Yesterday in Birmingham, Beverley, Hampstead and Scunthorpe

Here’s a video of yesterday’s privacy petition hand-in in Hampstead, North London:

Yesterday, 38 Degrees members in Birmingham, Beverley, Hampstead and Scunthorpe handed in our huge privacy petition to their MPs. And there are more hand-ins happening next week in Plymouth (Plymouth, Sutton & Devonport constituency), Llangollen (Clwyd South), Glasgow (Glasgow Central) and Stockport (Hazel Grove).

So far over 1,000 of us have signed up to organise a petition hand-in – that’s amazing! Together, we can make sure that we get dates in MPs’ diaries all over the country, so that we can show them how strongly we feel about this threat to our freedom.

If you’ve signed up to organise an event, but haven’t confirmed a date with your MP yet, you can find their contact details here. Give them a call or send an email! Once you’ve confirmed a date, enter the details on the events page and the office team will let 38 Degrees members in your area know it’s happening and send you a hand-in pack.

If you haven’t signed up to organise a hand-in yet but you’d like to, sign up here. Here’s a step-by-step guide to organising a hand-in for more info.

Or to search for a confirmed hand-in happening in your area, enter your postcode here.

After a hand-in, remember to send photos to emailtheteam@38degrees.org.uk or post them up on the Facebook page. And let everyone know how it went – leave a comment below.

UPDATE:

In Scunthorpe, Neil organised a petition hand-in to his MP, Nick Dakin. He says, “Our MP Nic Dakin was receptive to our petition and views on the proposed bill.”

Stuart organised Friday’s hand-in in Beverley, East Yorkshire. Here’s what he had to say about it:

“Organising the 38 degrees petition hand in was really easy, I just completed a few forms and emailed my MP and it was all setup, then all i needed to do was wait for 38 degrees to send me the hand in pack to my work address, it was all very simple and straight forward.

We met the other 38 degree members at a local pub close to the venue, everyone was friendly and we had a chat about a few of the issues 38 degrees have been involved in and what was going to happen when we met our MP. This was a great moment to get to meet like minded members and discuss further issues that we have been supporting!

We were concerned that the governments plans to increase Internet surveillance was too over the top, that the surveillance wasn’t needed, too expensive at a time of recession and that the tools could be exploited in the future. Especially as on the same day we handed in the petition an Ex MI5 chief had her laptop stolen at a UK airport.

Our MP (Graham Stuart) was really dismissive of the issue he claimed he hadn’t looked into the policy very closely (even though it was mentioned in the queens speech and it was his own party’s policy) and that it was down to him how he voted on the issue as we only represented a small portion of his constituency. We will see how he votes on the issue when it comes to passing the bill in Parliament. Ijust hope we managed to put our concerns across to him and that he will take it on board and do the right thing when the time comes to it. On the plus side he did say he wasn’t too keen on the “state” and had voted against party policy before on issues regarding detaining people without trail.

I would definitely recommend organising a hand-in to other 38 Degrees members I’m currently trying to get my mum to organise one in her area. It’s a great way to get your point across to the person who will be voting on the key issue. It was great to actually get up and do something for a change, it’s so easy to sit on the side lines why not get involved?”