In my younger days, I worked as a parliamentary draftsman. Mostly, this was dreary and depressing work, putting the gibberish that came out of Parliament into clear English. But it has left me with a taste for drafting parliamentary bills that may one day be useful. The exercise allows a tone of wondrously restrained menace. Here is my latest effort. [RG]

Act of Attainder (Ministers and Officers of Past Governments since 1979) Act 2025

Preamble

WHEREAS successive Governments of the United Kingdom from the 4th day of May 1979 until the date of the present Revolution have, by deliberate policy, committed acts of treason against the Crown and People of this Realm;

AND WHEREAS those past Governments, and the Ministers, senior civil servants, directors of quangos, and policy advisers who sustained them, have laboured to enslave, dispossess, and demoralise the British nation, and have destroyed its liberties, its prosperity, and its independence;

AND WHEREAS it is necessary, for the safety of the State and the perpetuation of national freedom, that the authors of this long treason be punished and their goods secured to the Crown, so as to forestall any attempt at counter-revolution;

BE IT THEREFORE ENACTED by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

1. Attainder and Bankruptcy of Ministers and Officers

(1) Every person who, at any time between the 4th day of May 1979 and the time of the present Revolution, has held office in His Majesty’s Government, whether as Prime Minister, Secretary of State, junior Minister, Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Whip, or in any other ministerial or quasi-ministerial capacity, is hereby adjudged attainted of high treason.

(2) Any person who, during the same period, has held office as a Permanent Secretary, senior civil servant, director of any state agency, quango, or body corporate funded or directed by the State, or director of any policy institute advising the Government, may, upon the recommendation of the Prime Minister, and within one year and one day after this Act shall have come into force, and by simple resolution of the House of Commons, be adjudged attainted of high treason under this Act.

(3) Each person attainted under subsection (1) shall be deemed, as of the commencement of this Act, to have been duly declared bankrupt according to the rules of bankruptcy for the time being in force, subject to the following modifications—
(a) the Crown shall stand as sole creditor in each case;
(b) all property, real or personal, held by any such person, or in trust for him or her, shall vest immediately and without further process in the Crown;
(c) the provisions of the Insolvency Act 1986 (and any successor enactments) relating to discharge shall not apply.

(4) For the avoidance of doubt, bankruptcy under subsection (3) shall not apply to persons attainted under subsection (2), unless Parliament shall otherwise determine in the terms of the resolution by which such persons are added.

2. Schedule of Persons

(1) For the avoidance of doubt, the names of all persons within the meaning of section 1(1) shall be specified in the Schedule to this Act.

(2) The Schedule shall have full force and effect as part of this Act.

(3) The Prime Minister may, by motion before the House of Commons carried by simple resolution, propose the addition of further names to the Schedule under section 1(2).

(4) Upon the passing of such a resolution, the Schedule shall be deemed amended accordingly, and all provisions of this Act shall apply to those so added, save as provided in section 1(4).

3. Exclusion of Judicial Review

(1) This Act shall not be called into question in any court of law.

(2) Any judge who entertains or allows any proceeding which has the effect, direct or indirect, of questioning or impugning this Act, or any act done under its authority, shall thereby forfeit his or her office.

(3) Upon such forfeiture, the judge shall be deemed attainted of high treason and may, by simple resolution of the House of Commons, be subjected to bankruptcy under section 1(3).

4. Legal Consequences of Attainder of High Treason

(1) A person attainted of high treason under this Act shall—
(a) suffer forfeiture of all lands, goods, and chattels, which shall vest in the Crown forthwith and without compensation;
(b) be subject to corruption of blood, such that no title of honour, inheritance, office, or estate may descend through him or her, and his or her heirs shall be legally barred from succession through the attainted line;
(c) be deemed civilly dead, and shall accordingly lose all rights to vote, to hold office, to sue or be sued, or to act in any legal capacity whatsoever;
(d) be subject to perpetual infamy, and his or her name shall remain upon the Schedule to this Act for all time.

(2) Nothing in this section shall prevent Parliament from enacting further penalties upon persons attainted under this Act, should the security of the Realm so require.

5. Savings Clause: Present Government Exempt

(1) Nothing in this Act shall extend to or apply to any Minister, officer, or adviser of the Government in being at the time of the passing of this Act.

(2) The operation of this Act is limited to past Governments, their Ministers, and their officers, as defined in section 1.

6. Short Title and Commencement

(1) This Act may be cited as the Act of Attainder (Ministers and Officers of Past Governments since 1979) Act 2025.

(2) This Act shall come into force on the day it receives Royal Assent.

Schedule

Persons Attainted of High Treason and Declared Bankrupt under this Act

(Here shall be inserted the names of all persons who held ministerial office in past Governments between 4th May 1979 and the coming into office of the present Government.)

 

Explanatory Notes

1. Scope of the Act

This Act strikes solely at past Governments. It excludes the present administration introducing the Act, so as not to paralyse the executive authority now tasked with carrying forward the Revolution.

2. Purpose

The Act provides for the attainder of high treason of all Ministers since 1979, together with the discretionary attainder of senior civil servants, directors of quangos, and policy advisers who sustained those regimes. It secures their goods and estates to the Crown, extinguishes their legal rights, and places them beyond recovery or rehabilitation.

3. Legal Implications of Attainder as Traitor

Reviving the ancient law of treason, the Act ensures:

• Forfeiture: Immediate vesting of all estates and goods in the Crown.
• Corruption of blood: Descendants disinherited through the attainted line, ensuring no continuity of privilege.
• Civil death: Complete extinction of civic and legal capacity; attainted persons are treated as non-persons in law.
• Perpetual infamy: Names remain permanently in the Schedule, branded as traitors to Crown and People.

These consequences go beyond bankruptcy: they mark the attainted as enemies of the nation for all time.

4. Distinction Between Ministers and Officials

• Ministers of past Governments: Automatically attainted and bankrupted. They were the authors and executors of treason.
• Officials of past Governments: May be attainted by Commons resolution on the Prime Minister’s recommendation. Bankruptcy may be added, but only if Parliament expressly so resolves.

This distinction ensures that the heaviest punishments fall on those most culpable, while still allowing accomplices to be dealt with according to their measure of guilt.

5. Bankruptcy

Since acts of attainder dropped from the normal machinery of justice at the end of the seventeenth century, there is no established procedure for the “forfeiture of all lands, goods, and chattels.” The bankruptcy laws, however, do provide a functional and even terrifying machinery for the confiscation of property. I therefore propose that a future revolutionary government should take advantage of this.

6. Judges

The judiciary, having long acted as defenders of the old regime, are barred from questioning this Act. Any judge attempting to do so is stripped of office and attainted in turn.

7. Revolutionary Necessity

Revolutions are secured not by the mere overthrow of governments but by the permanent incapacitation of those who served them. Without such measures, the guilty would regroup and mount counter-revolution.

This Act follows the precedent of:

• The Long Parliament’s purges (1640s),
• The French Revolution’s dismantling of the ancien régime (1789 onwards),
• The post-1945 and post-1989 European purges of public enemies.

By attainder, Parliament ensures that the old regime is destroyed root and branch.

8. Proportionality and Escalation

The Act begins with confiscation, bankruptcy, civil death, and perpetual infamy. These measures are intended to be sufficient. Should they fail to prevent conspiracy, Parliament reserves to itself the right to enact harsher measures.

9. Conclusion

The Act is a revolutionary instrument of justice. It punishes only past governments—those who betrayed the Crown and People between 1979 and 2025—while exempting the present Government charged with founding a new order.

By branding traitors as traitors, confiscating their estates, and extinguishing their posterity, it secures the Revolution against restoration and lays the foundation of a free and sovereign nation.

 

Speech of the Prime Minister on the Introduction of the Act of Attainder (Ministers and Officers of Past Governments since 1979) Bill

Mr Speaker,

Today I rise to place before this House a Bill unprecedented in modern times, but necessary in the gravest degree. It is a Bill of Attainder—an ancient remedy revived for a modern crisis. Its object is plain: to declare the past Governments of this Kingdom, and those who served them, guilty of high treason against the Crown and People, and to punish them accordingly.

For nearly half a century—from the 4th of May 1979 until the hour of this present Revolution—the people of Britain have been betrayed. They have been betrayed not by foreign invaders, nor by some external catastrophe, but by their own rulers. Ministers, civil servants, directors of quangos, and their advisers in policy institutes—these men and women, entrusted with power, used it to dispossess their countrymen, to enslave them in debt and regulation, to flood their towns with strangers, to silence their voices, and to waste their blood in foreign wars.

They called it reform. They called it modernisation. In truth, it was treason.

The evidence is written in the ruins of our industry, in the surveillance laws that throttled our liberties, in the impoverishment of the working classes, and in the demoralisation of the young. No error can excuse it, for the betrayal was deliberate. The dispossession of our people was not a failure of policy—it was the policy.

This Bill therefore declares all Ministers of past Governments attainted of high treason. Their property shall be forfeit to the Crown, their credit destroyed, their heirs disinherited, their names written into the Schedule of this Act for all time as traitors to the nation they were sworn to serve.

But let me make this clear: the present Government is not included in this attainder. We bring this measure as the agents of a Revolution. A revolution does not destroy itself in the moment of its birth. The purpose is to punish past Governments, not to paralyse the present.

The Bill also makes provision for Parliament, on my recommendation, to extend attainder to the senior civil servants, quangocrats, and policy directors who enabled the treason. They, too, may be judged traitors, and if the House so resolves, subjected to the same penalties as their political masters.

Some may ask why such severity is needed. The answer is that revolutions are not secured by words alone. History teaches that once the guilty are left untouched, they conspire, they regroup, they mount counter-revolution. We shall not make that mistake. Confiscation and civil death are the mildest remedies consistent with justice. If they suffice, no harsher measures will be required. If they do not, harsher measures will be considered.

Some may say that such an Act is unjust—that it condemns without trial. I answer that Parliament is the highest court in this realm. When treason is as plain as this treason has been, the judgement of Parliament is both just and final.

Others may say that this Act offends against liberty. I answer that liberty has been extinguished these past forty-five years precisely by those whom this Act condemns. Only by striking them down can liberty live again.

And still others may say that this measure will shock the world. I answer that Britain was once respected not because we were timid, but because we were strong. The world will respect us again when it sees that betrayal of the British people is punished not with speeches, not with inquiries, but with ruin.

Mr Speaker, this is a Bill to cleanse the state, to secure the revolution, and to protect the people. It restores an ancient weapon of parliamentary sovereignty, wielded now not in anger but in justice.

Let those who governed between 1979 and 2025 know this: their day is done. Their honours are dust. Their estates are forfeit. Their posterity cut off. They are traitors, and they shall be remembered as traitors.

I commend this Bill to the House.

Royal Message to the House of Lords
Delivered by the Lord Chancellor at the Bar of the House of Lords

My Lords,

His Majesty has commanded me to signify to you His Royal Will and Pleasure.

It is well known to all that for many years past this Realm has been governed to its hurt and dishonour, and that treasonous administrations have laboured for the dispossession and enslavement of the British people. The House of Commons, representing the will of the nation, has resolved to proceed by Bill of Attainder against those past Ministers and officers who have betrayed their trust.

It is His Majesty’s most earnest desire that this Bill should pass into law without obstruction, in order that treason may be punished, and that the liberties of His people may be secured. His Majesty does not doubt that your Lordships will act in fidelity to the Crown and in harmony with the Commons.

But His Majesty commands me to declare, that if obstruction be offered to the passage of this necessary measure, He will not hesitate to exercise His undoubted prerogative to create such additional Peers as may be required to secure the passing of this Bill. His Majesty trusts that your Lordships will render this exercise unnecessary by your loyal concurrence.

Thus speaks the King, in Parliament assembled, for the safety of the Realm and the perpetuation of its freedom.

Detailed engraving of trial of Strafford (1641) by Wenceslas Hollar, labelling various people who were present – Wikipedia