Nothing particularly intelligent here - just another of my infamous ramblings …
Firstly, why does almost everybody who isn’t a politician support the 90-day limit on holding suspects without charge? I mean, few people want to see nice people held in prison for 3 months (yes, 3 months - funny how it sounds so much more than 90 days, isn’t it?). None of us want to see the innocent stuck behind bars for weeks on end - 3 months of weeks on end - only to be finally released to go back to jobs that might have disappeared, relationships that may have fractured, children that have become distraught and friends and neighbours who will not have been able to avoid noticing their absence.
So why are so many people supporting such incarceration? Simple. Because whenever somebody mentions holding somebody for 90 days while they are investigated for terrorist crimes Joe Average immediately thinks of a Muslim terrorist - dark skin, soulless eyes, headscarf and a sneer - who is either aiding and abetting a bomber - or actually is a bomber - and who, as sure as eggs is eggs, is as guilty as the day is long. All the police need is enough time to gather the evidence to prove the case. Once they do we’re all saved from being ripped to shreds by the evil designs of these godless devils.
Now Joe Average is not making his assumptions due to any racist urges nor does he particularly have it in for Muslims. But he’s got a bee in his bonnet about people trying to blow him up and he automatically assumes that this legislation will only affect people who are, basically, in the business of doing just that. He does not for a moment imagine that anybody who doesn’t deserve it could possibly get caught up in what, for that individual, could be a defining moment of their lives.
And this is where, I think, those of us who opposed the 90-day measure have failed to do a decent enough job of promoting our view. Freedom, to Joe Average, is a given - rather like the right to vote. Nobody is excited about voting; barely half of us even bothered last time. You’ve got to actually lose the right to vote before Mr Average wakes up long enough to get a bit upset. Freedom, though, is a different creature and is much more difficult to measure and to realise that you even have it. Freedom’s not something you do, is it? So it’s difficult to imagine not being able to do it - unlike voting.
So what are some of the objections to 90-day detention without charge? Here’s a couple I prepared earlier:
1. It is wrong to be imprisoned without trial. And, while it is a subjective call, 14 days (the current limit) is reasonable while 90 days is imprisonment. There are prison sentences handed out for violent crime that result in the guilty suffering less than 90 days - 3 months - in prison.
2. The police are not 100% trustworthy. Shocking, from a conservative, but true nevertheless. Some are plain dishonest. The police are, after all, representative of the public at large and let’s face it, we’re not all pure as driven snow so why should the police be? Some officers, dedicated to the cause, will hold a man that they ‘know’ is guilty and present their evidence imaginatively to the judge so as to secure maximum time to hold their suspect. I do not think judges will often let a man free whom the police can portray as a menace to society.
And police fishing for suspects may well pull in a likely lad simply in the knowledge that, if they haven’t really got much on him, they can still hold him for a while until they do. It gives police an opportunity to avoid the necessary up-front work on gathering evidence and put it off until a later time. In the meantime, the suspect is effectively doing time.
3. It may well not be necessary. Tony Blair ignored the question in Parliament the other day but it’s a pertinent one, namely: has there ever been a case where the police have let a suspect go because they couldn’t hold him longer than 14 days (although they wanted to) and he went on to do something unpleasant? Somebody correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think there has been. It seems that if you haven’t got the evidence to nail him after 14 days you probably aren’t going to have it after 90. Better, then, to watch your suspect carefully, see who he mixes with, gather intelligence and then nab him when - if - you really do have something to pin on him.
The fact remains that the police, understandably, want all the tools they can possibly obtain in order to do their job. Whether they’re useful to them - or good for us - is of no concern. Just as I, in my job, will try to obtain as many resources to help me as I can, so too will the police. And if the police always get what they want then we find ourselves edging towards a police state because their wants will not sit easily with our liberties.
4. I don’t believe the Labour government itself particularly wants this legislation. What this is, I believe, is a golden opportunity for Labour to look tough to the public - always important in the government’s eyes - and obtain a Brucie bonus by making those Conservatives interested in protecting an Englishman’s freedom look like a bunch of softies.
When Blair sits there pompously going on about how he’d ‘rather lose doing the right thing than win doing the wrong thing’ (oh, come on!) and how this shouldn’t be a party political matter he’s actually committing the crime he’s accusing the Conservatives of. Because this is precisely a party political matter, deliberately contrived to create a conflict out of which only Labour can look good and all who oppose look like friends of terrorists. Even though the law has failed Blair can still take the moral high ground. It might be a small compensation but still he wins even when he loses.
5. I do not agree with pandering to the sensibilities of minorities wherever such pandering conflicts with the way of life or preferences of the majority. But nor do I agree with causing upset or trouble where it’s not necessary - mainly because it’s inhumane to do so but also because it’s impractical. Since this legislation may well fall disproportionately on British Muslims - and that’s perfectly understandable, as far as that goes - it will be they who bear the brunt of the pain of false imprisonments.
But they’re also in the forefront of our intelligence gathering activities to catch the murderers in our midst. How exactly are we going to secure the support of the decent majority of Muslims who will assist the security forces in their attempts to catch Muslim fanatics when they find the innocent amongst them being imprisoned without trial? The feeling that they - and they alone - are on the receiving end of undemocratic legislation will be hard to refute. They will complain that they are being imprisoned without trial - and such a measure will bring the disaffected ever closer to the embrace of fanatics.
6. Finally, I do not want to live in a country where the powers of MPs - who are supposed to represent us - and the police - who are supposed to serve us - are so overwhelming that we become subject to their wishes and preferences. They are our servants, not we theirs. The more we allow them to do to us the more they will do and the more we fall inot their control. This alters the character of our country in ways we might live to regret as we come more and more to resemble states we would never wish to emulate.
The 28-day compromise is a better deal but one has to be aware that, once 28 days becomes the norm, 35 days could be the next step. If we’re serious about catching bad people then, rather than giving the police more and more power over our liberties - powers which may, actually, provide limited benefit - we should consider giving them more and more freedom from paperwork and political correctness, allow them to recruit more officers to carry out the intelligence work necessary to thwart terrorists and start using the laws we already have to imprison - for years - the various thieves, planners, forgers, con-artists and assorted support staff who, in the end, make the fanatics’ final atrocities possible. Restrictions on liberty, if ever needed, should occur only when all else has been exhausted. I don’t think all else has been exhausted and this legislation is Labour’s way of scoring a few points with the electorate.
Thankfully it failed.
