So to update this. The petition reached the required amount of signatures, which means that parliament should at the least debate this.
They refused to do so – a big red flag in terms of a democracy. Didn’t even want to discuss it let alone make any changes that would add in safeguards.
But fortunately European Court of Justice has ruled saying that the law was far too ‘indiscriminate’ and that these kind of powers should be only used under certain conditions and ‘solely for the purpose of fighting serious crime’. Hopefully this means there will be some serious change to the bill.
Sure when we leave the EU I’m sure it will swoop right back in. But once again the EU saves us from our corrupt government. I will miss you EU <3