Almost a week ago, on 20 November, the Canary reported that people accused of a crime could soon have their right to a fair trial by jury taken away. The minister for courts, Sarah Sackman, told the Guardian that the new move would stop people from “gaming the system.”
Trials by jury can take years to happen, thanks to a backlog of 80,000 cases. Sackman claimed that people accused of dealing drugs and burglary were “laughing in the dock” after exercising their right to trial by jury.
However, despite the story breaking last Thursday in a Guardian exclusive via Sackman, that didn’t stop the BBC reporting the story yesterday… as though it was David Lammy’s idea. Bizarrely, the BBC article makes no reference to Sackman or the Guardian.
Now, obviously we at the Canary think its hilarious that ministers are apparently scrabbling to claim such a monumentally fucking terrible idea as their own. Less thrilling, however, is the fact that the BBC is so willing to parrot whatever MPs tell them to say that they’re not even bothering to check who actually said it first.
What does David Lammy think?
Anyway, just in case Sackman and/or Lammy need some help on why ‘scrap the right to trial by peers’ is a horrific suggestion, here’s a roundup of social media-users pointing out flaws. First up, we’ve got… David Lammy, because of course we do:
There’s always a tweet. https://t.co/Ja1WVja2Ww
— Joanna Hardy-Susskind (@Joanna__Hardy) November 25, 2025
That Lammy tweet was from 2020. So if you ever want to work out how long it takes a modern Labour MP to forget even their most fundamental principles, ‘no more than 5 years’ would be the answer.
Next up, we’ve got David Lammy again. This time, we’re pulling from the Lammy Review (2017), in which he pointed out that BAME people often opt for jury trials because they know that judges are racists:
The problem is not a lack of legal advice. Black, Asian and Mixed ethnic defendants are all more likely to request legal advice in police station than their white counterparts. Instead, it is that many BAME defendants neither trust the advice that they are given, nor believe they will receive a fair hearing from magistrates. In some cases, this means defendants pleading not guilty and then electing for a jury trial at the Crown Court, rather than be tried in a Magistrate’s Court, despite the higher sentencing powers available at the Crown Court.
It’s worthwhile to note that Lammy already knows he’s throwing Black and brown people under the bus here.
And, here’s another quote from the Lammy Review on how juries reduce racial bias. Plus, as a little bonus, it also contains a Lammy tweet saying that fixing the backlog with unfair trials is an obviously terrible idea:
Or this? “Juries deliberate as a group through open discussion. This both deters and exposes prejudice or unintended bias: judgments must be justified to others.”
(From the 2017 Lammy Review https://t.co/2cRNrde0zt) pic.twitter.com/ZUaWjX8sJz— Kenan Malik (@kenanmalik) November 26, 2025
How about the rest of Twitter?
Sure, social media is a driver of fascism and deleterious to the human spirit. But on the flipside, it also keeps a great record of politicians making complete asses of themselves. So who’s to say it’s really a bad thing?
But enough about what David Lammy thinks, lets here from some of the common people now. How’s about this one:
Instead of these fine words, we now have from Lammy a complete about turn with his plan to all but abolish juries. Cynical, unprincipled, constitutional vandalism, devoid of any democratic legitimacy. https://t.co/sUPXasF1GB
— Matthew Scott (@Barristerblog) November 25, 2025
Ah fuck, that was David Lammy again. I’m starting to notice a pattern here. One more go, honest:
In deciding to virtually abolish trial by jury David Lammy has alighted on a rare policy guaranteed to be vehemently opposed by right and left wingers in equal measure.
— Matthew Scott (@Barristerblog) November 25, 2025
Finally, one that doesn’t have a Lammy quote in it. It was genuinely hard to find some that didn’t quote the guy saying his own idea was a farce (because that’s obviously hilarious). However, Scott did point out another problem here:
Juries are not just part of our tradition. They put ordinary men and women of every walk of life at the heart of justice.
Labour wants to shred this basic right, replacing the common sense of the jury box with rule by lawyers.
It is a short term decision that risks fairness,… https://t.co/HOAwsf9WUX
— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) November 25, 2025
Badenoch normally loves shredding basic human rights, but Lammy’s terrible idea has made even her sad. It’s is such a fucking dreadful, authoritarian plan that even the Tories hate it. Look:
David Lammy is proposing that jury trials be scrapped for all cases not involving rapists or killers.
This is a disgrace. It is an even bigger disgrace that he has not discussed this with Parliament.https://t.co/YchVTj8DQP
— David Davis MP (@DavidDavisMP) November 25, 2025
‘Conservative MP for Goole and Pocklington’ sounds like I made it up. Truly fantastic. How’s about we cross party lines to the nominally-less-right? Even the ‘Labour til I dies’ hate it:
@UKLabour Please tell me as a life long Labour Party member that what I am hearing about David Lammy’s proposals about abolishing the jury are a hoax #juries # criminaljustice
— John Cooper (@John_Cooper_KC) November 25, 2025
‘Zero democratic mandate’
Ok ok, so we’ve established its a bad idea and people don’t like it. For good measure tho, we should probably point out that it also wasn’t in Labour’s manifesto and nobody voted for it:
The more I think about David Lammy’s proposal to scrap jury trials in all but the most serious criminal cases, the worse I think it is. The government has zero democratic mandate for this very fundamental reform. The House of Lords should block any bill that does this. https://t.co/9Mp1svUMcF
— Sonia Sodha (@soniasodha) November 25, 2025
OK, so it’s a betrayal of democracy that even Lammy thinks is nakedly discriminatory. Whyever could he want to do it anyway, we wonder?
We all know why Lammy wants to stop Jury trials in only the most serious cases. It’s to stop all the protestors he keeps having arrested from being found not guilty by juries. By having a judge in place then common sense will go out of the window.
— Paul Bray (@PaulBray67) November 26, 2025
Oh yeah, maybe its the fact that jurors keep letting activists off when they point out that we’re burning the planet/aiding a genocide/waging unjust war etc. I wonder what relevance that could have right now?
DEFEND OUR JURIES
David Lammy is proposing to massively restrict the ancient right to a jury trial by only guaranteeing it for defendants facing cases passing a public interest test.
We saw this coming. It is the reason Defend Our Juries exists.https://t.co/asWHJB7WrW
— Defend Our Juries (@DefendourJuries) November 25, 2025
Oh yeah, that thing. All of which adds up to one conclusion:
“David Lammy is considering scrapping trial by jury, an ancient right that’s said to date back to the Magna Carta 800 years ago”
Labour laying the ground work for a far right government to build on #GMB pic.twitter.com/03au3c60iU
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) November 26, 2025
Scrapping the right to trial by jury isn’t a left-wing policy. It’s not even a fucking right-wing policy. It’s blatantly laying the groundwork for authoritarianism, and there’s no amount of court backlog that can alter that fact.
This is a Labour government that wants to introduce mandatory ID cards for every citizen. They want to scrap the duty to care for asylum seekers. It’s a party that refuses to stop arming Israel whilst it carries out its genocide of the Palestinian people.
I keep writing at the end of this kind of piece that this is a desperate attempt to appeal to right-wing voters. This won’t work, but they keep trying it anyway. But I don’t actually think there’s a difference between a party that does authoritarianism for the votes and a party that does authoritarianism because they’re authoritarians. That’s the same fucking party in different colours.
Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Sky News
