Press freedom is hanging by a thread in Britain.

The freedom so many Brits fought and died for — the freedom to publish without state approval — could soon be crushed.

3 MPs will vote on Tom Watson's amendments to the Data Protection Bill Credit: Times Newspapers Ltd

Tomorrow MPs will vote on amendments to the Data Protection Bill tabled by Labour deputy leader Tom Watson and former leader Ed Miliband.

If these Labour MPs get their way, the press would be shackled by state-backed regulation for the first time since Crown licensing was abolished 300 years ago.

Centuries of struggle would be betrayed by those who loathe the press and the people who read it.

Since the Leveson Inquiry, the anti-press lobby has been trying to straitjacket journalism.

3 Max Mosley has financed a new state-approved regulator staffed by sneering hackademics Credit: PA:Press Association

Multimillion-pound police investigations have hauled dozens of Sun journalists before the courts, none of whom were ever successfully convicted.

A new state-approved regulator, Impress, has been set up, funded by tabloid-hating millionaire Max Mosley and staffed by sneering hackademics who have fantasised on Twitter about banning tabloids.

So far, no major newspaper has signed up to Impress. And who could blame them?

And so press-regulation campaigners have had to cook up yet more devious schemes to strong-arm the press into regulation.

They pushed MPs to implement Section 40, a law that would mean any paper that swerves Mosley’s regulator would be forced to cover the costs of any legal case brought against them, win or lose.

These are mafia-don tactics — a case of ‘sign up, or else’ — that would give anyone with an axe to grind the power to sue publications they dislike into submission.

This is an opportunity the rich, powerful and corrupt would take in a heartbeat.

For a while, it seemed the press-haters had been stopped in their tracks.

3 Ed Miliband - along with Watson - resurrected the amendments after they were previously dropped Credit: PA:Press Association

Last year the government pledged to drop Section 40 and halt Leveson 2, another costly inquiry that would no doubt turn into another show trial of the press.

But they pushed on. Unelected Lords passed amendments to the Data Protection Bill that tried to sneak in Section 40 and Leveson 2 by the back door.

The Commons rejected these amendments, only for Watson and Miliband to resurrect them last week.

This is what MPs are voting on today. But they are voting on so much more than that.

They are voting on whether the press should be free to publish and be damned, and whether the people should be free to read what they like.

From the beginning, campaigners for press regulation have displayed their disdain for the ‘gutter press’ and the ‘gutter people’ they imagine reading it.

They want to impose their idea of good journalism on the rest of us, because they think they know better.

Don’t believe me? Guess which paper might be granted an exemption to these new rules? The Guardian — house paper of the Hacked Off lobby.

Meanwhile, the rest of the press will be forced into the grip of Mosley’s regulator or left to take their chances in the courts.

And for all the talk of press regulators standing up to the media magnates, it will be the small publications who will be bitten first.

The News Media Association says that Watson’s amendment would hit 85 per cent of local papers, many of which lack the cash to withstand even a single legal case.

But it is not just the press who reject this. So do ordinary people.

A government consultation last year asked the public whether Section 40 should be implemented and Leveson 2 should commence.

Out of a whopping 174,730 responses, 79 per cent said No to Section 40 and 66 per cent said No to Leveson 2.

No one wants this. But then the anti-press set care nothing for what the little people think.

Their war on the press has always been driven as much by a loathing of readers as it has an irritation with pesky reporters.

MOST READ IN POLITICS EAT IN OR TAKE OUT? Chaos & confusion over whether cafes will HAVE to offer table service Exclusive RISHI BLOWS THE BUDGET Chancellor to extend furlough for staff worst hit by new covid rules WINTER COMING England may have to ban home visits too as SAGE adviser warns lockdown coming Latest DOWN TO BUSINESS Chancellor to launch 'furlough replacement' tomorrow as Budget CANCELLED Exclusive HEROES EQUAL George Cross IS on par with Victoria Cross rules Queen, ending years of debate LOCKED UP AGAIN New lockdown rules explained: Everything you can and can't do now

Watson, Mosley and Miliband — all burned by newspapers in the past — think it is the state’s job to meddle with the press because they fear what the simple-minded masses might read in it.

As the great English radical Thomas Paine once put it, censorship is a ‘sentence on the public’, not the author.

And it is with that in mind that any MP who has faith in their constituents should shoot down these amendments.

They must stand up for the freedom of the press to hold them to account, and the freedom of the people to read and to decide for ourselves.

We cannot let 300 years of liberty be undone.

Tom Slater is deputy editor of spiked.