparancy. It only takes two minutes.

The next big scandal?