Really Defending The British Way Of Life

Frank Dobson writes:

Terrorism is a very real threat to British lives. It is also a threat to the British way of life.

Dictators can do anything they like to crack down on terrorism. Their people don't have any rights and liberties in the first place.

But an open, democratic society like ours is faced with a major dilemma.

Just how far do we go in giving the authorities extra powers over our lives?

How many rights and liberties should we sacrifice in the effort to counter terrorism?

The Government wants to extend detention without charge beyond the present limit of 28 days. I understand why Ministers have proposed this. They feel they will be responsible if things go wrong and people are killed. I have good reason to share their concerns.

The July 7 bomb outrages on the London Underground at Russell Square and on the bus in Tavistock Square were both in my constituency.

But I am opposed to going beyond the 28-day limit. It is wrong in principle and would be counter-productive in practice.

In recent times, a lot of attention has been paid to what it means to be British. Well, one thing it means is that we British don't allow police or politicians to lock up people for a long time before charging them.

This is not some trendy bit of political correctness. It was laid down in Magna Carta in 1215 and has been followed in the English-speaking democracies ever since.

In Canada, the maximum is just one day. In the USA, South Africa and New Zealand it is two days, in Ireland seven days and in Australia 12 days.

Yet the Government claims a further extension beyond 28 days is necessary because anti-terrorist investigations can take a long time.

However, other people equally involved and equally well informed, including senior police officers and the Director of Public Prosecutions, believe that the current limit is quite long enough.

We have already changed the law so that terrorists can be charged with lesser offences related to terrorism or refusing to disclose ciphers or computer passwords. They can be charged later with more serious offences.

Also, the threshold for deciding that a suspect should be charged has been lowered. In the past, there had to be greater than a 50-50 prospect of securing a conviction for a prosecution to go ahead, but that figure has been relaxed.

And the Government has now accepted the proposal I made some years ago that the law should be changed to permit terror suspects to be questioned after they have been charged.

All these sensible changes strengthen the hands of the police.

Yet the Government now proposes to allow the Home Secretary – not in a national crisis, but in the case of an individual suspect – to sanction detention for longer than 28 days without charge on the say-so of the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Some suggest this power could be constrained if it were subject to a Parliamentary debate.

That would be a constitutional novelty – Parliament being recommended by the Government to deprive an individual of his or her liberty, presumably on a whipped vote.

To call that a kangaroo court would be an insult to kangaroos.

I'm second to none in my belief in the House of Commons, but MPs couldn't take on the job of the courts, couldn't conduct fair trials and shouldn't decide on guilt or innocence.

Such a change would not be a defeat for terrorism – it would be a victory.

Whatever the motives of the misguided zealots who become suicide bombers, the evil people who promote terrorism know that no democracy has ever been overthrown by terrorism. That is not what they are after.

They aim to intimidate us into closing down our open society. They want to provoke us into setting aside the libertarian principles that form the basis of our parliamentary and judicial systems. They want to be able to portray us as hypocrites who preach one thing and practise another.

They also want to be able to say that when the going gets tough, we are just as reckless with human rights as they are.

And they want us to alienate sections of our own law-abiding population and attract sympathy for the terrorist cause by getting us to lock up innocent people.

So how we respond to the threat of terrorism needs to be considered very carefully.

We want to thwart the intentions of the bombers and assassins, but we also need to thwart their propaganda.

It was this aspect that the Government ignored when it decided to take part in the invasion of Iraq, which has proved to be an effective recruiting sergeant for terrorism as well as a massive propaganda coup for the terrorists.

That is why I believe the Government's 42-day proposal would prove counter-productive in practice as well as wrong in principle.

The Government says it wants longer than 28 days in case the police and security services are overwhelmed by a succession of major outrages like those on July 7, 2005.

The Civil Contingencies Act of 2004 provides for such a crisis by making it possible to set aside normal legal protections.

Parliament could debate whether a crisis was sufficiently serious to justify using the emergency provisions of the Act, and the use of such emergency powers could be subject to challenge in the courts.

So I hope that instead of pressing for more than 28 days, the Government will want to develop a united approach to the terrorist threat through policies that are likely to thwart outrages and at the same time deny any propaganda advantage to the terrorists.

Sticking to our ancient liberties gives the lie to the terrorist claims that we are no better than they are. We have to protect British lives and protect the British way of life.