The proposed destruction of British democracy

On Friday Tony Blair held a press conference in which he announced a clampdown on people with extreme opinions in response to last month’s terrorist attacks in London. He intends to prohibit the glorification or condonement of terrorist attacks here or abroad, to deport supporters of violence subject to some “memorandum of understanding” with the dictatorships of the middle east, close down mosques which are known for preaching violence, and ban Hizbut-Tahreer and al-Muhajiroun and its successor groups.

Pretty much every part of this announcement is disturbing. It’s yet another example of the authoritarian streak in New Labour and in Blair particularly, which has been in evidence since Blair took leadership of his party, and more so since the 1997 election. It appears to be not merely a “turning point in British postwar liberalism” but the end of British liberal democracy as we know it.

While there are some who would welcome a ban on al-Muhajiroun (except that it has been disbanded, so what’s the point?), the ban on Hizbut-Tahreer seems particularly strange. The group are not even accused of links to terrorism, apart from accusations that they act as a “conveyor belt” by simply talking about the idea of an Islamic state. (Perhaps they might also ban smoking, since it’s a commonly acknowledged conveyor belt to drug abuse.) The group is banned in other countries, but not for reasons commonly cited for banning groups here. We still allow Sinn Fein to operate, despite its connections with the provisional IRA; we have not banned the various racist far-right groups. If HT, a small and (according to Omar Farooq of the Islamic Society of Britain) declining group which does not preach violence, is to be banned, will we see the BNP, National Front and others like them banned as well?

(The speech also displays ignorance of the situation regarding HT and al-Muhajiroun; the Muhajiroun are not a “successor” but an offshoot; this has been known since the late 1990s when the split took place. The “Saviour Sect” and al-Ghurabaa are supposedly successors of al-Muhajiroun which disbanded last year.)

Blair also announced proposals for a new offence of “condoning or glorifying terrorism”, which should cover “the sort of remarks made in recent days”, not specifying whether he was talking about those made by George Galloway or by the leaders of al-Ghurabaa and the Saviour Sect. This would be applied to justifying terrorism anywhere, not just in the UK. We haven’t yet seen what exactly would be covered and what wouldn’t; whether, for example, those of Jenny Tonge would have got her into trouble. The fact is that not every oppressive situation can be rectified without violence; do those who used violence (and those who supported its use) to bring down Saddam Hussain, despite the dubious legality of that action, insist that others rely on Ghandian non-violent “resistance”?

And the other ugly aspect of this part of the proposed legislation is that it criminalises the expression of opinion, something which has no precedent in this country. Yes, other countries ban Holocaust denial, but this country doesn’t. Apparently it’s not just to be used against people with opinions, but what distinguishes a democracy from a police state is that you don’t have to keep your opinions to yourself or fear imprisonment. It could also lead to the situations of someone being prosecuted for not condemning an act of violence when prompted to, or to someone being “set up” by someone with a hidden camera.

Blair also proposes an upper limit on the time for deportation appeals, citing the case of Rashid Ramda, wanted for the Paris metro bombings. The whole idea of appeals is that they test the legality or justification of an earlier judgement or a proposal. To just go ahead with something because the courts hold you up longer than you’d like defeats the object of having appeals. In the British Parliament, if a bill runs out of time, it falls – even if it runs out of time because debate is prolonged on purpose in order to make it run out of time. This proposal is like making something law automatically if you can’t get it through Parliament.

Other proposals include the compilation of lists of known “extremist” bookshops, websites and other organisations, with any involvement by a foreign national to be a trigger for the Home Secretary to consider deporting them. This is all very well in theory, but an “extremist bookshop” could mean the likes of Dar al-Taqwa (run by an Egyptian and his English wife), accused by the Evening Standard recently of carrying a couple of extremist pamphlets. Most people can understand the difference between running a bookshop and not vetting each and every one of the thousands of books one sells, and running a centre of extremism, but this may well be lost on the bigots and/or jobsworths in the Ministry as it is on the staff of the Standard.

I’m sure others will deal better than I can with the business of deporting foreign nationals with links to extremism. I can agree with the idea that, if you take refuge in someone else’s country, you have a duty not to cause trouble. Some of the people concerned have caused far more damage by the discord they have caused in the Muslim community than by the offence they have caused in their stupid utterances in the press; others have mainly catered to an already-radicalised Arab immigrant constituency. Omar Bakri has already been quoted as saying he does not fear deportation and will go to Lebanon; if this is so, what is his claim to refugee status? Why does he not just go? On the other hand, there is the risk that people will be seen as foot-soldiers when they are in fact just personal friends of some of those involved, or had been seen at the meeting for some other reason. And he also plans to extend the wretched banning orders against British citizens who they can’t kick out.

So, this whole programme doesn’t make me very happy. Some Muslims do welcome the proposals to get rid of, and restrict the entry of, foreign extremist troublemakers, although I fear the powers will be used against popular imams with offensive views to which certain noisy pressure groups take a dislike, rather than people who do pose a genuine threat. The measures could well be driven by the desire not to be seen as “not doing anything” in the wake of the bombings, now that the threat has supposedly changed – actually, it hasn’t changed, it’s just that what people said would happen has happened, albeit on probably a smaller scale given the death tolls of previous attacks. Blair claims that “the mood now is different [and] people do not talk of scare-mongering”, but scaremongering is exactly what we see in several of our daily newspapers. It’s well-known that some of the troublemakers we know of wouldn’t be so well-known if they did not receive exposure in the media; if the banning of opinion is to come onto the agenda, perhaps pressure should be brought to bear on those sections of the media who trade in exaggerated and/or inaccurate “news”.