The initial decision to send troops to Iraq was far more unpopular in the UK than in America, and the government maintained its course despite popular opinion. At the same time, the British government has pushed anti-terror laws that seriously threaten civil rights and would even allow certain things--such as civilian detention without charge for up to 42 days--that would be clearly unconstitutional in the United States. A huge difference, though, is that these changes have been spearheaded in Britain by a government of the country's left-wing party. Under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the Labour Party has taken "third way" politics to a new extreme by following George Bush every step of the way in his "war on terror"; they don't have the Democrats' excuses of being in the minority, or having to appear loyal to the President in a time of war, or that public opinion would have doomed them had they voted against the war or the anti-terror laws. Blair has left office and the war seems to be winding down toward a conclusion (or at least a withdrawal of British troops in the near future), but that only makes this all the more disturbing: Conservative MPs expressed their fury today over the decision by the police to arrest Damian Green in connection with a government leak inquiry. The shadow immigration minister's Tory colleagues believe that, in publishing documents allegedly provided by a whistleblower, Green was doing his job as an opposition MP, not breaking the law. And the Tories are particularly angry about the manner in which police have handled the matter – using counter-terrorism officers to arrest the MP, rather than just inviting him in for questioning.
The Tories are not choir boys. Although they tend to take a slightly more libertarian stance than most Republicans in the United States, by and large they still support thoroghly awful policies, particularly xenophobic immigration restrictions. But to judge by the contents of the documents leaked by Damian Green, it sounds an awful lot like people within the Labour government have been trying to stifle dissent (my emphasis): What information did the four documents [leaked by Green] contain?• A series of Home Office memos, which appeared in the Daily Mail on November 13 2007, showed that Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, had been warned four months earlier that thousands of illegal immigrants had been cleared to work in sensitive Whitehall security jobs. An email revealed that Smith had appeared to accept press office advice in August not to disclose the number of illegal immigrants. • An email to Liam Byrne, then a Home Office minister, in February which showed he was informed about an illegal Brazilian immigrant who allegedly worked in parliament on a fake ID card. The memo was published in the Sunday Telegraph on February 10. • A letter from Smith to Gordon Brown warning that a recession would lead to a rise in crime. The letter was draft advice that had not been cleared by Smith and had not yet been sent to Number 10, the Home Office said. • A list of Labour MPs likely to rebel against the government's plans to detain terror suspects for up to 42 days without charge. Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith claim not to have known anything about the arrest until it happened, but it's always a bit disturbing when a government starts arresting opposition officials for things they've said or published--even if the things they've revealed (such as the complaints over undocumented immigrants working as security guards) may seem stupid or inconsequential to people who don't fear or hate immigrants. In the case of the list of Labour MPs opposing increased police powers, though, it sounds like people within a faction of the Labour party might have organized Green's arrest partly in order to avoid embarassment over Labour's own internal divisions. In short: using questionable police powers against a rival politician because he exposed internal dissent over the further enhancement of police powers. That's beginning to sound Orwellian. Hence a lesson for the Obama administration: be careful with the unprecedented amounts of executive power you will inherit from your predecessors. Obama has already made the right noises about shutting down Guantanamo and ending torture. But the President-elect has already shown his willingness to compromise with Bush's desire for unchecked wiretapping powers by providing only token opposition to legal immunity for telecom companies that cooperated with the Bush administration. Obama has a mixed record on civil liberties: he voted to take the most heinous provisions out of the Patriot Act and voted against the Military Commissions Act (which denied habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees), but he also voted to extend the "uncontroversial" parts of the Patriot Act in 2006. Over the past eight years, Bush and Cheney have shrouded the operation of the executive branch in secrecy; as principled a guy as he is, Obama will likely be tempted to keep many of his own administration's dealings away from the prying eyes of the press and the public. It remains to be seen just how transparent Obama's administration will be and whether there will be any caveats to his promises to reverse the Bush administration's erosion of Americans' civil rights. But the expansion of police powers under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown could serve as a cautionary tale for Obama: the left-leaning base of Labour is highly unenthusiastic about the current government in Britian, and polls show the Conservatives beating Labour in the next parliamentary election. |
