Dear Michael Gove,

Please prove me wrong.

Your government seems set to take an irreversible and damaging step for the country this Friday. You take this step without the informed consent of the country as you have articulated no consistent achievable direction with the big decisions left up in the air apparently not even agreed by cabinet that come after Friday. You have the Parliamentary majority to enable you to do this but as is normal that majority was won on a minority of the national vote. You take the step of exit from the EU without my consent and against my will and the same is true of many others.

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I'm extremely concerned about the election of Trump and what it means for democracy and liberty across the world especially coming on top of the Brexit vote in the UK (I'm British and live in Britain). I felt the need to step up and do something, more than just voting at election time. These are my choices, there is no one true way to fight for the future and resist the apparent regrowth of facism (and its less loaded names of Populism and "Alt-Right") across many parts of the world.

I wrote previously about the causes of the Brexit vote and how I felt that I should have done more, now I'm actually taking steps, small though they are. I plan to up my efforts further as the next election approaches.

How much action you can take will clearly depend on capacity, financial, time and emotional and it is important to focus on and look after the people nearest too. I'm not asking anyone to follow my actions but it would be great if you did. Also to focus on the local and within reach and trust that others will take action within their countries.

Concrete Actions

1. Joined the Labour Party. I agree with the current leadership more than with any in my adult lifetime and we need more than ever to build institutions that can offer real alternatives for change and developement of those parts of the population most left behind, and in particular to reduce inequality.
2. Supported the #StopFundingHate campaign with Tweets to and in response to John Lewis and others. I've also emailed BMW (I have a car on order) asking whether they advertise in the Daily Mail, Express or The Sun expressing my concern about the pattern of hateful, dehumanising othering of migrants refugees and foreigners generally.
3. Joined Liberty. I should have done this years ago. I've admired the group for some time and particularly found myself agreeing with almost everything I heard Shami Chakrabarti say on the radio while she was running it. The tipping point was their "See you in court" tweet about the outrageous Investigatory Powers Act (was IPBill until passed, now IPAct) that legalises surveilance powers (and hacking powers) that would make the Starsi envious. I've also set up a regular payroll giving donation to their charitable arm the Civil Liberties Trust.
4. Also triggered by the IP Act I've switched back to Andrews and Arnold internet for their robust attitude to filtering and surveilance. I moved away for a time when I moved house due to get subsidised installation from BT, moving to Plusnet for FTTC service a year later, I was out of waged employment trying to get some of my own projects off the ground and the costs Andrews and Arnolds at the time were too high for the daytime data I needed. They now have a Terabyte plan at maybe 50% more than I was paying but it has the benefit of IPv6 as well as the freedom (and costs) of not being a BT group company.
5. I emailed my MP (Michael Gove) to request an appointment at his constituency surgery as I want to express concern about the data sharing with the US under the Five Eyes inteligence agreement (UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) and ask him to push for data sharing to be minimised and targeted as once it is sent there is no way to have it deleted if conditions with the US worsen. He has said I should write to him expressing particular concerns that he can pass on to the Home Secretary. I haven't yet done that though I intend to browse the codes of practice and construct a response though I don't think it will get very far.
6. Bought the Better content blocker for both iOS and OS X.
   

Existing Political Actions

There are other things that I do that are not new, I don't support any Murdoch entities so I would not have Sky or buy The Times or Wall Street Journal. I also extremely minimise my use of Facebook. I do exist on Facebook but I only log in every couple of months and have explicitly (excluding the information revealed by who my network is) posted less information to Facebook than in this one blog post.

I did become a Guardian supporter last year but I withdrew in disgust at their position on the IP Bill. I'm still considering whether to disregard that to support their journalism and campaigning generally. Owen Jones in particular has been doing some good reports.

To Those in Positions of Power

Especially if you are in are in a position of power and influence consider what actions you can take now to create the frameworks for human rights protection. Dispose of unnecessary personal information. Also think about how you could best throw a spanner in the works if necessary, whether by resigning, operating incompetently, delaying responses, causing additional work. Also decide now what warning signs to look for that there is a real problem. It won't be a sudden obvious change from valid constitutional government to dictatorship it will come fairly slowly with progressive steps and shifting goalposts and norms. What once would have seemed outrageous and impossible will seem like a small shift and you must remember what the situation was, can be and must be again.