The "NatWest Three" are an unlikely group to have so suddenly captured the hearts of a British public for whom disliking the upper-classes is something of a national pastime. They most certainly are not the Diana-esque queens-of-hearts or Robin Hood types that the general public normally rallies behind. So how have three white, wealthy, middle-class banking executives managed to win over almost the entire nation to their cause?
The cause in question is their impending extradition to the US, to face trial in relation to a fraud they are alleged by US prosecutors to have committed against their employers, NatWest Bank, which involved the now defunct Enron Corporation.
The controversy surrounds the legislation under which they have been extradited, the 2003 Extradition Treaty, introduced by then home secretary David Blunkett as part of the War on Terror. The treaty removes the need for the US to submit proof of a case against the suspects to obtain the extradition of a suspect from the UK, a requirement still incumbent on the UK, due to the US senate's failure to ratify the treaty during the last three years.
It is this imbalance that has remarkably united all strata of British society firmly behind the men, despite the fact that, according to the Financial Times at least, the men have a very real case to answer.
No matter. From bus-stop queues to the opposition benches and the blogsphere, the outcry is deafening. An emergency commons debate has been granted at the request of Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg, who has used the forum to decry the fact that it was easier to extradite people from the UK than the US. The House of Lords too, on Tuesday, voted 218-116 in favour of suspending the act and halting the extraditions.
The government is now desperately trying to batten down the hatches. Tony Blair, Lord Goldsmith, Baroness Scotland and US ambassador Robert Tuttle have all claimed that the level of evidence required is "roughly" the same for both countries, to much public derision.
While all classes of British society have united behind the NatWest Three, it appears that they have all done so for entirely different reasons. The man in the street does not like the idea of Britons being publicly humiliated by the already-unpopular US; the business community sees their case as the thin end of the wedge and wonders if they could be next; and the governing classes are outraged that a piece of legislation brought in to deal with hook-handed mullahs in response to 9/11 is being used against *gasp* white people.
The men are due to be extradited to Texas tomorrow morning. Even if they depart, the controversy surrounding their extradition will not. Maybe they can take some small comfort in the fact that, for a short time, they became the first white-collar (alleged) robber princes this country has ever seen.
