ON MONDAY, in the chamber of the House of Commons, the Trade Union Bill will have its second reading.

As proud citizens of a democratic country, we should be appalled at what is about to be up for discussion.

This outrageous piece of proposed legislation is not about picket lines, armbands and social media statuses, despite what the headlines may say.

These are simply eye-catching bolt-ons designed as a three-card trick, in the very Tory tradition, to distract those who show an interest from the true meaning of the legislation.

This Bill is about an increasingly extreme Conservative Party seeking to use its dubious mandate and unexpected majority to stamp out opposition and cement itself in power forever.

It is a Bill designed to tie the hands and close the mouths of the trade unions and to slit the throats of the Labour Party while the Tories hack their way to a state shrunken by their crass and flawed ideology.

This is simply designed to push through swingeing cuts to the public sector without organised opposition — to proliferate the low-wage economy and help the Tories’ friends and donors make millions on the back of a disorganised, downtrodden and low-paid workforce, with working people risking criminal records simply to oppose this disgraceful government.

During the last parliament, while public assets were subject to a fire-sale and deep and brutal cuts were made to the public sector, the charities and campaigning groups who dared voice their opinion were gagged. This was all done with the help of the now dwindling Liberal Democrats. The Tories have now tossed aside their coalition partners and, with an unlikely majority, are seeking never to lose power again.

This Bill is designed to outlaw strikes, to limit the work of trade unionists in the workplace, to end the participation of the unions in policy matters and to choke off the lifeblood of Britain’s opposition.

It imposes thresholds that no other democratic institution in the country would be subject to. Indeed, should Sajid Javid think British parliamentary elections important, the Business Secretary himself would have failed to be elected under his own proposals.

If the Tories were actually interested in workplace democracy they could have consulted on workplace balloting or e-balloting — but these have been dismissed.

This is a Bill that will rescind the ban on the use of agency workers to replace striking workers, putting us in the minority of European countries, and is effectively using the current economic climate to bus in desperate people to replace those on strike.

In the Tory tradition of setting people against each other, how long will it be before the unemployed are forced to act as a blackleg workforce with sanctioning and starvation their penalty for refusal?

A government committed to cutting “red tape” in things such as health and safety or rights at work is heaping the red tape on in one area — where its opponents operate.

It is tying the hands of the trade unions by putting endless caveats on the right to a legal strike, tipping the balance further away from workers who are seeing their rights and pay slashed.

It also introduces the new trade union tax to pay for the extension of powers to the certification officer in order to further tie down the trade unions. Allowing this independent body to show up, uninvited, with no evidence of wrongdoing, has echoes of the Spanish Inquisition and will cause mayhem in unions’ operation.

Furthermore it gives them the power to impose hefty fines for any deviance from their whim.

This is a Bill that shows, despite the world moving on, that Conservatism has not. It is unnecessary, undemocratic and unjust.

It is the action of a Conservative Party which is simply terrified of not being allowed to finish its job — a job, as these extremists see it, to follow Thatcherism through to its grim conclusion. To savagely shrink the state. To send workers on a race to the bottom with their global counterparts. To impoverish vast swathes of the nation. To finish that job it seems the Tories are prepared to ride roughshod over democracy itself to ensure that they never again meet resistance.

This is a Conservative Party which has gagged charities and campaigning groups that were critical of its disastrous policies. A Conservative Party which, for possibly the first time in history, is engaging in policies that will reduce universal suffrage and actively shrink the electorate to benefit itself.

A Conservative Party which is redrawing political boundaries to gerrymander an inbuilt advantage to the electoral system.

This Bill is yet another crass measure designed simply to keep those who feel they were born to rule in government forever. It is designed to shut down the last vestiges of opposition to brutal Tory policies by gluing shut the mouths of the trade unions and trying to make the Labour rose wither by denying it union funding.

This is ground that even Thatcher dared not tread on. We cannot simply cry into our beer and allow this new-age band of totalitarian Tories to pursue dictatorship through criminalising dissent.

Collectively we need to fight this tooth and nail as a labour and trade union movement and ensure that our voices can always be heard.

This will be a battle and we need to gather the troops, put petty differences aside and fight for the future of democracy in this country like never before.

• Ian Lavery is Labour MP for Wansbeck and chair of the Trade Union Group of MPs in Parliament.