Have the rules of the game changed?

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Anthony Barnett (London, OK): I went to the 4th annual Bindman debate last night. Its theme was ‘Have the rules of the game changed?’ a reference to Tony Blair’s notorious declaration on 5 August 2005, just before setting out to spend the rest of the month in Cliff Richards' Barbados villa, that, “What I'm trying to do here… is to send a clear signal out that the rules of the game have changed” . After praising the other parties who were working with the government on a joint post 7/7 response, Blair set out a plan that shattered the parliamentary consensus. He was greeted by the country’s largest selling newspaper the following morning with the immortal headline: “VICTORY FOR SUN OVER NEW TERROR LAWS”.

Despite the Moscow final, a large audience listened to Robin Lustig chairing a panel that opened with David Blunkett. He told us that the rules had not changed but… terrorists now presented a new threat, the electronic complexity of evidence is now hugely greater, terrorists don’t mind being detected after they have committed a crime, they don’t fear prosecution, indeed they “just don’t give a damn”. To protect our nation without destroying our liberties we needed debate and disagreement but we also needed the judges to be more "helpful".

Blunkett was followed by Professor Conor Gearty who warned us against “helpful” judges doing the executives work for them (as they did during the IRA campaign endorsing terrible miscarriages of justice). But he could not bring himself to support the judges who, perhaps having reflected on this, are currently “nervous” of assisting the government. He also warned the audience of a new situation where arrest is now the starting point of an investigation not its culmination.

After Gearty we heard Lord Carlisle, the Lib-Dem peer selected to be the “Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation”. His bullying piety, transparently partisan 'sincerity' and stereotyping of his opponents was a sad demonstration of why so many reach for the sick bag when they hear politicians at work. At least Blunkett said that he wanted policy to proceed “step by step” and, in his concluding remarks, that “exaggeration is the enemy of reason”. Carlisle made Blunkett appear a moderate, as he denounced “pragmatic incrementalism” and called for all anti-terrorism legislation to be consolidated into a single body of law that would set its stamp for a generation.

The panel was concluded by Liberty’s Shami Chakrabati. “The rules are who we are”, she insisted, they go back to the “small bundle" of non-negotiatable principles set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and applied to terrorist and tyrant alike. Later Shami, with her emotionally intelligent approach so different from Carlisle's, added, after the questions and discussion, that she agreed that there are also areas where there can and should be negotiatable reforms to deal with the specific dangers posed by terrorists, such as post-charge questioning and allowing the use of intercept evidence in court.

Perhaps the most interesting question was (I think) from Diana Geddes of the Economist (who was at the front while I was at the back). She raised the fear of terrorists getting hold of material of mass destruction (e.g., radioactive substances). Doesn’t this mean that the authorities have to act pre-emptively? But as Shami pointed out, in cases of terrorism the government has now made intention rather than commission a crime. So the discovery of such a plot would not prevent charges being made - or justify holding people without their knowing why. As another member of the audience said, the protections we look for are to protect the innocent not the terrorist.

Looking back, the panel talked past each other rather than debated  -which meant it was not very satisfactory meeting though often fascinating for the glimpses it offered. One point stands out for me. In his concluding statement Blunkett said that we had to take preventative measures to “stop fascists taking over because democrats failed to act”. Who are these fascists? The British public shows very little propensity to panic or indeed blame the government for the acts of madmen, when evidently the police and security services are doing what they can. There is little danger of fascist response against, say Muslims, if there is a huge terrorist outrage committed by a small band of Islamic fundamentalists - provided regular Muslims mobilise to show their opposition (as they did in Scotland, flying the Saltire, after Glasgow airport was attacked). This, of course, is why it is essential not to pass legislation like 42 days that seems to threaten entire communities with a form of internment.

To go along with Blunkett’s loose use of the term, the danger of ‘fascism’ if such there is lies more in the tabloid media exploiting a hunger for sensationalism, as the Blair/Murdoch episode demonstrated in 2005, and the return of Berlusconi suggests in Italy. Perhaps the next Bindman debate should be on whether the media as we know it is compatible with justice and human rights.

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