Around the world, countless alerts highlight the dangers of terrorist attack in the world war on terror. In response,
governments are legislating to protect their citizens. Yet each new law creates more unease about the increasing restrictions to citizens’ rights.
In the US and elsewhere, rightwing parties in government are promoting such policies; here it is our very own Labour government. We have the ironic sound of a Conservative party using our language, the language of civil rights and liberty, where we appear afraid to mention the words.
That is not to say that terror legislation is wrong. It is important to keep the right perspective: after all, it is not Labour that is holding military trials for unlawful combatants. Nonetheless, we can hardly be described as openly liberal. There may come a time when we are not in power – perhaps a future rightwing government will have cause to thank us if we do not leave sufficient safeguards.
The debate over identity cards highlights the problem. Every few years somebody dusts off the ID card plans
and gives them another go. Despite the singular lack of convincing evidence that there is a case for such cards on security, financial, immigration or fraud prevention grounds, they have once again been seriously considered. Prime ministers have resisted them perhaps because their introduction says something about the relationship between citizen and state.
It raises a question in people’s minds: where will the government draw the line? This is especially the case in multi-ethnic communities, where people are suspicious of the potential for damage to the relationship between police and communities.
We can draw on our roots. The influential Christian socialist, RH Tawney, believed equality and liberty were for practical purposes the same. Tawney believed that everyone had equal worth and should have the freedom to achieve their potential. Liberty had civil, social and economic dimensions. Labour in the 21st century has been keen to stress the latter two: now we need to redress the balance.
We have made progress, most notably with regard to European human rights law, institutional racism and the rights of victims of crime. However, we still rely too much on the courts
to uphold our rights. A written constitution, spelling out clearly the relationship between government and people, might help.
However, the time for such revolution may have passed. The effort required to achieve a consensus might be too great for any one party, as the experience with the European Union constitution indicates. The alternative is the traditional British approach of relying on parliament and introducing legislation that more clearly defines our freedoms.
There are four simple measures Labour can take to improve public trust in government and ingrain liberty into our national life. First, the government should be more open and clear about the risks to our security, and state clearly and often the rights it is defending.
Second, an effective freedom of information act should be passed to repair the relationship between the people and their government. The effect would be to shift the obligation onto the government to disclose and justify the information about us it possesses. It should encourage businesses to be more open about the information they keep on us.
Third, parliament should have better scrutiny of our police and security services. If the United States can do it without injuring national security, so can we. And finally, fourth, draft legislation should have to pass a clear liberty test. A new bill proposing to restrict or impact on any of the traditional civil liberties we enjoy should be accompanied by a separate explanation outlining why the relevant clauses are considered necessary as a ‘backstop’ to prevent creeping restrictions.
By talking about our freedoms we may help to define our national identity and increase support for government action to combat terrorism. We may help to bind our communities together. Surely that is an aim we should embrace.