David Lammy has a backlog problem. His solution? Take away your right to be judged by your peers.

The Justice Secretary announced today that he plans to slash jury trials in half. Half. Sexual assault cases, burglaries, drug dealing, robberies. All to be heard by a single judge or a magistrate instead of twelve citizens.

His own party is in open revolt.

Labour MP Karl Turner didn't mince words: "His proposal to curtail the right to trial by jury across swathes of serious criminal cases is not acceptable." Turner says he'll vote against it. So will "many colleagues."

Here's the background. The Crown Court backlog sits at nearly 80,000 cases. The Ministry of Justice's own modelling says it'll rocket past 100,000 next year and could hit 200,000 by 2035. Victims are being told their trials won't happen until 2030.

That's five years away. Five years of your life waiting for justice.

Lammy's fix: if a judge thinks your case will probably result in less than three years inside, no jury. A magistrate or a new "Crown Court Bench Division" handles it instead. Magistrates also get to sentence up to 18 months, up from their current limit.

He called critics "old-fashioned" and suggested opposition was based on "male" arguments. Whatever that means.

Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy hit back: "Labour have no mandate to do this and there is no need for it either. At a time when confidence in the criminal justice system is fragile, what we need is a practical plan to tackle the backlog, not Lammy's ideological drive to scrap juries."

Courts Minister Sarah Sackman was remarkably honest about how bad things are: "It will take the best part of a decade for the timeliness of trials to improve. I fully appreciate this isn't going to be good enough."

A decade. And their answer is to remove a right that's existed since the Magna Carta.

The backlog wasn't caused by juries. It was caused by court closures, underfunding, and COVID chaos. Taking away fundamental rights because the government can't run a justice system properly is like burning your house down because you can't be bothered to clean it.

Trial by jury isn't old-fashioned, Mr Lammy. It's the foundation of British justice. Touch it at your peril.