The Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge, Julian Huppert, has tabled an Early Day Motion (EDM) called 'Disconnection Of Users From The Internet', which uses a recent UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) report as ammunition to demand a repeal of the Digital Economy Act (DEA) laws that permit disconnection ("suspension") of users from their broadband ISP and thus the internet.

EDMs are formal motions submitted for debate in the UK governments House of Commons. However, very few EDMs are ever actually debated. Instead, they're often used for publicising the views of individual MPs, drawing attention to specific events or campaigns, and demonstrating the extent of parliamentary support for a particular cause or point of view.

Earlier this month the UNHRC heavily criticised the governments Digital Economy Act (here), which seeks to tackle "illegal" P2P file sharing based internet copyright infringement, and called upon the UK to repeal or amend any existing intellectual copyright laws that permit ISP users to be disconnected from the net.



So far the motion (EDM) has been signed by a total of just 7 MPs and is unlikely to gain enough traction for a wider debate, much like Huppert's previous and similarly DEA related EDM (here).

EDM - Disconnection Of Users From The Internet
http://www.edms.org.uk/2010-11/1913.htm

UPDATE 1st July 2011

The above website claims that this EDM has now attracted 55 cross-party signatures, which is pretty good. However, the official Parliament website states that the figure is actually closer to 62. Most of the support is coming from Labour party members, which is an interesting twist given their lack of support for similar EDM's last year.

http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2010-11/1913