Tuesday 9 November 2010

Necessary evil


In the early months of the Second World War Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, was arrested along with many others and forcibly interned under Defence Regulation 18B. These people, it is important to understand, had committed no crime; they had given no indication that they were even prepared to commit a crime. They were simply arrested and imprisoned on the off chance of treason, a clear breach of both habeas corpus and their youman rights more generally. Oh, but people did not talk about youman rights then; people were far more concerned about the greater danger the country faced, far more concerned by the prospect of a Trojan Horse within the national citadel. After the danger receded most of the ‘suspects’ were released. Mosley himself was freed in 1943 in the face of objections from – guess who? - the National Council of Civil Liberties, which now calls itself simply Liberty.

Defence Regulation 18B is long dead. We no longer need it; we are not at war. Oh, but we are, as the latest airline plot shows; as death lists drawn up for British MPs shows, after one MP was stabbed, almost fatally, in his constituency surgery. We are at war, facing an enemy far more ruthless than Mosley and his Black Shirts, an enemy that is prepared to kill innocent and guilty alike. We do not have 18B; what we have is Control Orders, introduced by the last government as part of a platform of counter-terrorism measures.

I’m reluctant to speak up on behalf of anything introduced by Tony Blair, whom I despise as a man and as a politician. I believe in civil liberties, the right of every suspect to face their accusers, one of the corner stones of our constitution, going all the way back to Magna Carta. But I look with ever growing contempt on those ranged against them, those defenders of youman rights, those who seem blind to the particular circumstances in which we live, the political threat which we face. I look at them, the Guardian readers, the hyper liberals and all their fellow travellers. I look at a new broken back coalition, an axis between Tony Benn, a sort of socialist dinosaur, one who believes that the problems of terrorism and the Middle East can be solved by a ‘peace conference’, and David Davis, a Tory of very little intellect, a sad, rejected and resentful man, anxious to undermine the present government at every move. If these people say black I will say white.

Thank goodness for Charles Moore, by far my favourite newspaper and magazine columnist. Writing in the Telegraph on Saturday he points out the simple and sober facts about Control Orders, overlooked by the cotton candy minds of the broken back coalition. More than a thousand people were detained under 18B, not always in the best of conditions, certainly not in anything quite as convivial as house arrest. How many are now subject to house arrest (actually it's only partial house arrest) under control orders? Nine; yes, that’s right, exactly nine. The orders, as Moore says, are sparingly applied. They are intended to restrict the movements of those that the Home Secretary, acting on the advice of the intelligence services, believes to be a genuine threat. The evidence is not subject to a normal legal test because it is simply too sensitive. Nevertheless, it is still evaluated by a High Court judge in considering periodic renewals. “Liberty”, Moore writes, “is indeed a key concept in our society. But it will still be discredited if the public sees it as means of protecting those who hate that society the most, while exposing the rest of us to unnecessary danger.”

Control Orders are likely to go and go soon. The Liberal Democrats in our present Coalition government are against them as well as Davis and his band of muddle-heads. More important MI5, the branch of the intelligence service responsible for domestic security, now says that they are no longer absolutely necessary. Teresa May, the present Home Secretary, has defended them as a ‘necessary evil’; it’s just such a pity there has been so much concentration on the ‘evil’ and not enough on the ‘necessity’. I sincerely hope that if and when they do go we do not come to regret their passing and blame those responsible for their passing in the face of some future outrage. I suppose I can always take abstract comfort from the Observer, which says that the whole system violates our deepest principles. I wonder if the people who believe that sort of thing, including the forces of the broken back coalition, would have been equally bold in speaking up for our ‘deepest principles’ in 1940? Not Liberty, obviously.

39 comments:

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  4. It's a question of degree but the threat is real enough. Contemporary terrorism has a power well beyond numbers.

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  9. Adam, there is just no basis for discussion here, especially when you glamorise Blair as a 'fascist.' All I will say is that extraordinary times often do require extraordinary measures, that if Labour and Tory home secretaries can agree on a policy then the threat would seem real and immediate.

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  13. After the attack on Pearl Harbour and the US entering WW2 Most of the Japanese Americans living in Hawii and the west coast of the US were sent to internment camps . This was for National security reasons ( just in case some were enemy spies etc.) Many young Japanese Americans joined the US army and fought in Italy. Trading Liberty for a sense of security is a bad idea as you will usally end up with neither.

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  14. So far, the Islamic menace has done far less damage to the UK than successive British governments. The terrorist murders were wicked, as all such murders are, but did nothing to destabilize the power of central authority. Indeed, they have served as an excuse to extend the power of the state at the expense of individual liberty.

    Meanwhile, the europhile conspiracy has undermined the law, the authority of parliament, and the national security by opening the nation's borders; to say nothing of ceding sovereign powers to an unelected continental cabal. Fiscal irresponsibility has brought the nation to the brink of financial collapse. I fear if you are looking to constrain your most dangerous enemies, Westminster is where you must begin.

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  15. As in just about everything else, Blair had security regulations arse-about-face. Consider airport security scanning: if you're not prepared to identify (profile) your enemies you end up using whole body imaging scans on Scandinavian grannies. By the same token, if you insist on describing Islam as a "religion of peace" you end up with draconian, blanket police powers that end up being applied to traffic offenders, p2p sharers, BNP bigots and other easy targets.

    Blair wasn't a fascist - he had all the trappings but the sad s.o.b. had no guiding beliefs to give meaning to his statist bullshit. He was the most profoundly illiberal PM I could name - through sheer ignorance and vanity rather than due to any kind of fundamental principles. He was too much of a moral coward to ever formulate or articulate any such principles.

    It's a measure of the debasement of British political thought that he's not being burnt in effigy every Bonfire Night.

    People get the politicians they deserve. Blair was the perfect PM for a nation of chav contestants in a particularly depressing reality TV show.

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  16. Good article. I resent the dismissive words about David Davis. He is certainly no fool.

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  17. Adam, I sincerely hope you never find out what fascism is. I'm reminded of the banner headline which appeared in Die rote Fahne, the newspaper of the KPD, the German Communist Party, the day after Henrich Brunning was appointed Chancellor in 1930, heading a minority government depending on Presidential support; Faschismus ist scohn da!, it screamed, Fascism is now here. They were to find out three years later just how wrong they were.

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  18. Anthony, a good point. So I assume you are in favour of freeing all those held in Guantanamo Bay?

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  20. Calvin, we need protection, our society needs protection; we have to be vigilant against any potential menace, especially now. Much of what you say, though, I simply can't take issue with.

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  21. SuciƓ, your assessment of Blair is spot on.

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  22. David, you musn't mind me. I'm a contrarian by nature. I have a tendency to push points for polemical effect. I confess, though, the Davis-Benn axis annoys me deeply.

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  23. Sucio

    I never liked Blair, but I think you may be being a little unkind.

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  25. Adam, a lot of that could apply to just about any period in history, from Ancient Greece onwards. It's so sweeping as to be practically meaningless.

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  27. Not sure about this label of "broken back coalition". How about "the Benn-d coalition", instead? (Oh damn it, just call them the Benders to annoy Davis some more)

    I was supportive Davis in his leadership bid against Cameron (what now seems like way back when), but his very conduct during that campaign (remember the girls in the DD tops?), and some of his subsequent actions (instead of leading a constructive campaign on an issue he felt strongly about, bring about a wholly unnecessary, expensive, self-publicising election in which he managed in a remarkable effort to defeat the combined forces of the National Front, the Green Party and the East Yorkshire Foottappers and Whippet-Owners Party) strongly suggest that, whatever other admirable qualities he may (and does) have, he really isn't cut out to lead the Conservative Party, let alone the country. He is less of an ass than Benn, of course.

    But, anyway, that aside: yes in the current context of an innovative and ruthless jihadi war against Western civilisation - or indeed anybody who stands in the jihadis' way (and it was not us, after all, who declared that war or chose to be involved in it)- I am inclined, regrettably it is true, that such orders ARE probably necessary for the greater good, and for the greater and enduring liberty.

    If there was evidence that these orders are being abused (or applied indiscriminately)....that is a different matter. But, thus far, at least, that has not been the case.

    (Abolishing double jeopardy: and ASBOs - where you have things like where a woman who answers the front door in her underwear can be sent to prison...whereas perhaps finishing school might be more appropriate.... I think THOSE - along with EU and other European related matters - were and are unwarranted and unnecessary attacks upon liberty (however attractive a solution ASBOs appear in certain, even many, specific circumstances, they are patently open to abuse, and have patently, frequently, been abused by those issuing them).

    But until the jihadi menace is defeated (or at least quietened down) - which is unlikely to be any time soon - some degree of extraordinary measures to deal with it would appear to be warranted; the fact that up until now, with certain obvious exceptions, their horrendous ambitions to kill on the large scale have not been matched by technical proficiency is no reason for us to be complacent.

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  28. Adam, Blair was nothing nothing nothing like Hitler. Neither was George W. Bush.

    Which is where your argument falls apart.

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  29. Dominic, I used the expression because Davis referred to our present government as the Brokeback coalition, after the movie, the gay movie. :-))

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  30. Oh, I know that Ana, I know...

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  31. On the money again, Ana.

    But one point which has escaped mention, unless I've missed it, is that those made the subject of Control Orders can avoid their strictures by the simple expedient of leaving the country, never to return.

    Shouldn't we be encouraging the Controlled Nine to do exactly that for both our sakes and theirs?

    Or am I being hideously illiberal...

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  32. Assume nothing my dear, kill them all!

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  33. Dominic, especially in the era of the dirty bomb. Thank you for this A1 contribution. I should have added this earlier.

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  34. RTK, Control Orders came as a last option after expulsion was considered to be a breach of youman rights.

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  35. Contrary to rumour, it is we, the people, who protect our nation and our government, not the reverse. Ironically, the British government has come to fear its own people more than it fears enemies foreign or domestic. This is characteristic of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, and reflects a deep disfunction in British politics. The origins of political paranoia are various and worthy of discussion on their own some other time, but the cure is of more moment: the British people must demand the return of the power and sovereignty they have lent their political leaders and use that power to reestablish their individual liberties and reassume their personal responsibilities.

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  37. Calvin, I think that may be overstating the point slightly. It's true, though, that the actions of a minority, or their potential for action, certainly has caused a degree of paranoia, if that's the right word, though it's slightly more widely based. The trouble is also that the British 'people' are more fragmented now than at almost any other point in history.

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  38. Ana, I wasn't thinking of forced deportation, which would be in breach of our courts' interpretation of the HRA, (not real 'rights' of course, merely those conjured up in the minds of our inceasingly eccentric judges), but more along the lines of encouraging them to reclaim their full, unrestrained liberty somewhere more sympathetic to their wold view a long, long way away from England, never to return...

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  39. RTK, if only. I would even be prepared to pay certain clerics to sling their hook. :-)

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