ONE of the most striking pieces of legislation put forward by the UK Conservative Government is the Trade Union Bill.

This Bill seeks to tackle a problem that does not exist. The days of militant trade unions taking their members out on strike for months on end are over and have been for a long time.

Whilst the Conservatives seem determined to re-fight battles of the 1980s, in modern Britain the average UK worker takes strike action only once every 15 years, usually only for a day.

Trade Unions are still bound by the strict regulations brought in by Thatcher. The Government should be focusing on issues that affect people on a daily basis like the economy.

It is not simply the blatant absence of need for the proposals that makes them so worrying. They are an extraordinary attack on basic civil liberties. The best spin doctor in the world couldn’t credibly claim these reforms were anything other than staggeringly authoritarian.

When listing the areas where this Bill infringes upon civil rights, it’s hard to know where to start.

For starters, the bill would impose a minimum 50 per cent turnout, and at least 40 per cent of those eligible to vote would need to be in favour of industrial action. Not a single MP of any party met that threshold at the last election.

In addition the Conservatives got less than 25 per cent of the eligible vote at the last election. They wouldn’t be in government to push through these rules if the same principles were applied to them.

The proposals go even further than this restriction. The UK Government thinks that picketers should have to give their names to the police and wear armbands, measures that even Conservative MP David Davis has compared to General Franco’s fascist dictatorship.

Trade Unions that plan on organising a protest will have to publish their plan in advance, down to minutiae such as whether loudspeakers or banners will be used. They will even have to give two weeks’ notice if they wish to ‘campaign’ via social media.

These clampdowns on protest will only apply to those organised by trade unions. Police should be out fighting real crime, not sat in an office studying the social media pages of the Conservative’s political opponents.

Of course the Conservatives are using this Bill to make it harder for trade unions to donate to the Labour party. Whether you’re a Labour supporter or not it is a dangerous precedent for a Government to nakedly attempt to limit the funding of its political opponents.

The Tories, more than any other British political party, have their share of questionable donations. Just two weeks ago Lord Ashcroft claimed – amongst other things - that David Cameron took donations from him despite knowing he was minimising his tax, and then lied about it.

Instead of cleaning up their own act the Conservatives propose to put up barriers to teachers and nurses pooling their money together to gain more influence in politics.

Many of my constituents are members of a trade union. They work in all walks of life in both the public and private sector. The Trade Union Bill is petty vindictive and authoritarian - it shows the Tory party at its worst. I will continue to work with my colleague Stephen Doughty MP in opposing this assault on so many of our decent hard working constituents.