British Home Secretary Charles Clarke’s Prevention of Terrorism Bill was condemned by at least 30 members of his own Labour Party, including eight of his former Cabinet colleagues, who voted with the opposition against the bill on Wednesday (Feb. 23).

It enables him to curtail the activities of suspects — both British subjects and foreign nationals — by controlling where they live, work and the people they can meet. They will not be charged with a crime and will not stand before a judge. He will also be able to order their house arrest on the basis of British intelligence services’ suspicions. Those services were criticized by government ordered inquiries for their inaccurate information on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that no one found. I supported Prime Minister Tony Blair’s backing of President George Bush’s war on terrorism and his “jihad” for democracy and to preserve our way of life; because our great nation has a duty to extend liberty to peoples plagued by dictators. I believed in helping the Iraqis enjoy the freedom and rights which I, as a British subject, enjoy, by toppling Saddam who, among other crimes, imprisoned people without trial or put them “under house arrest.” Putting people under house arrest seems to be Clarke’s way to get out of a legal mess created, in the first place, by his predecessor, David Blunkett, whose 2001 emergency measures allowed holding foreigners — who happened to be all Muslims — in Belmarsh prison without trial. The Law Lords — a great British institution that Blair is trying to destroy as part of his creeping republicanism — ruled last December that holding those suspects without trial was unlawful as it discriminated against non-British nationals.

Instead of listening to the nation’s wise elders — by following the Law Lords ruling, Blair’s government is digging itself into a messy hole by bringing in legislation that provides for house arrest of British citizens, as well as foreigners, on the say-so of a politician. It is like saying: “Either I have my way or all of us will suffer.” This is a passive aggression. For eight centuries, habeas corpus and the right to a fair trial, with conviction by the judiciary as opposed to the executive, have been cornerstones of our judicial system. Tam Dalyell, the longest serving Labour MP, and “Father of the House”, asked Clarke if he could name any other democracy where people were locked up without trial. He gave no convincing answer.

One of Blair’s staunch allies, Labour MP Barbara Follet, told the house how her first husband, Richard Turner, was murdered under house arrest in South Africa, saying the control orders proposed by Clarke bore an “extraordinary resemblance’’ to those used by the apartheid regime. Turner was placed under house arrest in 1973 because he campaigned to give black people the right to vote. Shortly before his five-year order expired he was shot dead in front of his two young daughters. She tried to comfort the girls by telling them they were going to Britain, “where people are not detained or put under house arrest.’’ She could not support the bill because it would destroy the principles of democracy.

“As we move toward a system of justice which found favor with the apartheid government of South Africa,’’ said Brian Sedgemore, another veteran left-wing Labour MP, “I am reminded that our fathers fought and died for liberty, my own father literally, believing that these things should not happen here... it is truly terrifying to think what these MPs will vote for next.’’

It seems that Blair is cynically manipulating people’s fear of terrorism. Wasn’t it Blair himself, who, as shadow home secretary, said in 1994 : “The liberty of the subject should be taken away not by the act of a politician, but by a court of law’’? If dealing with terrorism means surrendering the rule of law then the wrong side would have won the war on terrorism by restricting our liberties.

What Labour politicians know, and perhaps whisper, but dare not shout, as a shameful defense of their legislation is that only “certain kinds” of British subjects would suffer its rigors — subjects with un-English, “foreign” names. Such thinking reflects a real problem. If Britain is at war with terrorism, it is not a war against a whole sector of its community, namely two million Muslims. If some Muslims were put under house arrest, other British Muslims would feel all the more like a suspect people, second class citizens. Such detention would be a recruiting sergeant for extremist supporters of Al-Qaeda, just as internment was for Irish republican extremists, a lesson that Blair’s government seems not to have learned. Government ministers go on radio to talk about the “rights” of parents, patients, consumers, or borrowers, but I don’t hear them talking of liberty or freedom, except in the context of Iraq, when they are asked about WMD.

I do not regret supporting the war that gave Iraqis the right to vote in a free election, but I strongly advise them not to follow Blair’s example in building their democratic institutions.

— Adel Darwish is a reporter, author and broadcaster based in London.