Comment: Civil liberties campaigners dig their own grave
The complacency of civil liberties campaigners means the only pressure the government gets is from the securocrats and tabloids.
By Ian Dunt
The trick to forcing political change is in applying the appropriate pressure.
“More than my job’s worth” – that’s what you’re aiming for. You need to create the kind of trouble which makes the government decide their policy isn’t worth the effort. You couldn’t force the government to think again on its deficit reduction plan, for instance, because there’s way too much reputation to lose. But you can make it think twice on something specific – like free milk or school sports funding – because it’s willing to cut its losses. The gain/loss ratio tends towards the latter. And so it was again with the forest sell-off: a unified, cross-country opposition with big media coverage against a sell-off that wouldn’t earn any money. That’s not a hard choice.
The reason leftists always sense a rightward drift in British politics is simply because the pressure is there. The tabloid press seize on any instance of crime being dealt with leniently, or an MP who proposes liberalising drugs laws, or a theatre production in a prison. People are on their toes about getting done from the right, so they cater to its concerns. The most you get from the left is a concerned column in the Independent. There’s just not enough pressure.
Which is why civil liberties activists’ current strategy – namely complacency – is so ruinous to the cause.
It was evident when the coalition took power that civil liberties was a crucial middle ground for the two parties. The Tories were always dodgy on civil liberties but it fitted a freedom agenda which could be combined with their deregulation plans to imitate an ideologically coherent policy portfolio.
It’s easy to maintain opposition when there’s outrage. Labour’s dereliction of its constitutional duties to this country was so severe that our outrage gave us momentum. From ID cards to 90 day detention to the DNA database, it was a gross violation of fundamental British rights.
Now that things are going our way there’s just stony silence. Last Friday’s freedom bill, a supremely well-intentioned and decent piece of law, was effectively ignored by activists.
One civil liberty group took the opportunity merely to make jokes about the Tories’ attitude to the Human Rights Act. I happen to agree with them, but it shouldn’t stop us giving credit where it’s due. Most privacy organisations were completely silent. A couple of editorials credited it, in passing, as their third item – a far cry from the patriotic outrage and screams of ‘habeas corpus’ when New Labour was tearing up the rule book on state power. The deafening silence when the coalition does the right thing is why the previous government felt so comfortable scrapping civil liberties in the first place.
Theresa May is being briefed incessantly by the securocrats in Whitehall. That’s real pressure. Imagine being told that any liberal proposal will see innocents killed on the streets. She is getting no pressure from the other side. There’s no pressure of lobbying, no email campaigns or protests, no angry headlines in the press. The most she faces is a stroppy retort in a couple of broadsheets and some searching questions from a handful of cross-party MPs.
The Lib Dems, who are hated now with a ferocity and passion which in no way resembles their crimes, have received absolutely no thanks for forcing this issue in government. What motivation do they have to continue doing so, when all their supposed allies can do is make jokes about how Tories don’t like the Human Rights Act?
Ed Miliband’s conference speech made a big deal about civil liberties. He talked incessantly about it during his leadership campaign. But Labour’s response to the freedom bill welcomed the changing of old convictions for gay sex, something you’d have to be pretty bonkers to oppose, and then spent the rest of the time attacking the coalition for being too libertarian on the DNA database. “It is important that the government doesn’t put keeping Nick Clegg happy above the evidence on fighting and solving crime,” shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said.
The fact that the party still hasn’t seen the error of its ways makes the blood boil. But why should it? What pressure is there? After Miliband’s conference speech, those New Labour grandees muttered complaints about how there was no political space taking the liberal approach. By not attacking Clarke’s progressive prison reform plans or the coalition’s civil liberties plans, Labour was giving away precious space they could use to appeal to the tabloids. Now it seems Miliband has heeded their advice. Any sensible political strategist would. After all, civil libertarians have made it perfectly clear they have no intention of supporting their own side.
It’s a spectacular own goal. The government is still pushing ahead with its civil liberties agenda, but it becomes more grudging by the day. The Tories are getting much more pressure from the securocrats than the activists. The Lib Dems are getting no support at all for their behind-the-scenes-efforts because they are, apparently, the devil incarnate. And worst of all, we’re losing our best chance of forming a cross-party consensus on British rights, of dragging Labour away from its mad, police state obsession. In a few years’ time, when no-one’s bothering to cater to a constituency which doesn’t apply the appropriate pressure, we’ll regret this moment that we kept silent.
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