Monday, August 15, 2005
Britain has the most draconian terrorism laws in Europe — and much good it has done.
As usual, Simon Jenkins is both highly quotable and sharp as a diamond - an antidote to my own sometimes woolly overview of things.
Here he is in the Sunday Times balancing elegantly between two valid positions. There is the anger that many feel at the groups who squat around in the UK luring young Moslems into acts of mindless violence in the name of "religion" and the feeling that of course they should be sent packing and who cares what happens when they are.
Then, there is the deeply worrying thought that much of the post September 11 political anti-terror shenanigans is flawed and phoney and has done our society a great deal of harm. And, after the July bombing in London, it is getting very much worse.
I have certainly tended to lean towards the second and veered away from the first, my liberal eyes averted. Simon Jenkins, however, looks at all aspects of the question and his article It's Pure Torture for Tony must be read in full. While appreciating the difficulties the government faces, there are still some rapier thrusts here, cutting through the government's muddle and exposing them for what they are:
Here he is in the Sunday Times balancing elegantly between two valid positions. There is the anger that many feel at the groups who squat around in the UK luring young Moslems into acts of mindless violence in the name of "religion" and the feeling that of course they should be sent packing and who cares what happens when they are.
Then, there is the deeply worrying thought that much of the post September 11 political anti-terror shenanigans is flawed and phoney and has done our society a great deal of harm. And, after the July bombing in London, it is getting very much worse.
I have certainly tended to lean towards the second and veered away from the first, my liberal eyes averted. Simon Jenkins, however, looks at all aspects of the question and his article It's Pure Torture for Tony must be read in full. While appreciating the difficulties the government faces, there are still some rapier thrusts here, cutting through the government's muddle and exposing them for what they are:
- "......Most of the 12 points listed by Tony Blair before going on holiday turned out to be hot air, a burst of macho initiativitis. They involve laws closing mosques, censoring the media, banning societies and criminalising free speech. Small wonder that Sir Ian Blair, the London police chief, was left murmuring that he would use such powers “sparingly”.
Falconer was left to deal with judges, at whom the prime minister directed a few parting shots.
The opinions of judges in this matter are not the issue. The issue is the law.
... the undignified spectacle of Hazel Blears, the junior Home Office minister, going round east Mediterranean dictatorships .... The best that Jordan has offered is a “memorandum of understanding”, which sounds one stop short of the thumbscrew.
...... What does she discuss — just one electrode, please, and not before Christmas?
Falconer rightly accepts that it is for judges to decide whether certain countries have passed the Blears Good Torturing Seal of Approval. But unless they, the law lords and possibly the Strasbourg court reject evidence of torture from Amnesty, Liberty, Human Rights Watch, even the US State Department, they will have no option. They must stop the deportations.
In desperation Falconer is going for belt and braces. He also wants a law to make article 3 somehow less than absolute. He wants judges to "balance" the likelihood of torture — the number of beatings per man hour? — against the threat the detainees pose to British security. He does not want to bully the judges, just lean on them a bit.
..... The problem is that no law can unwrite the European convention. The 10 detainees cannot be sent home if they risk torture, period.... Ministers cannot have it both ways. In passing the Human Rights Act they deferred British law to what 46 sovereign nations, including Britain, had agreed when they wrote the convention after the war.
If the prime minister really wants bombastically to "change the rules" of this game he has only a nuclear option. He cannot "derogate" from bits of the convention. He can only repeal the Human Rights Act and withdraw from the convention altogether. Even by Blair’s standards that would be drastic. To be resiling on a policy that he and his wife have boasted of for years should stick even in Labour’s throat.
To do it to appease torture would be unthinkable.
This row seems to have grown out of all proportion. These men may be offensive and even dangerous. So tag them, bug them, monitor their associates, infiltrate their cells. If they step out of line, prosecute them for incitement, conspiracy, racism or whatever. If need be have special courts. But Britain has the most draconian terrorism laws in Europe — and much good it has done.
Michael Howard and his colleagues let these people in. Ever since 9/11 the prime minister has left them unmolested. Britain has survived worse threats before. Something tells me Britain will just have to cope."
