Director of public prosecutions took on Prime Minister Tony Blair by denying that the UK was caught up in a “war on terror”.
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LONDON: Even as the British Parliament on Wednesday debated the Iraq war for the first time since the conflict began three years ago, the director of public prosecutions took on Prime Minister Tony Blair by denying that the UK was caught up in a “war on terror”.
The outspoken DPP, Sir Ken Macdonald warned of the risks that a “fear-driven and inappropriate” response to the terror threat could turn Britain into a society which abandons respect for fair trials and the due process of law. Sir Ken pointed to the rhetoric around the “war on terror” adopted by Blair and close ally George Bush to show the risks.
“London is not a battlefield. Those innocents murdered on 7 July 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not ‘soldiers’. They were deluded, narcissistic inadeqautes. They were criminals,” Sir Ken, who heads the Crown Prosecution Service, told the Criminal Bar Association. He argued that the fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain was not a war, but the prevention of crime and the enforcement of laws.
The warning shot from the DPP comes just as Home Secretary John Reid is trying to finalise new anti-terror legislation in which he is making a renewed attempt to increase detention without charge of terror suspects to 90 days. Currently they can be held for 28 days.
Meanwhile, a survey released today shows that an overwhelming majority of Britons are willing to surrender civil liberties to help tackle the threat of terrorism. The annual British Social Attitudes survey found that seven in every 10 people think ‘compulsory identity cards’ are a price worth paying to reduce the threat of terrorism. Eight out of 10 say tapping the phones of those suspected of terrorism, or opening their mail, imposing electronic tagging or home curfews should be allowed. These are all measures that the Blair government has been wanting to bring in but have been opposed by civil liberties groups.
The survey found that people were less inclined to support civil liberties when asked questions mentioning terrorism, but also added that the change in public mood was not caused specifically by threats of terrorism, but that it was now being used by Labour and Conservative politicians to mobile support for even tougher measures. The poll also showed that attitudes hardened in the mid-1990s and were influenced by the tough rhetoric used by Blair and his law and order ministers.
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