Two months on from the Law Lords ruling that "internment without trial" is unlawful, New Labour's "anti-terror" policy is in disarray. We face the unprecedented possibility, after years of bipartisanship, of anti-terror laws becoming an issue at the polls.
The government has accepted that it will have to abandon the old law and release the remaining Belmarsh and Woodhill internees. But this has to happen by March 14 when the previous powers lapse. So ministers are racing to replace them, having mistakenly assumed that they would have parliament onside.
Amnesty International has condemned the Prevention of Terrorism bill as "a grave threat to human rights and the rule of law".
Based on a package of restrictions of liberty ranging from tagging to house arrest, it faces opposition from an alliance of both the main opposition parties and Labour rebels.
In its third reading in the House of Commons, Labour's 161 majority was slashed to near single digits and, apparently, no MPs spoke in favour during an 8 hour debate following the minister's introduction.
The Tory stance, riding on the back of public hostility to New Labour's "war terror", is a purely cynical calculation of where the votes lie. Their true, repressive, colours were quietly revealed in an offer to vote for a temporary renewal of the unlawful internment powers, in a bid to help Labour out of its mess.
The Lib Dems have opted for a careful game of making minor criticisms. They are scared of being criticised for being "soft on terrorism" and want to play it both ways at election time.
Given these shenanigans, there is every chance that the parties will eventually cobble together a compromise.
A widely touted alternative to the new powers is for surveillance taps to be admissible in court, making the trial process the route to custody. The government isn't interested because it wants mere "suspicion" based on untested secret evidence to be sufficient - whatever it's source.
In any event, recent years have shown the state can't be trusted to conduct surveillance in a way that is accountable to and in the service of society.
Admitting as evidence carefully controlled micro-products of these unaccountable powers of the bloated secret state will simply add a smearing of credibility and encourage abuse.
New Labour has responded to the crisis with a series of incremental gestures - putting house arrest on hold, allowing a limited judicial role etc.
But this is fiddling at the margins. Whether judges are brought in at the beginning, middle or end makes little difterence.
The proposed powers involve the state restricting liberties without the presentation of evidence, proven to a high standard, in a trial before a jury - ending long foughtfor and fundamental rights.
Office Minister Hazel Blears admitted that
AlTh SULT Belmarsh protestors the previous regime of internment was based on a false premise: that the main threat came from foreign nationals. Now, she says, there is "a growing engagement in terrorism from British citizens" necessitating the new powers.
But if intelligence agencies have been wrong on this for over three years, why should we trust them now? And if we were all safe from this "internal threat", without need for control orders, won't we also manage for another three years?
Contrary to government propaganda the recent guilty plea of Saajid Badat to a terrorist conspiracy several years ago shows precisely that ordinary trial procedures are sufficient and is hardly evidence of a current threat.
At the end of February Tony Blair, in a BBC radio interview, stated that there are "hundreds of terrorists in this country ready to act" - a desperate and false claim that Ministers were forced to sweep under the carpet.
The official government position, trotted out a few weeks before to reassure people about the likely usage of the new powers, is that no one in Britain is of sufficient threat to require house arrest.
This exposed the lies justitying the detention of the Belmarsh detainees.
They were such a "threat to the life of the nation" as to cause an "emergency" requiring their detention without charge or trial on secret evidence in the highest security conditions for three years. But now, suddenly, not!
Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, chair of the Muslim Parliament has responded, "we are part of the [British] community and from our perspective, Britain is the safest place on earth.
"We have become the new "fifth column" and I don't buy the argument that there is any threat from our community".
but even assuming this imagined "internal threat" were real, what is fuelling it? According to The Observer, briefing papers on the PTB drafted by MIS explain it is "the perception that the Muslim world and Muslim people have been deprived, oppressed and attacked by the "West".
If so, shouldn't the first step be to stop the "war on terror"?
This is a fight that can be won. The growing movement outside parliament to scrap these laws is in urgent need of a political voice.
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