The Mirror - EVEN IF THOUSANDS OF TERROR SUSPECTS ARE IN OUR COUNTRY .. THIS LAW IS WRONG; NO MINISTER CAN BE ALLOWED TO TAKE AWAY THE RIGHTS OF A BRITISH
I DON'T oppose in principle the government's proposal to introduce control orders on people suspected of terrorism. Up to now, our legal system has been geared to picking up criminals after they have committed a crime and then punishing them. That will not work with suicide bombers. The only way the police can pick them up is in a black plastic bag after they have done what they had planned. They can't be punished - so we have to catch them before they can do any harm.
Control orders which will allow house arrest and a loss of freedom should help the problem. But what they cannot do is solve the problem. And what we cannot have is control orders issued on the say-so of a politician. The government wants Home Secretary Charles Clarke to decide who loses their liberty.
And what I won't accept is any law which allows a British citizen to be put under house arrest or denied the right to go to work just on the say-so of the Home Secretary or any other politician. In this country, only a court can do that. It has been like that for centuries, and that is how it should stay. I accept that to have a trial in open court where the public and media can come in might reveal who has grassed up a terrorist or uncover a British spy who has infiltrated a terrorist network.
But that does not mean we should abandon the idea of using courts to decide who should lose their liberty.
A terrorist case could go to a special court sitting in private. The judge could have all the information before him and the suspect would be entitled to check the basic facts. That way we could avoid banging up a lot of innocent people. That way we could preserve our country's proud tradition that no government minister can take away the liberty of a British citizen,
When the Bill comes back before Parliament this week I would hope that the House of Lords will insist on this change. But I have never had any faith in the House of Lords ... so they may not.
If they do not, it will be up to myself and my colleagues in the House of Commons to change this law. If the government do not respond I will vote against as I have done all along and I expect a lot of my colleagues will do so alongside me. I hope the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will join us. In the past the Liberal Democrats have railed against the bill But the other day in the House of Commons over 20 Liberal Democrat MPs were absent from the vote, including their leader Charles Kennedy and their chief whip. It is not enough to mean well if you are an incompetent ragbag of a party which is not properly organised. This is too important.
We have got to make sure that we don't breach age-old valuable liberties, because that is what the terrorists want us to do. Of course they want to terrorise people, but they also want us to bring our own sacred institutions into disrepute. When we do things like the government is proposing, that is exactly what they want - they want to mock us as hypocrites.
Tony Blair and former Metropolitan police chief Sir John Stevens talk about the terrorists on the street. It does not matter how many terrorists are threatening us, whether it is one or thousands. Protecting our liberties must be right whether it involves one person or many.
It's also crucial that this change in the law applies only to people suspected of terrorism. Yesterday Tony Blair said he couldn't rule out using it against people protesting against the G8 summit at Gleneagles in Scotland later this year. Well, if he wants my support he had better rule that idea out. Peaceful protest is part of our British tradition and that is why the outcome of this argument is so important. The terrorist bosses want to fill the world with fear. But they know they will never overthrow Britain. What they want to do is force us to abandon our basic civil liberties.
We teach our schoolchildren that the rule of law and natural justice are at the heart of what is best in Britain. In the citizenship classes for new British citizens we tell them that they should be proud to have these rights which they may not have had in their home country. We urge other countries to copy our system. To abandon these principles now plays right into the hands of the terrorist bosses. And they will be delighted. They will tell the world that we are too frightened to stick up for what we believe in, that we are hypocrites, and that we don't practise what we preach. Let's not give them the chance. Lets stick up for our principles.
