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              Beware of Mr Brown. He’s after your rights
Monday, July 30th, 2007
The new Prime Minister is subtler than Mr Blair, but he also believes our freedom gets in the way of security Henry Porter It is precisely because the Prime Minister appears so earnest and reasonable - is so solicitous, so keen to discover common ground, so conscious of our tradition of rights and freedom, and so strategic in the presentation of his case - that he represents a far greater threat to civil liberties than did his predecessor.Gordon Brown would never say ‘civil liberties arguments are made for another age’, because it is too crass. Of course the arguments should be heard, their moral force acknowledged and their proponents saluted, but then gently nudged out of the way by the imperatives of security. The exceptionalism that Tony Blair pleaded is, in confronting what Brown called the ‘generation-long challenge to defeat al-Qaeda related terrorist violence’, still intact. He has asked for 56 days’ detention without charge and has placed ID cards, now referred to as ‘ID security’ - cleverly linking the cards to ideas of personal protection - at the heart of the counter-terrorist strategy. Neither measure is proven to add to our capacity to fight terror, yet both represent the gravest possible menace to the store of freedom in this country. In the name of security, the state increases its power over the individual and will be soon be in a position to apply it in areas of our life that have nothing to do with the fight against al-Qaeda. That is why a Labour government again attempts to entrench ID cards in the armoury of terror measures, even though they clearly did not stop Madrid and would not have stopped the 7/7 bombers. The government certainly has a duty to protect its citizens but we must be very careful before giving up the principles of detention and punishment without trial, as well as the jewels of privacy and of freedom of movement, which the ID card national identity register threatens. The innate character of every government is to increase the power of the state to deal with problems that it declares are unprecedented. It is a default position that requires a rigorous response from the opposition, for once these things are lost they never come back without a fight. Gordon Brown is subtler than Tony Blair. He does not present this as a test of his will. There was not a trace of vanity nor hysteria in the statement to the House of Commons last Wednesday, merely a sense of duty. Brown is also much, much more powerful than Blair was when he tried to get 90 days without charge through the Commons. The Prime Minister has no opposition on anything in cabinet, the Parliamentary Labour Party will be reluctant to challenge him ahead of what may be an early election called because of the favourable opinion polls, and he has Rupert Murdoch and the Daily Mail on his side. The YouGov poll last week suggested that 74 per cent of voters supported the idea that police should be allowed to detain terrorist suspects for as long as they like provided judicial safeguards were in place. But none of this means he is right and it is going to take some brave people to raise their voices against the orthodoxy that in order to guard our society we must gradually remove the foundation stones of its system of freedoms. The Liberal Democrats were solid last Wednesday and their leader, Ming Campbell, correctly pointed out that the police are bound to argue for increased detention without charge because they will always ask for more powers. And being a lawyer, he understands that it would blur the separation of powers if Parliament were put in charge of supervising individual cases of detention. To have politicians taking over the role of the judiciary would set a very dangerous precedent. By contrast, David Cameron seemed weak. That was partly because the government has stolen policies such as the unified border force (but without the police) but also because he was not speaking with the conviction that should be second nature to a party that has usually valued the freedom of the individual against state control. He did mention the Bill of Rights, floated in the green paper on the constitution, and we should remind ourselves that according to the Rowntree Trust, three-quarters of voters want a Bill of Rights and 68 per cent want a written constitution, which would presumably prevent 56 days’ detention without charge. Deep down, the British understand the importance of rights. Yet the language of freedom can seem lame when you know that there have been 15 terrorist plots since 9/11; some 30 plots are said to be in the making by the security services; and the Daily Mail and the Sun are clamouring for something to be done. In fact the most important and courageous stand in these anxious times is to speak out against the 56 days. All opposition parties need to signal that they will vote against the move so as to give heart to the Labour rebels who voted against 90 days. It promises to be the biggest clash of the autumn and it is important that the case is made now and that Gordon Brown’s search for the common ground does not amount to the opposition parties caving in to him, or to his friends in the press. At this moment it looks as though Labour’s ascendancy could last another five or six years. We may be only at the start of a long Gordon Brown premiership. He has had good reviews so far because he is an exceptionally gifted politician and striking a different note from Blair presents him with no difficulty whatsoever. Having recently had a conversation with him about liberty and terror laws, I have no doubt about his sincerity but it was also clear that his mind is made up and that he is unlikely to be swayed by consultation. I wondered whether a similar conversation would take place after he had won an election and beheld the true extent of the power of his office as left to him by Tony Blair. He certainly makes the right noises in the green paper and in last Wednesday’s statement but in the cold light of morning what we are left with is a man who supports a fiercely intrusive ID card system and who is pushing to lock up people without charge for nearly two months. It took a few years for Mrs Thatcher to become Thatcherite and for the character of Tony Blair’s premiership to become settled and apparent. Brown could go either way. He may become a great Prime Minister or one who reflexively resorts to increasing state powers. It’s too early to judge but I won’t be surprised if in four or five years the crisis of liberty in this country is much graver than it is today. As things stand, we are leading Western democracies into an authoritarian world of arbitrary state powers and total surveillance of people’s movements and personal lives. We should not be finessed by the charm of Gordon Brown’s seriousness to accept short-term measures that damage our liberty in the long term. And if we want to know his true attitudes to liberty and rights, we have only to watch his behaviour in other areas of the law. Besides the question of demonstrations in and around Parliament Square, we have not heard him address a word on the rights that Tony Blair took away from us so high-handedly - nothing on the freedom to protest, public order laws, mass interception of private correspondence, the use of terror laws to pursue ordinary criminal matters or the unscrutinised surveillance of British motorways and town centres. The hard fact is that Gordon Brown may be a much more organised and more intelligent foe than any of us in Liberty Corner realised. Have Your Say: Beware of Mr Brown. He’s after your rights Please read our posting guidelines before posting. Alternatively you can discuss this report here. Related News
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