Tories weak on Security and Terror

Wilberforce Wed Jun 11, 2008 at 12:28:42 PM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

Another chink in Cameron’s armour at PMQs. He is putting spin over security.




It was amazing to hear Cameron criticising Brown for introducing measures to control terrorism as undermining freedoms, when it was the Conservatives who actually banned freedom of speech – remember how Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein could not even speak on our news bulletins.

 

Speaking as someone who has actually worked on counter-terrorism issues and international investigations, I can say there is a huge difference between the IRA threat and that posed by Al Qaeda and its inspired groups. We should not flinch in our efforts to fight this scourge, whilst redoubling our efforts at a negotiated and just peace settlement in the Middle East. 42 day detention is an unfortunate necessity.

 

Furthermore, baiting Brown at PMQs to reveal ‘weaknesses’ in the war in Afghanistan would put our troops at even greater risk than they already are in, as they go about the much needed task of nation building and fighting the Taleban. The greatest weakness there is the distraction of the misadventure into Iraq - which they too supported, and which Brown now needs to end.



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Tories weak on Security and Terror | 14 comments (14 topical)

Re: Tories weak on Security and Terror (#1)

by e10rifles on Wed Jun 11, 2008 at 12:46:24 PM GMT

Attacking the Tories from the right on so-called national security?

I never thought I'd see the day when the Labour Party sank so low.
 
And all just in order to save the glorious unelected leader's skin.

These are dark days for Labour and opinions like Wilberforce's are the problem, not the solution.


Re: Tories weak on Security and Terror (#2)

by andrew79 on Wed Jun 11, 2008 at 12:54:03 PM GMT

I see Wilberforce has changed his mind from here:
http://www.labourhome.org/story/2008/2/13/184830/857

"But when 'mens rea' is enough to convict over 'actus rea' then society has crossed a line and stepped into thought policing.  

Its sobering to think that I could have shared a cell... and confirms my opposition to 42 detention without trial... "


Re: Tories weak on Security and Terror (#3)

by Wilberforce on Wed Jun 11, 2008 at 02:15:00 PM GMT

Yes, i have changed my position on 42 days - but the proposal that was there in February and the one that is now before the House are very different.

Many more safeguards have been put in place - that's the whole purpose of debate and discussion on these important issues. The very fact that I have changed my position is a testament to the progress made.

I am still opposed as above to conviction based on 'mens rea', but the whole point of 42 days is to ensure that all the evidence is in place to make a charge. My statement was an opposition to conviction based on 'mens rea'.


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Re: Tories weak on Security and Terror (#4)

by Free Radical on Wed Jun 11, 2008 at 02:18:14 PM GMT

Listening to Radio 4's Today programme this morning I heard an MP talking very intelligently and persuasively about the 42 days legislation. It was David Davis. It seems to me that the Tories are generally behaving on this issue with dignity. They are expressing thoughts that must be in the mind of many Labour members and many Labour MPs.


Re: Tories weak on Security and Terror (#5)

by Wilberforce on Wed Jun 11, 2008 at 02:42:11 PM GMT

That's because triangulation is a two-way street.

We pushed them to the right, now they are trying to push us to the far Left.

Whilst we do need to reaffirm our connection with both the core voters and the Unions, we cannot in so doing, abandon the sucessful formula that has brought us three electoral victoriesn since 1997 and improved the lives of millions of Britons.


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Re: Tories weak on Security and Terror (#6)

by Free Radical on Wed Jun 11, 2008 at 02:52:04 PM GMT

Wilberforce

I find it bizarre that you might equate with the "far left" an oppostion to the proposal to incarcerate subjects without charge, and without knowing why they are being held, for a period of 42 days.

Do you think that the Barons who extracted the Magna Carta from the King at the point of the sword were also on the far left?


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Re: Tories weak on Security and Terror (#7)

by jkitleft on Wed Jun 11, 2008 at 05:29:41 PM GMT

FR, I debated Wilberforce on China once. He pretty much let China off the hook, when I brought up human rights abuses. At least he's universal, defending internment everywhere.....

These concessions aren't enough. I don't care if someone is interned for 42 days (infact it should be longer), if they have been charged. But 42 days pre-charge, if you are innocent, is soul destroying.

I maintain that the fight against jihadism, is an ideological battle. It is a war between moderate Muslims, and Arab secularists like Irshad Manji and Maryam Namazie et al. against fundamentalists in Tehran, and Riyadh and beyond. But, 6 people who have left Guantanomo, have gone on to be suicide bombers. Were they fundamentalists when they were first forced into a camp in Cuba? Maybe. Were they jihadists when they left? Yes.


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Re: Tories weak on Security and Terror (#9)

by Wilberforce on Thu Jun 12, 2008 at 12:49:34 AM GMT

No,  I was not speaking about these measures.


I was talking more generally about how the Tories are 'pushing' the party that way. They are trying to drive a wedge between us, and as I said we are best and strongest as a broad coalition.

The Tories must be leaping for joy when Neal Lawson sends out e-mails declaring New Labour is dead before the votes for Ken were even all counted, then follows it up with another e-mail telling Gordon Brown to stand down and go back to being Chancellor, when just over a year before he had done the same to get rid of Tony Blair.

That's the kind of far left behaviour that is destructive.  


I don't see how its 'bizarre' to hold an opinion, that is in tune with 69% of the public and the vast majority of Labour MPs.

Fat lot of good we'll be able to do to help people when we are in opposition and the Etonian Tories cut taxes for the rich, services for the poor and fail to give the infrastructural and educational investment the country needs.

Hat's off to those MPs who saw the bigger picture and voted both for security - and the chance to breathe some life back into the party.


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Re: Tories (sadly) correct on 42 days (#11)

by Free Radical on Thu Jun 12, 2008 at 01:09:15 AM GMT

I find it surprising that anyone would attempt to characterise Neal Lawson as "far left".

And I stand by my assertion that it is bizarre to see opposition to the 42 days as related to the "far left". You saw a whole coalition of everybody from UKIP to the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and a sizeable number of Labour MPs (including several ex cabinet ministers) attempting to defeat a thoroughly illiberal and badly drafted measure. What on earth does that have to do with the far left?

And, actually you don't really know what the vast majority of Labour MPs think because they have been whipped, threatened and given inducements to vote for the legislation. You must accept surely that on a free vote in the Commons it would have been soundly defeated, as I am confident it will now be soundly defeated in the Lords.

It is Brown's triangulation to the right that is threatening the Labour coalition that we need to maintain (and here at least I agree with you) in order to beat the Conservatives at the next election.


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Re: Tories weak on Security and Terror (#8)

by purplemeanie on Wed Jun 11, 2008 at 11:40:28 PM GMT

As a second generation Irish person, I am sick of hearing people say that we have to abandon civil liberties now more than we ever did in the 70s & 80s, because these al-quaida people are so much worse than the IRA ever were.

People seem to have short memories.  The IRA were talked about as murderous mad irish / catholics who you can't ever talk to or reason with, in just the same way that al-quaida are now talked about as murderous mad muslims / arabs who you can't ever talk to or reason with. 

It is obvious that the only way you defeat terrorism is to talk to them and address the causes, and that there always are causes - not just some kind of ethnic or faith based bloodlust as some commentators seem to imply.  It is also totally obvious that the more repressive the legislation gets, the more there is a recruting ground for the terrorists.

I recommend the film 'taking liberties' if you want an understanding of what policies like these are doing to people.  It is genuinely heartbreaking. 


Re: Tories weak on Security and Terror (#10)

by Wilberforce on Thu Jun 12, 2008 at 12:55:07 AM GMT

I never said don't talk. In my original post I said we must negotiate on Middle East. Same applies elsewhere.

And its not policies 'like these' (42 days) that lead to terrorism, its policies like the invasion of Iraq, supporting dictators across the middle east and south asia, backing Israel to the hilt, whilst still denying the Palestinians the basic right to a state of their own with Jerusalem as its capital.... that's the real issues we need to deal with. But whilst the terrorists are still out there, we are going to have to protect ourselves too and that's where 42 days comes in.


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Re: Tories weak on Security and Terror (#12)

by NB on Thu Jun 12, 2008 at 02:21:19 AM GMT

Come off it!  No-one, really no-one, believes that this 42 days nonsense offers any real advantages in the War on Terror.  It's all a horribly misguided political calculation by Gordon to "show that he is tough". The DPP is against it, so is MI5 and so are half the top policemen.  The present safeguards are legally and constitutionally illiterate and the whole scheme will be blocked by the House of Lords and then ruled illegal by the courts.

Do you have any Muslim friends?  Have you asked them about this? 


Re: Tories weak on Security and Terror (#13)

by Wilberforce on Thu Jun 12, 2008 at 10:34:06 AM GMT

Its not an attack on Islam, its a measure to combat terror plots: in whatever form, and from whatever source.

Not only do I have many muslim friends, but I worked together with muslims on counter terrorism measures, actively support the causes as above, as well as spent significant periods of time in the muslim world.

The terrorists are a clear perversion of Islam.


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Re: Tories weak on Security and Terror (#14)

by jkitleft on Thu Jun 12, 2008 at 12:54:36 PM GMT

I'm an anti-theist, and criticise Islam frequently. The three monotheisms, in my opinion, in their original forms are quite disgusting. Fortunately, many Jews and Christains have had their John Stuart Mill moments, when they realise that certain strains of intolerable thought of the kind written millenias ago in holy scriptures, are incompatible with modern thought. While many Muslims have had J.S. Mill moments, a large number haven't. 42 day detention, is not the best way of appealing to Muslims, about the value of Enlightenment liberties, and sacred freedoms.


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Tories weak on Security and Terror | 14 comments (14 topical)