An Online Crime Agency is among the proposals in the manifesto of the Liberal Democrats. Such an agency would, the Lib Dems say, ‘effectively tackle illegal content and activity online, such as personal fraud, revenge porn and threats and incitement to violence on social media’.
Also in terms of structure, the manifesto proposes the scrapping of Police and Crime Commissioners and replacing them with local Police Boards, ‘made up of councillors and representatives from relevant local groups, while investing the savings in frontline policing’. Talking of policing, the Lib Dems say that they would require the Home Secretary, the Mayor of London and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to ‘draw up an urgent plan to implement the recommendations of the Baroness Casey Review and tackle sexism, racism and homophobia’. To recap, the review by Louise Casey was published in March 2023 as the Met’s response to the murder of Sarah Everard by a Met officer, and pointed to how the force was failing women and children; and had institutional racism, sexism and homophobia; and deplored how the force had a culture of defensiveness and denial.
On the shortage of police detectives, the Lib Dems propose ‘a national recruitment, training and retention strategy’. On how police deal with mental ill-health, the manifesto wishes for ‘a target of one hour for handover of people suffering from mental health crisis from police to mental health services’.
As for youth violence, and knife crime, the document speaks of a ‘public health approach to the epidemic of youth violence which identifies and treats risk factors, rather than just focusing on the symptoms’. On fraud and scams, the manifesto suggests the ‘naming and shaming’ of the banks with the worst records on preventing fraud and reimbursing victims; and requiring banks to reimburse victims of automated push payment scams unless there is clear evidence that they are at fault. Also proposed is ‘a high-profile public awareness campaign’, to help people spot, avoid and report frauds.
Against ‘modern slavery’ and human trafficking, the manifesto argues for a new Worker Protection Enforcement Authority ‘to protect people in precarious work, with proactive intelligence-led enforcement of labour market standards’. The Lib Dems are for a law against puppy and kitten smuggling.
On national defence, the Lib Dems advocate ‘closer cooperation with EU agencies and member states over defence, intelligence and cyber-security’; and would seek a defence and security agreement with the European Union and its member states.
Visit https://www.libdems.org.uk/manifesto.
