I AM a lifelong and proud trade unionist. I believe that the right of trade unions to exist and represent their members at work is a key liberty in any democracy.

I am dismayed that we have a government which believes in attacking trade unions rather than working with them in a spirit of social partnership to improve economic efficiency and productivity in our country.

Through its Trade Union Bill the Tory government has decided to launch the most significant, sustained and partisan attack on six million trade union members and their workplace organisations that we have seen in this country for 30 years.

With the number of days lost to strike action down 90 per cent in the last 20 years, there is absolutely no necessity to employ the law in this draconian way, especially when this country already has the most restrictive trade union laws in Europe.

But following their narrow victory at the general election, the Tories think they are untouchable and they want to silence all resistance and stifle all dissent.

So of course they want to destroy trade union organisation and use the law to bankrupt the Labour Party while leaving their millionaire hedge-fund donors and Russian oligarchs totally untouched. This Bill is an affront to democracy and impinges on basic freedoms.

The right to be part of a trade union to campaign for protection at work is a fundamental socio-economic right and is enshrined in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

This Bill rides roughshod over that right and it threatens the basic options which those at work have to safeguard their pay and conditions by standing together to win improvements.

Liberty, Amnesty and the British Institute of Human Rights have all said that the Bill’s purpose is to “undermine the rights of all working people” and amounts to a “major attack on civil liberties in the UK.”

The Bill is just the latest sinister attempt by this government to curb dissent in our country today.

They have restricted access to justice by imposing fees to access the courts which are causing the innocent to plead guilty.

They want to scrap the Human Rights Act which safeguards our basic freedoms.

Their commitment to transparency in government is in tatters with their plans to limit freedom of information powers.

And they have already slashed legal aid and introduced employment tribunal fees which deny women the chance to sue for equal pay or defend themselves against sexual harassment.

They have limited the scope for judicial review and used their gagging law (the Lobbying Act 2014) to bully charities into silence at the election.

Now they are trying to silence the legitimate voice of trade unions with attacks on the existence of political funds which finance general non-party political campaigning as well as financing the Labour Party.

This is another gagging Bill and those of us who care for the health of our democracy and civil society are united in opposing it.

There are serious questions about whether this Bill is compatible with Britain’s international legal obligations as a member of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

The ILO has already criticised Britain on a number of occasions for its constraints on the right to strike and the UN special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association has called for more, not less, trade union freedom in Britain.

With serious questions about its effect on fundamental rights, this Bill may be open to legal challenge on a number of fronts, including its impact on the devolution settlements because it covers areas like health and education that are clearly devolved.

The Welsh government — which has a substantially better record of working constructively with trade unions than this vindictive Tory government — has objected in strong terms to the proposals and is considering whether a legislative consent motion might be appropriate.

The Bill is a divisive piece of legislation which undermines the basic protections that trade unions provide for people at work.

This is a partisan attack to undermine these unions and the Labour Party, but have substantial implications for over six million workers to stop harassment in the workplace and ensure the basic health and safety of workers is maintained.

This is also a deliberate attempt to prevent trade unions from being able to defend the hard-won terms and conditions of working people at a time when this government has chosen to make them pay for the cost of the banking crash.

This government is pushing through an agenda of attacking civil society, threatening basic civil liberties and undermining access to justice by charging.

These draconian measures must be stopped and Labour is united in opposing them.

• Angela Eagle is Labour MP for Wallasey, shadow first secretary of state and shadow secretary of state for business innovation and skills.