Blair bids to win cross-party support for “control orders”
Tony Blair and Charles Clarke are to meet opposition party leaders at Downing Street today in an attempt to find a cross-party consensus on the detention of terrorist suspects.
Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy both have serious reservations about the Government’s plans to place some suspects under house arrest.
Mr Howard has described the plans as “internment without trial” adding no person should be “deprived of their liberty on the say so of a politician”.
“I am also concerned that house arrest could well be counter productive,” Mr Howard said.
“Internment without trial creates martyrs – it can be a very effective recruiting sergeant.”
In its place, the Tory leader has advocated imprisonment for suspects rather than arrest in their homes.
After the High Court ruled in December that the policy of indefinite detainment without trial of foreign suspects at Belmarsh high-security prison was unlawful under human rights law, Mr Clarke mooted “control orders” for both British and foreign suspects to abide by the ruling.
Detention without trial for foreign suspects was introduced following the September 11 atrocities in the US in 2001. The Government used to hold suspects they could not deport to their point of origin for fears they would face persecution.
In December, law lords said the decision to opt out some sections of the European Convention on Human Rights, permissible in times of war or emergency, no longer applied.
The new control measures include home arrest, electronic tagging and a ban on phone and internet use.
But they have been criticised as too heavy handed, lacking judicial oversight and open to human and civil rights abuse accusations.
Downing Street said robust plans were needed to counter the prevalent terrorism threat.
“The control orders would allow a range of options, and at the top end, there are what everybody agrees are extreme measures, but extreme measures to deal with extreme circumstances,” the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman said.
Mr Clarke said the Government was keen to get all-party support “for a new regime” to replace the so-called ‘part four’ of the immigration act powers.
Home Affairs Spokesmen – David Davis for the Tories and Mark Oaten for the Lib Dems – will join their leaders at No 10.
