Before becoming Prime Minister, Gordon Brown made no secret of his support for 90 days detention without charge for suspected terrorists and plans were already being drawn up to revive the idea which resulted in Tony Blair's first parliamentary defeat when it was first tried in 2005. After the spectacularly incompetent car 'bomb' attacks in London and Glasgow at the end of June which thankfully resulted in no loss of life or injury except to one of the would be terrorists, it seemed inevitable that we would be hearing more about 90 days detention or internment without charge. The Government was originally praised for its calm response following the attacks and for the lack of knee-jerk legislation that we were so used to under Blair's premiership. However it was only a matter of time before unnecessary draconian legislation was back on the agenda and lo and behold both 90 days detention and indefinate imprisonment withoout charge are once again being considered. As before, it is a senior police officer lobbying for this plan and the media seem happy to help.
One of Britain's most senior police officers has demanded a return to a form of internment, with the power to lock up terror suspects indefinitely without charge.
The proposal, put forward by the head of the Association of Police Chief Officers (Acpo) and supported by Scotland Yard, is highly controversial. An earlier plan to extend the amount of time suspects can be held without charge to 90 days led to Tony Blair's first Commons defeat as Prime Minister. Eventually, the government was forced to compromise on 28 days, a period which Gordon Brown has already said he wants to extend.
The Observer understands that the Acpo proposal has been discussed in meetings between Brown and senior police officers. Whitehall sources said the PM was receptive to the association's demands, but believes an upper detention limit is essential to avoid a de facto Guantanamo Bay based in the UK.
The officer proposing this controversial plan is Ken Jones, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers. He denies that he wants to introduce internment but when you look up the word "internment" and compare the definition to to what Ken Jones is proposing, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that some sort of internment is what he's asking for. Several issues are being raised here. Firstly, as Shami Chakrabarti, of campaign group Liberty, says:
"We elect politicians to determine legislation and we expect chief constables to uphold the rule of law, not campaign for internment," said Ms Chakrabarti, director of Liberty.
Source
Secondly, extending the amount of time a suspect can be held without charge is unnecessary. In Britain suspects can be held for 28 days without charge and that is longer than most democracies allow. As we've seen in the recent attacks, suspects have either been charged, released or are still being held pending possible charges. Scrapping the time limit on how long a suspect can be held without charge would set a very dangerous precedent and would be a significant erosion of habeas corpus. The way this possible legislation is being pushed follows a familiar pattern with New Labour. A radical and dangerous plan gets proposed, is given favorable coverage in tabloids and then gets watered down a little so that some sort of consesus can be reached and to create the illusion that the Government is taking notice of peoples concerns about civil liberties. After that there will be a short wait and then the measure will be extended in the same way so that eventually we end up with the initial proposal without too many people noticing. Blair did this throughout his premiership. It would be a huge disappointment (though probably not surprising) if Gordon Brown did exactly the same thing after all his talk about change and a new kind of politics.
Spy Blog has more.
Tags: Internment, Gordon Brown, Civil Liberties, UK Politics, Habeas Corpus, Terrorism
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