The Case for Civil Liberties
In the 2002 General Elections, New Labour had a funny campaign poster with the picture of William Hague(then leader of the Conservative Party) with the hairstyle of Margaret Thatcher on, and above the head of Hague there was a slogan stating "Be Afraid, Be very Afraid". Today, everybody caring about civil liberties could mentally change the picture of Hague with the picture of Gordon Brown with the hairstyle of Blair - I'm not sure if the hairstyle of Blair differs very much to that of Brown, though.
Brown has lately been busy trying to convince Labour MP:s that his proposal to detain terrorist suspects for 42 days without charge is justified. Browns predecessor Tony Blair originally wanted the detention time to be 90 days, but had to accept a compromise of 28 days in order to evade a backbench revolt. Now Brown the Deal Maker, is putting forward a compromise of 42 days. And he will surely be very angry if it won't pass-the deal should be fare a square: you wanted no changes, I wanted a huge change, so why not accept a compromise? A bit like if I was proposing 500 million more for the defence budget, and you did not want any increase at all, then we would probably end up with an increase of 250 million.
The whole question can unfortunatley be seen against the background of recent political events that have rocked the Labour boat considerably. Gordon Browns and Labours popularity has taken a huge hit( A disastrous result in the local elections and a recent byelection defeat were visible results of this) and the Not So New Labour Anymore strategists have concluded that Labour needs to win back the centrist voters, and this, it is said, can be done by being more right wing than the Tories on for instance terrorism.
Brown is very wrong in mixing day to day politics with fundamental freedoms. The arguments used are trying to prove that longer detention will make Britain a safer place; however, there is no credible evidence whatsoever pointing in that direction. And even if it would make Britain less likely to be attacked by terrorists, the case should be made to defend our most fundamental freedoms anyway.
Britain is politically a bit scary when it comes to respecting fundamental freedoms because there is no credible party political alternative to civil libertarians: if the Tories would be in power, the discussion would be the same and who has heard about the Liberal Democrats? This is an additional reason to why some questions should be above politics.
This illiberal disease has not yet spread too extensively in Europe, but we should all be on our guards, and European governments should remind Brown of which are the European values that unite us.
Brown has lately been busy trying to convince Labour MP:s that his proposal to detain terrorist suspects for 42 days without charge is justified. Browns predecessor Tony Blair originally wanted the detention time to be 90 days, but had to accept a compromise of 28 days in order to evade a backbench revolt. Now Brown the Deal Maker, is putting forward a compromise of 42 days. And he will surely be very angry if it won't pass-the deal should be fare a square: you wanted no changes, I wanted a huge change, so why not accept a compromise? A bit like if I was proposing 500 million more for the defence budget, and you did not want any increase at all, then we would probably end up with an increase of 250 million.
The whole question can unfortunatley be seen against the background of recent political events that have rocked the Labour boat considerably. Gordon Browns and Labours popularity has taken a huge hit( A disastrous result in the local elections and a recent byelection defeat were visible results of this) and the Not So New Labour Anymore strategists have concluded that Labour needs to win back the centrist voters, and this, it is said, can be done by being more right wing than the Tories on for instance terrorism.
Brown is very wrong in mixing day to day politics with fundamental freedoms. The arguments used are trying to prove that longer detention will make Britain a safer place; however, there is no credible evidence whatsoever pointing in that direction. And even if it would make Britain less likely to be attacked by terrorists, the case should be made to defend our most fundamental freedoms anyway.
Britain is politically a bit scary when it comes to respecting fundamental freedoms because there is no credible party political alternative to civil libertarians: if the Tories would be in power, the discussion would be the same and who has heard about the Liberal Democrats? This is an additional reason to why some questions should be above politics.
This illiberal disease has not yet spread too extensively in Europe, but we should all be on our guards, and European governments should remind Brown of which are the European values that unite us.
upplagd av Johan Ekman
1:53 em
2 kommentarer
